CFP: Fake Knowledge

Call for abstracts: Each of us consumes a lot of information from sources of dubious reliability. Some such information is called 'fake news.' There is widespread agreement that the consumption of fake news is bad for democracy, but there is no consensus on what fake news is and the epistemology of fake news remains relatively underexplored. The goal of the conference is to investigate the phenomenon of fake news from an epistemological point of view. The talks will be themed around the following topics: 

•epistemic authority and expertise

•epistemology of ignorance

•epistemology of propaganda, ideology, and democracy

•epistemology of disagreement

•epistemology of conspiracy theories

•epistemological problems of testimony

•epistemology of social media

•implicit bias

Invited speakers: Heather Battaly (University of Connecticut), David Coady (University of Tasmania), Daniel Cohnitz (Utrecht University), Karen Frost-Arnold (Hobart & William Smith colleges), Axel Gelfert (Technical University of Berlin), Thomas Grundmann (University of Cologne), Christoph Jäger (University of Innsbruck), Erik J. Olsson (Lund University), Regina Rini (York University), and Sara Wright (University of Georgia).

Please submit your abstract to Dr. Amy Flowerree ([email protected]) by March 15, 2018. Abstracts should be no longer than 600 words. Notification of acceptances will be sent by April 1, 2018.

Travel assistance is available for early career scholars.