October 2024 I legally changed my name to Rena Beatrice Alcalay. Penultimate versions of my published work can be found below. Please cite the published versions. Feel free to contact me for drafts of works in progress at rena[dot]alcalay[at]gmail[dot]com
I study how epistemic norms shape scientific and medical practices, with a focus on the ethical and cognitive dimensions of bias, uncertainty, and exclusion. My work develops the concept of epistemic disadvantage to understand how even warranted exclusions in knowledge production can produce harm, especially in contexts like chronic illness, where predictive models and clinical frameworks often fail to capture the full range of human experience. Drawing from philosophy of science, social epistemology, and cognitive theory, I explore how structural features of reasoning, such as survivor bias and stereotyping, affect both individual self-perception and systemic epistemic frameworks.
PUBLICATIONS
Leonelli, S. Castańo, P., Alcalay, R. “Openness and Inequity in Scientific Research.” Forthcoming in Social Epistemology.
Alcalay, R., & Vandekerckhove, J. (under review). Persistent extractivism in open science research.
Alcalay, R., & Vickers, D. “A pedagogical pathway narrowing gender and race gaps in academic philosophy.” Forthcoming In K. R. Westphal & M. Addis (Eds.), Educating philosophers: A handbook of best practice. de Gruyter.
Goldstein, R. (2024). Epistemic injustice in the medical context: Introduction to special issue. Social Epistemology, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2024.2400096
Goldstein, R. (2023). Holistic similarities between Quine and Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations. https://doi.org/10.1111/phin.12405
Goldstein, R. (2022). Epistemic disadvantage. Philosophia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00465-w
Sarnecka, B. W., Silva, P. N., Vickers, D. C., Coon, J., Goldstein, R., & Rouder, J. N. (2022). Doctoral writing workshops: A pre-registered, randomized controlled trial. Innovative Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-021-09574-6
INVITED CONTRIBUTIONS
Goldstein, R. (2021). Reconceptualizing civic competence in the digital age. In N. E. Snow & M. S. Vaccarezza (Eds.), Virtues, democracy, and online media: Ethical and epistemic issues (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003083108
Goldstein, R. (2020). You are only as good as you are behind closed doors. Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.5840/p42020348
BOOK REVIEWS
Goldstein, R. (2019). Patriotic Education in a Global Age by Randall Curren & Charles Dorn, in Educational Theory, vol. 69, no. 5. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12393
MAGAZINES and BLOGS
Goldstein, R. B., & Vickers, D. (2022, December 16). “The writing workshop”: Increasing representation in philosophy. Blog of the APA. https://blog.apaonline.org/2022/12/22/the-writing-workshop-increasing-representation-in-philosophy/
Goldstein, R. (2022). “Jewish Injustice: on the role of women witnesses.” Tikkun https://www.tikkun.org/jewish-injustice/.
IN PROGRESS (Email me for drafts!)
(Dis)Advantages of the Book of Conversation Attitude Toward Scientific Publication
In Shadow: Defense Against Content Normative Regresses
Untangling the Web of Stereotyping and Cognitive Frameworks
Survivor Bias as Epistemic Disadvantage: A Case Study in Higher Education”
Wading in the Frog Pond: Cognitive judgment and Scientific Reasoning
DISSERTATION
Title: “On (Mal) Functioning Belief Systems”
Supervisors: Professors Annalisa Coliva and Duncan Pritchard
Committee: Professor Anna Boncompagni
Summary: This dissertation explores harms that can arise from warranted thinking routines, specifically those that occur in contexts like medicine and education. I first develop the concept of epistemic disadvantage to capture contexts in which there is epistemic harm due to the asymmetrical relationship between knowers, yet that asymmetry is pertinent to the practice of knowledge. This inquiry leads to considering how beliefs systematically function in evidential reasoning practices. I argue that two prominent doxastic frameworks–a Quinian and a Wittgensteinian framework–support a version of confirmation holism, the view that justification for empirical beliefs entails appreciation of the full system of beliefs. One upshot of incorporating the epistemological systems of Quine and Wittgenstein is that these frameworks can give a convincing account for how thinking routines influence evidential reasoning. I develop such an account in the third chapter of the dissertation by employing a Wittgensteinian framework to show how a heuristic like stereotyping plays a normative role in cognitive processes. I conclude that heuristics like stereotyping are justified except in contexts where harm occurs