Science, Epistemology, and Misinformation

We invite graduate students and postgraduates to submit papers to this year’s philosophy graduate and postgraduate conference taking place in person on May 3-5, 2024, at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. 

The topic of the 2024 Conference is the relationship between political polarization, science, values, misinformation, and propaganda, broadly construed. Laypeople are increasingly able to live in their own information and media ecosystems, leading to increased political polarization, a breakdown of informed democratic deliberation, and an inability to adequately address vitally important global challenges. This raises several important questions about what citizens should do that are at the intersection of political philosophy, science, epistemology, and ethics. The aims of the conference include: 

·      elaborating on and criticizing the relationship between science and values, and how this relationship informs the communication of scientific results to the public, 

·      understanding what strategies laypeople should employ for coming to maximally reliable expectations,

·      exploring strategies for ameliorating polarized and politicized informational environment, and

·      exploring to what extent laypeople can converge on an assessment of the epistemic case in favour of substantive positions.

The application of these issues pertains to, but is not limited to, vaccine hesitancy, climate change, populism, geo-political conflicts, artificial intelligence, social media, etc.  

Keynote Presentations

'Eudaimonic Love'

Dr. Carrie Jenkins from the University of British Columbia.

‘I Can Only Begin to Imagine, and That’s OK: Against Epistemic Incommensurability.’

 Dr. Jorge Sanchez-Perez from the University of Alberta.