[SydPhil] REMINDER & NEW LOCATION: USyd Philosophy Postgraduate Colloquium August 22: Mara Bollard, "Testimony, transmission, and assertion: Making sense of Lackey's creationist teacher"

[Elena Walsh]

Please note the talk will be held in the Quadrangle, room *S241*.  We'll
also have afternoon tea there straight afterwards (please bring
biscuits/tea/anything you like!).



On 17 August 2014 18:07, Elena Walsh <elenawalsh at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> As the Muniment room is booked on August 18, the next postgrad colloquium
> has been moved to August 22 @ 2pm which is a Friday (it will still be held
> in the Muniment room).
>
> We will have an afternoon tea straight after as per usual, however I have
> been informed that we are again running a little bit low on communal funds
> for treats and tea. It would be much much appreciated if you wanted to
> bring something with you to share (biscuits, tea, cake etc.).  Look forward
> to seeing you then.
>
> Elena
>
>
> On 14 August 2014 12:01, Elena Walsh <elenawalsh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>>
>> The next USyd Postgraduate Colloquium for semester 2 will be held this
>> Monday, August 18 @ 2pm in the Muniment room, Quadrangle building.  All
>> welcome!
>>
>>
>> As usual, we will have an afternoon tea immediately after the talk at
>> 3pm, in the common room.
>>
>>
>> *Speaker:  Mara Bollard*
>>
>>
>> *Title:  Testimony, transmission, and assertion: Making sense of Lackey's
>> creationist teacher*
>>
>>
>>
>> In *Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge, *Jennifer
>> Lackey (2008) argues that it is possible for a hearer to acquire knowledge
>> of some proposition p on the basis of a speaker’s testimony, even if the
>> speaker does not herself know that p. Lackey motivates her account with the
>> case of Stella, a creationist teacher, who asserts to her students the
>> proposition that “modern-day Homo sapiens evolved from Homo erectus.”
>> Though Stella neither believes nor knows this proposition, her students
>> nevertheless acquire knowledge of the proposition from her testimony. On
>> the basis of this case, Lackey concludes that the transmission view, which
>> holds that testimony involves a speaker transmitting her belief (and its
>> epistemic properties, such as justification or warrant) to a hearer, is
>> false. Call this upshot 1. Lackey also holds that though Stella is
>> criticisable qua believer, she is in no way criticisable qua asserter. Call
>> this upshot 2.
>>
>>
>>
>> In this talk, I aim to make sense of how the students can gain knowledge
>> of p from Stella’s testimony, and to better understand the undeniably weird
>> doxastic state Stella is in. I will offer 3 interpretations of the case
>> that I take to be more plausible than Lackey's and conclude that at least
>> one, and possibly both, of the above upshots are false.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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