Epistemic Value

New Issue of IJSS Out

2012-05-06T20:28:00.002+01:00

The new issue of International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now out. Thanks to everyone who has helped us establish this new journal. I'm pleased to announce that since it's doing so well, we will shortly be moving to four issues a year rather than the current two.

CFP: Edinburgh Graduate Epistemology Conference

2012-03-05T14:13:00.001Z

The Edinburgh Epistemology Research Group is hosting its second annual graduate epistemology conference in June. More details, including a call for papers, can be found on the conference homepage. Note that the deadline for the CFP is *March 9th*.

Edinburgh: New Hires

2012-02-20T22:17:00.003Z

I'm delighted to announce that we've just made two appointments at Edinburgh (there's also a third on the way, since we're presently in the process of appointing a lecturer):

Dr. Michela Massimi, currently at UCL, will be joining us as Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
Dr. Nick Treanor, currently at Cambridge, has accepted a Chancellor's Fellowship in Philosophy

Edinburgh: Aims of Inquiry and Cognition Conference

2012-02-17T19:41:00.000Z

The Epistemology Research Group at the University of Edinburgh is pleased to announce a two-day conference, sponsored by the Scots Philosophical Association, the Mind Association, the Leverhulme Trust, and the School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences (PPLS) at the University of Edinburgh.

“The Aims of Inquiry and Cognition”
25th and 26th May

Keynote speaker:
Theodore Sider (Cornell University)

Invited speakers:
Stephen Grimm (Fordham University) and Kristoffer Ahlstrom (University of Copenhagen)
Carolyn Price (Open University)
Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen (University of Aarhus)

Session speakers:
Anne Baril (University of New Mexico)
Earl Conee (University of Rochester)
Jason D’Cruz (SUNY-Albany)
Miguel Ángel Fernández (National Autonomous University of Mexico)
Kareem Khalifa (Middlebury College)
Paul Noordhof (University of York)
Emily Sullivan (Fordham University)
Jan Willem Wieland (Ghent University)
Sam Wilkinson (University of Edinburgh)

For more information, visit:

http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/philosophy/events/view/the-aims-of-inquiry-and-cognition

Inquiries to Allan Hazlett at ahazlett@staffmail.ed.ac.uk

CFP: Edinburgh Graduate Epistemology Conference

2012-01-31T09:39:00.002Z

CFP: EEN Annual Conference

2012-01-16T10:07:00.002Z

The European Epistemology Network is hosting its annual at the Universities of Bologna and Modena and Reggio Emilia this year, and there's a call for papers too. Here is the advert.

2012 Episteme Conference

2011-12-10T20:42:00.002Z

The 2012 Episteme Conference will be on the topic of 'Epistemological Problems of Privacy and Secrecy', and will be hosted by the Delft University of Technology. There's a conference webpage here. The conference speakers are:

John Hardwig (University of Tennessee)
Alvin Goldman (Rutgers University)
Klemens Kappel (University of Copenhagen)
Peter Ludlow (Northwestern University)
Duncan Pritchard (University of Edinburgh)
Martijn Blaauw (Delft University of Technology)

And there is also a conference commentator-at-large:

Brian Leiter (University of Chicago)

CFP: Aims of Inquiry and Cognition

2011-12-03T19:12:00.004Z

A reminder of the conference that Edinburgh's Epistemology Research Cluster is hosting in May 2012. The Aims of Inquiry and Cognition is sponsored by the Scots Philosophical Association and the Mind Association. Invited speakers include Ted Sider, Carolyn Price, Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, Stephen Grimm, and Kristoffer Ahlstrom.

There's also a call for papers, with a deadline of 1st January 2012. See the conference webpage for more details. Any questions, drop Allan Hazlett a line here.

IJSS: Second Issue Out!

2011-12-01T15:51:00.004Z

The second issue of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now out (electronically anyway), and available here. Among other things, it features a symposium on Ernie Sosa's work featuring articles by John Greco, Richard Fumerton, and Michael Williams, to which Sosa responds.

