The World Congress of Philosophy 2024 (1-8 August) Philosophy across Boundaries, hosted by the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, the biggest campus in Europe, and co-organized with the Italian Philosophical Society (SFI) and the International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP), counted an amazing number of very interesting and successful events.

Prof Kang Ouyang, Convenor of International Alliance for Study of Social Epistemology, Honorary Director at Research Center of Social Epistemology, Director of Institute of State Governance, Huazong University of Science and Technology (HUST), organized the large Round Table Globalization and Social Epistemology on August 8, hosted by the important faculty of Giurisprudenza, aula “Francesco Calasso” (Law).

After a beautiful Open Ceremony moderated by Wei Wu, Council Member of International Alliance for the Study of Social Epistemology, Director at Research Center of Social Epistemology, Professor at School of Philosophy, HUST, Prof Ouyang, Prof Steve Fuller, Convenor at International Alliance for Study of Social Epistemology, August Comte Chair in Social Epistemology, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, and Dr. Francesca Gambetti, head Secretary of the 25th Congress of Philosophy, gave their welcome speech to emphasize the relevance of social epistemology to face urgent problems in our globalized social world.

Prof Dong Hui, Council Member of International Alliance for Study of Social Epistemology, Vice-Director at Research Center of Social Epistemology, Professor at School of Marxism, HUST, moderated the Keynote Speech 1 session. Steve Fuller discussed the interesting issue raised by the library scientist Don Swanson about the phenomenon characterized as “undiscovered public knowledge” and important application such as chat GPT. William Sweet (St Francis Xavier University) underscored the importance of shared knowledge in dialogical contexts by pointing out “epistemic humility” and “cultural exchange”. Kang Ouyang discussed the problem of globalization and the role of social epistemology as the theory about how people understand society, by focusing on both their objective understanding of society and their self-awareness of human society. Along this line, Wu Wei (HUST) considered important questions: perception of globalization, deep disagreement about globalization and attempt to solve deep disagreement in a community of communication beyond national interests. Raffaela Giovagnoli (Pontifical Lateran University) focused on the key-notion of “testimony” in social epistemology as the main source of social evidence. To understand social evidence by privileging communitarian epistemology is crucial especially in critical social situations.

The Keynote Speech 2 session was moderated by Jasna Koteska, Council Member of International Alliance for Study of Social Epistemology, Academician Full Time Professor, Tenure at Ss. Cyril and Methodists University of Skopje, Macedonia. Edward Demenchenak (Fort Valley State University) showed the relevance of a communicative interpretation of cognition which allows to identify the internal dialogical structure of cognition, of thinking and of consciousness. Dong Hui (HUST) analyzed the relationship between social epistemology and Modern Chinese Civilization that emerged through the constitution of socialist civilization and the interpretation of China’s historical, cultural and practical contexts. Lou Dong (South China University of Technology) presented an interesting perspective on the shifts in traditional Chinese technological understandings concentrating on philosophical insights with Confucianism and Taoism. Ma Lan (Jianghan University) pointed out ethical issues of mind reading through neurotechnology that include issues of mental privacy, cognitive freedom and brain data security. Daniela Caterina (HUST) discussed conceptions of the world and conceptions of the other from a Gramscian perspective. In particular she establishes an original relation between “common sense” and “imaginaries”. Shen Juan (Wuhan City University) described the ideology of big data and its technology generation and application that is becoming obvious and manifested in discourse hegemony, cultural hegemony, religious hegemony and data hegemony.

At the end, Prof Ouyang gave his concluding speech with announcing future events.