2020-2021 Events Archive

Fall 2020

November 13: SWIP-NYC Colloquium, Miriam Schoenfield (University of Texas at Austin), “Can Bayesianism Accommodate Higher Order Defeat?”

Abstract: Higher order defeat is meant to happen when we get evidence that we’ve reasoned irrationally: perhaps due the influence of mind-distorting drugs, implicit biases, or social and evolutionary influences. While it’s highly intuitive that in some such cases, dramatic reduction of confidence in our beliefs is appropriate, there are a number of arguments which suggest that such a view is incompatible with Bayesianism and also with the idea that rationality involves aiming for truth or accuracy. I’ll consider some of these arguments, explain why they’re problematic and then offer my own. My argument will show that the root of the phenomenon of higher defeat comes down to a sort of Euthyphro dilemma for epistemology: in general do we think believing P is rational because that’s the belief we came to and we think we’re pretty sensible folks? Or do we think we’re pretty sensible folks because believing P (and Q, and R…) is rational and that’s the belief that we came to?

December 4: Sue Weinberg Lectures panel honoring the thought of María Lugones. Panelists: Pedro DiPietro (Syracuse University), Hil Malatino (Rock Ethics Institute, Pennsylvania State University), Joshua Price (Binghamton University), and Shireen Roshanravan (Kansas State University). Videos from the zoom event will be linked here soon. Please go here to view a tribute video for Dr. Lugones.

December 18: SWIP-NYC Colloquium, Jennifer Nagel (University of Toronto), “Gettier case recognition in humans and other animals”

Abstract: One popular way to approach the Gettier problem is to say that one lacks knowledge if one’s justified belief is only coincidentally true. But what kinds of coincidences are problematic? I take a fresh look at this question in light of research on nonhuman primates, whose capacity to distinguish knowledge from ignorance seems to extend to Gettier cases. I argue that we can make better sense of the Gettier problem if we understand the strange contribution that knowledge attribution makes to our larger problem of learning about the world.

Spring 2021

February 5: SWIP-NYC Colloquium, Grace Helton (Princeton), “Experimental Psychology & Norms of Rationality“

Abstract: It is a common, if controversial, view that there are epistemic norms concerning when reasoners should adopt or revise beliefs. Many epistemologists permit that these norms are constrained in important ways by the limits of human psychology, but few epistemologists take engagement with experimental psychology to be a pre-condition for serious theorizing about epistemic norms. I will argue that particular norms of rationality can, at least in principle, be overturned by results obtainable only via experimental psychology, not via casual observation of reasoners, introspection, or other means. I will explore what this result might mean for the proper relationship between epistemology and experimental psychology.”

February 12: Sue Weinberg Lectures panel on Anita Silvers’ influence on philosophy, with Elizabeth Barnes (University of Virginia), Leslie Francis (University of Utah), Eva Feder Kittay (Stony Brook University), and Keisha Ray (UTHealth)

February 19: SWIP-NYC Colloquium, Rebecca Mason (University of San Francisco), “Women Are Not Adult Human Females”
Abstract: Recently, some philosophers have defended the thesis that women are adult human females. Call this the Adult Human Female thesis (AHF). The argumentative aim of this paper is to show that AHF is false. The tactical aim of this paper is to argue against AHF in a way that undermines its trans-exclusionary import.

May 14: SWIP-NYC Graduate Student Essay Prize Competition Double Feature presenting the co-winners of the 2021 contest:

Carolina Flores (Rutgers), “Changing Minds with Style”
Abstract: People often respond to evidence in ways we don’t anticipate. This causes trouble for understanding others and for our ability to rationally engage with them. I argue that we can address these problems by seeing ways of interacting with evidence in terms of epistemic style. I offer an analysis of epistemic styles as ways of responding to evidence that express epistemic character, that is, a recognizable way of being an epistemic agent. I argue that we have reason to think that people take up epistemic styles in robust, though context-dependent, ways. This allows us to use models of others’ epistemic styles to predict their responses to evidence in relevant contexts, enabling us to select evidence that they are likely to find persuasive. More importantly, sensitivity to epistemic styles gives us a way of understanding those whose epistemic behavior is at odds with our own, instead of seeing their behavior as the result of irredeemable irrationality.

Eliana Peck (CUNY Graduate Center), “Performed Credibility Assignments as Epistemic Violence”
Abstract: This paper identifies a pattern of epistemic violence at the site of performed credibility assignments, which occur when hearers explicitly communicate that a speaker is credible. When prejudice or pernicious ignorance leads performed credibility assignments to misalign with hearers’ actual judgments, and harm occurs, we can identify epistemic violence. The reception of Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony by Republican listeners serves as a paradigm case. Reflecting on the literature that ties epistemic violence in testimony to credibility deficit, I ask how to reconcile Republican hearers’ articulations that Blasey Ford was credible with the prima facie evidence of epistemic violence. To better explain cases like these, I offer some broadly-applicable hermeneutical tools regarding how performed epistemic activities may harmfully misalign with, and conceal, actual judgments of a prejudicial kind. Attending to implications and other cases, I argue that performed credibility assignments mark a pernicious site of epistemic violence, one worthy of attention and response.