Axtell-on-Dougherty

2011-10-09T19:53:00.002+01:00

I haven't read this paper by Guy Axtell yet, but I'm looking forward to doing so:

Axtell ('Recovering Responsibility,' 2011, Logos and Episteme),

http://logos-and-episteme.proiectsbc.ro/sites/default/files/RECOVERING%20RESPONSIBILITY%20.pdf

And here's the very interesting paper by Trent Dougherty which it responds to:

Dougherty ('Reducing Responsibility: An Evidentialist Account of Epistemic Blame,'

2011, European Journal of Philosophy),

http://baylor.academia.edu/TrentDougherty/Papers/217565/Reducing_Responsibilitiy_An_Evidentialist_Account_of_Epistemic_Blame

Epistemology @ Edinburgh: Current and Upcoming Events

2011-10-05T08:24:00.008+01:00

A summary of what the Edinburgh Epistemology Research Group is currently up to and has planned for the near future:

Regular Seminars/Groups

For these seminars/groups, all are welcome and there is no need to register.

Events

Epistemic Expressivism Conference--October 15th-16th, 2011.
The Nature of Knowledge Lecture--December 14th, 2011.
The Aims of Inquiry and Cognition Conference--May 25th-26th, 2012.
2nd Annual Edinburgh Graduate Epistemology Conference--June 8th-9th, 2012.

Note that of these events both the Nature of Knowledge Lecture and The Aims of Inquiry and Cognition Conference are free to everyone and there's no need to register (the other two events require registration). In addition, we will as usual have a Christmas Graduate Epist-Fest Workshop, which will be open to everyone (this year it will be on Friday December 9th), and we'll also be hosting another graduate workshop in the spring (Thursday May 24th). Looking ahead, we're planning a major conference in 2013 to celebrate 50 years since Gettier's article.

Edinburgh Epistemic Expressivism Conference

2011-09-26T12:09:00.003+01:00

There will be a conference on Epistemic Expressivism held in Edinburgh this October (15th-16th), with talks from Allan Gibbard, Mike Lynch and Klemens Kappel, amongst others. A provisional programme is available here. Inquiries about this event should be directed to Mike Ridge. This event is jointly hosted by Edinburgh's Epistemology Research Group and its Ethics Research Group.

Edinburgh Epistemology Research Group

2011-09-26T10:08:00.002+01:00

This semester's seminar programme for the Edinburgh Epistemology Research Group is now available here (we kicked-off last week with Heather Logue from Leeds). As usual, everyone is welcome so if you're in the Edinburgh area then do feel free to come along.

CFP: Edinburgh Grad Epistemology Conference

2011-09-12T10:24:00.003+01:00

The 2nd annual Edinburgh Graduate Epistemology conference is being held on June 8th-9th 2012. The keynote speakers will be John Greco and Crispin Wright. There is also a call for papers. For more details, see the website here.

New Book Series: Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy

2011-08-08T14:24:00.003+01:00

Vincent Hendricks and myself are launching a new monograph series, which will be a kind of accompaniment to the New Waves in Philosophy volume series that we edit. It's called Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy. You can find out more details on the series webpage (which is under construction) here. If you're interested in submitting a book proposal, then do feel free to drop either myself or Vincent a line.

New Journal: American Dialectic

2011-07-17T20:13:00.002+01:00

It's been brought to my attention that there's a new journal on the scene, one that is structured in a very different way to most journals. It's called American Dialectic, and they're looking for new submissions.

CFP: Edinburgh 'Aims of Inquiry and Cognition' Conference

2011-07-06T16:37:00.003+01:00

The Epistemology Research Group here in Edinburgh will be hosting a conference next May on 'The Aims of Inquiry and Cognition'.

Invited speakers include Ted Sider (Cornell), Carolyn Price (Open University), Asbjørn Steglich-Pedersen (Aarhus), Stephen Grimm (Fordham) & Kristoffer Ahlstrom (Copenhagen).

There's a call for papers here. There's also a rudimentary conference webpage here, on which further details about the conference will be posted in due course.

