Public Epistemology Project: The Iraq Intelligence Inquiry Initiative
It's time to shelve the talking points and the soundbites in favor of a serious epistemological discussion of the role of the Bush administration's use of intelligence in making the public case for the invasion Iraq. Today, Philosoraptor launches the The Iraq Intelligence Inquiry Initiative(IIII).

A lot of arguments about the decision to go to war proceed from vague or equivocal understandings of key concepts like "knowlege," "justification," "evidence," and "credibility."

The IIII hopes to raise the level of discussion by bringing these core assumptions into the open.

We have to ask not only what the President knew and when he knew it, but also what we mean by "know." In order to assign responsibility, we have to ask not whether decision-makers were right, but whether they were justified in reaching the conclusions they did based on the evidence available to them.

So, let the discussion begin. Please join us.

--Lindsay Beyerstein from Majikthise