University of Melbourne Graduate Conference: Current Trends in Social Epistemology

Epistemology – the study of knowledge and justified belief – has traditionally taken a highly individualistic approach. Some have thought that this approach leads to a distorted view of the human epistemic situation. In order to correct for such imbalances some philosophers have embraced the idea of approaching epistemological concerns from a social perspective. Social epistemology refers to a wide-ranging set of approaches to the study of knowledge which construes human knowledge as having an important and weighty social dimension. Social epistemology studies the significance of social interaction in understanding the character and value of knowledge. On the 10th and 11th August 2018 the University of Melbourne will host a graduate conference on topics that fall within the field of social epistemology.

Speaker Schedule (please see wordpress page for abstracts of each talk)

Friday, 10th of August

 9:30 – 10:30: Emily Sullivan – Epistemic Responsibility on Social Media

10:30 – 10:45: Break

10:45 – 11:45: Ella Whiteley – Harmful Epistemic Attention

11:45 – 12:00: Break

12:00 – 1:00: Adam Govers – Distributed Cognition and Group Belief in Science

1:00 – 2:00: Lunch

2:00 – 3:30: Karen Jones – Radical Consciousness

3:30 – 3:45: Break

3:45 – 5:15: Mark Alfano – Virtues for Agents in Directed Social Networks

Saturday, 11th of August

9:30 – 10:30: Russell Varley – The Social Epistemology of the Dark Web

10:30 – 10:45: Break

10:45 – 11:45: Leonie Smith – Epistemic Nudging

11:45 – 12:00: Break

12:00 – 1:00: Adam Piovarchy – Responsibility for Epistemic Injustice

1:00 – 2:00: Lunch

2:00 – 3:30: Richard Rowland – Conciliationism and Moral Conviction

3:30 – 3:45: Break

3:45 – 5:15: Miranda Fricker – Epistemic Justice as a Condition for Moral Address

Other Important Information

There will be some travel bursaries made available to successful applicants. The amount that successful applicants will receive is to be decided closer to the time of the conference and will depend on the distance from Melbourne travelled.

There will be an opportunity for successful applicants to publish their papers in the Social Epistemology Review and Reply collective: https://social-epistemology.com/

This conference is partially supported by funding from the Australasian Association of Philosophy.