CFP: Special Issue of Philosophical Explorations on "Extended Cognition and Epistemic Action"

2011-06-26T19:41:00.002+01:00

CALL FOR PAPERS
Special Issue of Philosophical Explorations on "Extended Cognition and Epistemic Action"

Guest Editors: Andy Clark (University of Edinburgh), Duncan Pritchard (University of Edinburgh) and Krist Vaesen (Eindhoven University of Technology)

Submission Deadline: September 15, 2011

Invited Contributors: Fred Adams (University of Delaware) & Ken Aizawa (Centenary College of Louisiana), Ronald Giere (University of Minnesota), Sanford Goldberg (Northwestern University), Richard Menary (University of Wollongong) and Kim Sterelny (Australian National University and Victoria University).

Background and Aim
According to the thesis of extended cognition, cognitive processes do not need to be located inside the skin of the cognizing agent. Humans routinely engage their wider artifactual environment to extend the capacities of their naked brain. They often rely so much on external aids (notebooks, watches, smartphones) that the latter become a proper part of a hybrid (human-artifact) cognitive system.

The thesis of extended cognition has been influential in the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, linguistics, informatics, and ethics, but, surprisingly, not in epistemology. The discipline concerned with one of the most remarkable products of human cognition, viz. knowledge, has largely ignored the suggestion that her main object of study might be produced by processes outside the human skin.

In this special issue of Philosophical Explorations we therefore are looking for papers that explore the ramifications of the thesis of extended cognition for contemporary epistemology in general, and for conceptualizations of epistemic action in particular. The special issue will include five invited papers (by Fred Adams & Kenneth Aizawa, Ronald Giere, Sanford Goldberg, Richard Menary and Kim Sterelny), plus two contributions selected from the papers submitted in response to this open call for papers.

We expect contributions discussing the impact of extended cognition on issues as: epistemic agency and responsibility, cognitive ability, ownership of belief, the distribution of epistemic credit, the sources of belief, artifactual testimony, the growth of knowledge, non-propositional knowledge, the evolution and reliability of extended cognitive processes, the varieties of extended epistemic action.

Submission Details
Please send a pdf-version of your paper (max. 8000 words) to Krist Vaesen, (k.vaesen@tue.nl). Contributions that do not make it to the special issue may be considered for publication in one of the regular issues of Philosophical Explorations.

Further Inquiries
Please direct any inquiries about this call for papers to Krist Vaesen, (k.vaesen@tue.nl).

Axtell @ JanusBlog

2011-06-25T18:54:00.001+01:00

Interesting post--a kind of epistemic manifesto--at JanusBlog from Guy Axtell.

Edinburgh Epistemology Workshop

2011-06-02T11:14:00.004+01:00

UPDATE: Nick Treanor (Cambridge) has now joined the programme for this event. See the workshop webpage for more details.

The Epistemology Research Group here in Edinburgh is hosting a small workshop on Friday June 24th. The speakers will be Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern), Baron Reed (Northwestern) and Asbjorn Steglich-Petersen (Aarhus). Attendance is free, there's no registration, and all are welcome. The workshop webpage (which we're currently updating with paper titles and abstracts), is here.

Fordham Epistemology & Ethics Workshops

2011-05-25T20:47:00.001+01:00

This just in from Stephen Grimm at Fordham:

Fordham Epistemology & Ethics Workshops

Starting next year, Fordham will be hosting a series of epistemology and ethics workshops at its Lincoln Center Campus in Manhattan.

For the 2011-2012 academic year, speakers will include: Macalester Bell (Columbia), Lara Buchak (Berkeley), Ruth Chang (Rutgers), Trent Dougherty (Baylor), Bennett Foddy (Oxford), Allan Hazlett (Edinburgh), Stephen Hetherington (New South Wales), Thomas Kelly (Princeton), Ram Neta (North Carolina), Japa Pallikkathayil (NYU), Michael Smith (Princeton), Ernest Sosa (Rutgers), and Sharon Street (NYU).

For information about location and dates, please click here.

If you are interested in attending, please contact Stephen Grimm at: sgrimm@fordham.edu

IJSS: First Issue Out!

