GOTTLOB FREGE LECTURES IN THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY 2019
JENNIFER NAGEL (Toronto): EPISTEMIC INTERACTION.
The Lecturer:
Jennifer Nagel is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and the president of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association (2018-19). She is working mainly in the fields of epistemology and philosophy of mind with a focus on metacognition and the attribution of knowledge and belief. She is the author of Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2014) and several important papers in the intersection of epistemology and the philosophy of mind.
The Lectures:
In the regular flow of human conversation, we send many signals to each other about what we do and do not know. This series of lectures begins by examining what sociologists working in conversation analysis call “the epistemic backchannel”, with an eye to understanding its purpose and its impact on communication. Empirical work on representations of the epistemic gradient between speakers can help philosophers understand the social division of epistemic labor. At the same time, empirical theories of what is happening in the backchannel can be improved by philosophical attention to the distinction between knowing and merely seeming to know. Subsequent lectures will examine the features of our instinctive knowledge attribution mechanisms that make skeptical arguments attractive, and what the limits of these mechanisms can tell us about the relationship between knowledge and argumentative support.
The event is related to the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies (European Union, European Regional Development Fund) and to the research project IUT20-5 (Estonian Ministry of Education and Research).