In October 2024, I legally changed my name to Rena Beatrice Alcalay. I kindly request that my full name be used when referencing my written work. Where my previous name, “Rena Goldstein,” may have appeared, please now refer to me as “Rena 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

PUBLICATIONS

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. “Holistic Similarities Between Quine and Wittgenstein.” Philosophical Investigations. July 26, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1111/phin.12405

Goldstein, R. “Epistemic Disadvantage.” Philosophia, January 6, 2022. 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 Snow, N.E., & Vaccarezza, M.S. (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, vol. 2, no. 1. DOI: 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!)

In Shadow: Defense Against Content Normative Regresses (under review)    

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

A Pedagogical Pathway Narrowing Gender and Race Gaps in Academic Philosophy

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