2011-05-15T19:24:00.002+01:00

I'm delighted to say that the first issue of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now out! Check it out here.

X-Phi @ Yale

2011-05-07T11:41:00.003+01:00

Mark Phelan, who is involved in the Yale X-Phi project, has asked me to post something about their activities. Check out their webpage here. The project hosts 17 different experimental philosophy studies designed by 29 philosophers, each working on illuminating a different philosophical question. So why not take a moment to help these philosophers out, either by stopping by the Experiment Month website to fill out a brief questionnaire or by spreading the word about these new studies? (By the way, the experiment month initiative is run by Yale Cognitive Science with a grant from the American Philosophical Association.)

Episteme: New Beginnings

2011-05-01T19:48:00.002+01:00

Alvin Goldman has sent me the following announcement about Episteme:

THE JOURNAL EPISTEME: A MOVE AND REINCARNATION

The journal EPISTEME announces an impending move and transformation. With the first issue of 2012 we begin publication with Cambridge University Press and expand our scope from social epistemology specifically to all of epistemology. Our new title will be: Episteme, A Journal of Individual and Social Epistemology. EPISTEME has published since 2004 with Edinburgh University Press. With Cambridge we shall publish four issues per year, approximately 500 pages per volume. Cambridge will include EPISTEME in a bundle of journals to which 1,500 institutions already subscribe.

Scope and Mission Statement. EPISTEME is a general journal of epistemology in the analytic tradition that invites both informal and formal approaches. Among its primary “traditional” topics are knowledge, justification, evidence, reasons, rationality, skepticism, truth, probability, epistemic norms and values, and methodology. The journal devotes special attention to topics in social epistemology, including testimony, trust, disagreement, relativism, diversity and expertise, collective judgment, and the epistemic assessment of social institutions (e.g., science, law, democracy, and the media). The journal welcomes interdisciplinary approaches to epistemology that borrow methods from allied disciplines such as experimental psychology, linguistics, economics, game theory, evolutionary theory, and computer simulation studies. We do not publish purely historical work or case studies.

Editorial Team

Editor
Alvin Goldman (Rutgers)

Associate Editors
Jessica Brown (St. Andrews)
Igor Douven (Groningen)
Don Fallis (Arizona)
Branden Fitelson (Rutgers)
Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern)
Christian List (London School of Economics)
Jack Lyons (Arkansas)
Matthew McGrath (Missouri)
Jonathan Schaffer (Rutgers)
Frederick Schmitt (Indiana)
Jonathan Weinberg (Arizona)
Michael Weisberg (University of Pennsylvania)

The first issue of 2012, guest-edited by Jennifer Lackey, will include the following contents:
(1) A symposium on pragmatic encroachment, with papers by Jessica Brown, Jeremy Fantl & Matthew McGrath, and Jason Stanley;
(2) A paper on the epistemic case for multiple-vote majority rule, by Richard Bradley and Christopher Thompson; and
(3) A critical notice of Sanford Goldberg,'s Relying on Others, by Mikkel Gerken.

Previous Contributors. In our eight years of publication with Edinburgh (when we specialized in social epistemology exclusively), our pages have featured work by the following authors, among others: Jonathan Adler, Elizabeth Anderson, Michael Bergmann, Paul Boghossian, Albert Casullo, David Christensen, Earl Conee, Igor Douven, David Estlund, Richard Feldman, Branden Fitelson, Richard Foley, Miranda Fricker, Margaret Gilbert, Sanford Goldberg, John Greco, Susan Haack, Christopher Hookway, Philip Kitcher, Hilary Kornblith, Jennifer Lackey, Larry Laudan, Peter Lipton, Christian List, Helen Longino, Ram Neta, Philip Pettit, Nicholas Rescher, Gideon Rosen, Sherrilyn Roush, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Michael Strevens, Jonathan Weinberg, Roger White, Michael Williams, and Linda Zagzebski.

The journal welcomes submissions for publication in 2012 and thereafter. Manuscripts should be directed to: episteme@philosophy.rutgers.edu. Manuscripts should be anonymized, and should be accompanied by a separate file containing an abstract, author identification (including institution), and contact information.

