Please join us this Tuesday 24 July, as the Philosophy Seminar @ UNSW presents
Professor Sanford Goldberg (Northwestern) "Mutuality and Assertion" ABSTRACT Can assertions be warranted under conditions of systematic disagreement (of the sort we find in philosophy, politics, religion, and the more theoretical parts of the social and natural sciences)? On the one hand, there are strong reasons to regard assertion as governed by a demanding epistemic norm (such as knowledge), and it is plausible to think that in contexts of systematic peer disagreement we sometimes (often?) fail to attain knowledge. On the other, the practice of assertion persists in these areas. (Indeed, the practice of philosophy would appear to depend on this practice.) In this paper I argue that this tension can be resolved by appeal to the hypothesis that the standard set by assertion's norm is fixed in part in terms of what is mutually believed by the speaker and her audience in the context in which the assertion is made. This paper aims to provide independent grounds for this hypothesis. Professor Goldberg is a faculty member of the Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University, and works in the areas of Epistemology and the Philosophy of Mind and Language. His recent books include Anti-Individualism (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Relying on Others (Oxford University Press, 2010). The seminar will commence at 1 p.m. in room 308B, Morven Brown building (map ref. C20: http://www.facilities.unsw.edu.au/Maps/pdf/kensington.pdf). A light lunch will be provided. Enquiries to Joanne Faulkner, [email protected] Dr. Joanne Faulkner ARC DECRA Research Fellow School of Humanities Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Room 338, Morven Brown Building University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW 2052 Australia [email protected] +61 2 9385 2287 http://hist-phil.arts.unsw.edu.au/staff/joanne-faulkner-633.html co-Government/Institutional representative, Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy: http://www.ascp.org.au _______________________________________________ SydPhil mailing list: http://bit.ly/sydphil 1000+ subscribers now served!! To UNSUBSCRIBE, change your MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS, find ANSWERS TO COMMON PROBLEMS, or visit our ONLINE ARCHIVES, please go to the LIST INFORMATION PAGE: http://bit.ly/sydphil ... and if you can't get to that page, try the EMERGENCY PAGE: http://bit.ly/SydPhilEmergency
