Title: 'How to Be a Clever Contextualist' Abstract: This talk defends a contextualist theory of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions. I argue that in some sentences, the implicit argument of ‘knows’ is bound by a quantifier. The natural readings of these sentences can be generated by contextualist theories, but not by competing interest-relative theories of knowledge. In addition, ... Read more
Event co-Hosted with ECT and FPST. Title: Extractivist epistemologies Abstract: This paper (which is very much a work in progress) will develop the concept of extractivist epistemology as a way to think through the effect of colonialism on knowing practices. Extractivist epistemologies work analogously to extractivist capitalism: seeking an epistemic resource of some sort---such as ... Read more
Climate Change, COVID-19, Justice, and Quality of Life Abstract: Justice would appear to require that those who are the principal beneficiaries of a history of economic and political behavior that has resulted in harmful global climate change should bear a correspondingly large share of the burden in contending with these harms worldwide. At the same time, ... Read more
Title: The Labours of Chronic Illness Abstract: In this presentation, I aim to explain the three types of labour- administrative labour, hermeneutic labour and epistemic labour- that chronically ill people have to engage in to get good care. The goal is to highlight why being chronically ill is often considered by many chronically ill people to be ... Read more
Title: Beyond the Now: Epistemic Oppression and the “Common” Sense of Incarceration Abstract: In this presentation, I narrate an encounter with 2 Black teenagers who attempted to steal my cellphone and the difficulty of insisting on accountability while avoiding the worst parts of the state-run criminal justice system. Ultimately, I demonstrate that, at times, when a situation calls for accountability for a serious wrongdoing ... Read more
Title: Epistemic Akrasia: No Apology Required Abstract: It is natural to think that rationality imposes some relationship between what a person believes, and what she believes about what she’s rational to believe. Epistemic akrasia—for example, believing P while believing that P is not rational to believe in your situation—is often seen as intrinsically irrational. This ... Read more
Location: Teams (online only) Title: Ideology, Culture, and Social Meaning Abstract: My aim in this paper is to sketch a conception of ideology that draws on the critical theory tradition. This conception of ideology is a response to a particular challenge for those working on social justice: Why is it that most of us, most ... Read more
CEPPA Talk (online) – Zoë Johnson King (Harvard)