CFP: Special Issue of Philosophical Explorations on "Extended Cognition and Epistemic Action"

2011-03-25T11:28:00.002Z

CALL FOR PAPERS
Special Issue of Philosophical Explorations on "Extended Cognition and Epistemic Action"

Guest Editors: Andy Clark (University of Edinburgh), Duncan Pritchard (University of Edinburgh), Krist Vaesen (Eindhoven University of Technology)

Submission Deadline: September 15, 2011

Invited Contributors: Fred Adams (University of Delaware) & Ken Aizawa (Centenary College of Louisiana), Ronald Giere (University of Minnesota), Sanford Goldberg (Northwestern University), Richard Menary (University of Wollongong) and Kim Sterelny (Australian National University and Victoria University).

Background and Aim
According to the thesis of extended cognition, cognitive processes do not need to be located inside the skin of the cognizing agent. Humans routinely engage their wider artifactual environment to extend the capacities of their naked brain. They often rely so much on external aids (notebooks, watches, smartphones) that the latter become a proper part of a hybrid (human-artifact) cognitive system.

The thesis of extended cognition has been influential in the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, linguistics, informatics, and ethics, but, surprisingly, not in epistemology. The discipline concerned with one of the most remarkable products of human cognition, viz. knowledge, has largely ignored the suggestion that her main object of study might be produced by processes outside the human skin.

In this special issue of *Philosophical Explorations* we therefore are looking for papers that explore the ramifications of the thesis of extended cognition for contemporary epistemology in general, and for conceptualizations of epistemic action in particular. The special issue will include five invited papers (by Fred Adams & Kenneth Aizawa, Ronald Giere, Sanford Goldberg, Richard Menary and Kim Sterelny), plus two contributions selected from the papers submitted in response to this open call for papers.

We expect contributions discussing the impact of extended cognition on issues as: epistemic agency and responsibility, cognitive ability, ownership of belief, the distribution of epistemic credit, the sources of belief, artifactual testimony, the growth of knowledge, non-propositional knowledge, the evolution and reliability of extended cognitive processes, the varieties of extended epistemic action.

Submission Details
Please send a pdf-version of your paper (max. 8000 words) to Krist Vaesen, (k.vaesen@tue.nl). Contributions that do not make it to the special issue may be considered for publication in one of the regular issues of Philosophical Explorations.

Further Inquiries
Please direct any inquiries about this call for papers to Krist Vaesen, (k.vaesen@tue.nl).

Epistemic Value

New Issue of IJSS Out

CFP: Edinburgh Graduate Epistemology Conference

Edinburgh: New Hires

Edinburgh: Aims of Inquiry and Cognition Conference

CFP: Edinburgh Graduate Epistemology Conference

CFP: EEN Annual Conference

2012 Episteme Conference

CFP: Aims of Inquiry and Cognition

IJSS: Second Issue Out!

Axtell-on-Dougherty

Epistemology @ Edinburgh: Current and Upcoming Events

Edinburgh Epistemic Expressivism Conference

Edinburgh Epistemology Research Group

CFP: Edinburgh Grad Epistemology Conference

New Book Series: Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy

New Journal: American Dialectic

CFP: Edinburgh 'Aims of Inquiry and Cognition' Conference

CFP: Special Issue of *Philosophical Explorations* on "Extended Cognition and Epistemic Action"

Axtell @ JanusBlog

Edinburgh Epistemology Workshop

Fordham Epistemology & Ethics Workshops

This just in from Stephen Grimm at Fordham:

Fordham Epistemology & Ethics Workshops

IJSS: First Issue Out!

X-Phi @ Yale

Episteme: New Beginnings

CFP: Special Issue of *Philosophical Explorations* on "Extended Cognition and Epistemic Action"

CFP: Special Issue of Philosophical Explorations on "Extended Cognition and Epistemic Action"

CFP: Special Issue of Philosophical Explorations on "Extended Cognition and Epistemic Action"