Zoë Johnson King (Department of Philosophy)
First-Year Seminar 65G | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 12:00 PM–02:00 PM
Its hard to know what to believe these days. Information or perhaps misinformation bombards us at all times, but assessing the reliability and trustworthiness of our sources is notoriously difficult. Sometimes it seems as though different groups of people inhabit different worlds, with precious little common ground on precisely the matters that they each take to be most important. These phenomena have not escaped the notice of contemporary epistemologists; that is, philosophers who are interested in investigating the nature of knowledge, rationality, and justification. In this seminar we will read recent work on what one might call applied epistemology, touching on a broad range of contemporary social issues that are, at their core, epistemological issues. We begin by examining two questions in traditional epistemology that have recently skyrocketed to cultural prominence: the question of how to respond to disagreement with people who seem just as smart and well-informed as you are, and the question of whether pointing out factors that influence your beliefs but seem to have nothing to do with their truth should have a debunking effect. We will then use these concepts to explore a smorgasbord of hot topics in contemporary applied epistemology; topics covered include fake news, echo chambers, distrusting scientists, motivated reasoning, epistemic benefits that arise from marginalization, and responsibility for ones own and others ignorance. Throughout, we place particular focus on distinguishing cases in which people believe badly from cases in which responsible believers are unwittingly and unfortunately led astray.