[SydPhil] UNSW Philosophy Seminar: Sanford Goldberg, Tuesday 24 July

[Joanne Faulkner]

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, j.faulkner at unsw.edu.au




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

j.faulkner at unsw.edu.au
+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