CFP: Lund Early Career Conference 2023: Trust, Hope, and Rationality

Note: Deadline for submissions has been extended until May 7th!

The Lund Early-Career Conference is a forum dedicated to forging connections between research and researchers in selected topics from both theoretical and practical philosophy as well as cognitive science. After the success of last year’s conference on Perception and Responsibility, we have decided to institute it as an annual occasion. The conference is aimed at Ph.D-candidates and early-career researchers working in philosophy or related fields, such as psychology or cognitive science, relevant for the theme of the conference.

Each year we select a theme based on topics of interest from each of the subdivisions of the Lund Philosophical department (Theoretical Philosophy, Practical Philosophy, and Cognitive Science) with the goal of finding under-explored connections ripe for interdisciplinary investigation. This year we’ve chosen the theme ‘Trust, Hope, and Rationality’, with the aim of bringing together epistemologists, ethicists, philosophers of language, and cognitive scientists to tackle questions of how these topics are related to each other.

Keynote speakers will be Sarah Stitzlein, Professor of Education and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati and Jerker Denrell, Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School.

All speakers will be given a 45 minute slot for a presentation followed by a 45 minute Q&A session beginning with questions and remarks from an assigned commentator.

All submissions should be prepared for blind review and should include a separate document containing the following information: your name, paper title, institutional affiliation, e-mail address, and phone number. The initial submission should consist of an extended abstract (1000 words maximum) for a paper suitable for the presentational format (4000 - 5000 words). The paper should be submitted upon notification of acceptance as a speaker.

Submission deadline: May 7th, 2023.

Notification of acceptance: June 15th, 2023.

Please submit papers via e-mail with “2023 Conference Submission” in the subject line to [email protected].

As a guide to what kind of contributions would be relevant, we’ve distinguished three sub-themes for the conference and some suggested questions. These are intended as guidelines and other interesting proposals related to the theme are also welcome.

Rationality of trust and hope

• How do we reason with and about hope and trust? Is there a logic of hope or trust? 

• When is trust or hope rational, given that they are responses to being in an epistemic situation with limited information? 

• While it seems rational to trust scientific experts, it does not seem rational to trust moral experts. In what conditions do we trust experts and when is it rational?

• Is an epistemic kind of hope presupposed by the idea of scientific progress?

• Given the black box problem, is it rational to trust AI algorithms?

• How does knowledge-how or knowledge-that relate to hope and trust?

Normativity of trust and hope

• What is the ethics of hope? In what context is hope fitting, appropriate, or permissible? In contrast, can hope be oppressive in some contexts? Is hope compatible with rationality?

• If hope and trust are interpreted as normative attitudes towards uncertainty, when should we hope and trust with how much certitude? Can trust and hope be interpreted as having expected utility?

• Is there any moral value in irrationality? Can rationality be oppressive if it is rational to hope and trust?

• What are the normative reasons for hope and trust which might be considered as irrational?

• Should hope and trust be exercised only from the first- or second-person perspective, or can they be objective attitudes?

• Are only human agents worthy of trust? Should artificial agents and non-human animals be worthy of our trust as well? Is it possible for artificial agents and non-human animals to trust humans?

• When we trust testimony from others, is there a possibility that we are creating testimonial or hermeneutical injustice? Can trust create epistemic injustice?

• What are the conditions and responsibilities that come with trusting someone’s testimony? When is it permissible to fully trust testimony? 

• Does power dynamics play a role in trusting or hoping, creating epistemic injustice, changing belief systems, and values?

• How are hope and trust different from false beliefs? 

Cognitive mechanisms of trust and hope:

• Which role does trust play in (rational) decision-making and planning processes? How is it related to heuristics?

• Is there a difference in what trust looks like and how it is created depending on whether we deal with a human or non-human (animals, robots, etc.) agent?

• How do we measure trust and is it even possible to measure it?

• Why do people not trust experts and trust non-experts (skepticism towards scientists vs. conspiracy theories)?

• What is the influence of deceptive technology and AI systems on our trust and hope behavior?

• How are trust and hope influenced by expectation and motivation?

• Is hope connected to self-deception?

• Where does empathy come into play in regards to trust, hope and rationality? Does it improve or reduce rationality?