I haven’t updated this for a while, have I? So it’s time for some updates.
Social Epistemology Workshop
Last weekend I was at a workshop on social epistemology at Arche. Miriam Schoenfield presented “this great paper”:https://webspace.utexas.edu/ms58685/www/research/a-dilemma-for-conciliationi.pdf. I did a paper that was somewhat derivative of Jennifer Lackey’s work on generative testimony. (Well, perhaps more than somewhat – I’ll post it if I decide I really had anything interesting original to say.) I had to miss some papers so I could come back to America to work. But I did hear two interesting papers by Alvin Goldman and Jennifer Lackey on group belief. And I was wondering if anyone had defended the following idea for how to define the beliefs of a group in terms of the beliefs of the group members.
First, use some kind of credal aggregation function to get a group credence function out of the individual group member credences. This could be arithmetic averaging, or (better) it could be one of the more complicated functions that “Ben Levinstein”:http://www.levinstein.org/ discusses in his thesis. Second, draw out one’s favourite theory of credal reductionism to define group beliefs in terms of group credences. My favourite such theory is interest-relative, and it’s possible that some propositions could be interesting to the group without being interesting to any member of the group, so this view wouldn’t be totally reductive.
This approach seems fairly simple-minded, but it does seem to avoid some of the problems that arise for other views in the literature. Hopefully I’ll get some time to read Christian List and Philip Pettit’s book on “Group Agency”:http://www.amazon.com/Group-Agency-Possibility-Design-Corporate/dp/0199679673/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1382450411&sr=8-2&keywords=%22group+agency%22, and see how the credence-first approach compares to theirs.
Rutgers Young Epistemologist Prize – 2015
From “Rutgers”:http://philosophy.rutgers.edu/for-faculty/739-young-epistemologist-prize-2015.
This will be the ninth bi-annual Young Epistemologist Prize (YEP) to be awarded. To be eligible, a person must have a Ph.D. obtained by the time of the submission of the paper but not earlier than ten (10) years prior to the date of the conference. Thus, for the Rutgers Epistemology Conference 8-10 May, 2015, the Ph.D. must have been awarded between May 8, 2005, and November 10, 2014.
The author of the prize winning essay will present it at the Rutgers Epistemology Conference and it will be published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. The winner of the prize will receive an award of $1,000 plus all travel and lodging expenses connected with attending the conference.
The essay may be in any area of epistemology. It must be limited to 6,000 words (including the footnotes but not the bibliography). Please send two copies of the paper as email attachments in a .pdf format to:
One copy must mask the author’s identity so that it can be evaluated blindly. The second copy must be in a form suitable for publication. The email should have the subject: “YEP Submission.” The email must be sent by 8 pm (EST) on November 10, 2014. The winner of the prize will be announced by February 16, 2015.
By submitting the essay, the author agrees not to submit it to another publication venue prior to February 16, 2015, and agrees i) to present the paper at the Rutgers Epistemology Conference, ii) to have it posted on the conference webpage, and iii) to have it published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
All questions about the Young Epistemologist Prize should be sent to YEP@philosophy.rutgers.edu.
UK Visa Rules
Sadly, it seems relevant to post another reminder about recent changes to UK Visa rules. Since 2012, it is impossible to (successfully) apply for a UK work visa if you have worked in the UK any time in the past *12 months*. This will affect a lot of people who have rolling part-time positions in the UK. But what I hadn’t realised is that it is also hurting people moving between full-time jobs in the UK. And that’s a much more serious concern.
So in case you need (or will need) a UK work visa, and your would-be employer hasn’t kept up with all the visa changes that the Lib Dem/Tory government has brought in, it is very important to be aware of this rule.
I very much hope that the rule will be scrapped after the 2015 election; it seems to be causing harm without any obvious benefit. But I don’t think it would be a good idea to plan around that. For one thing, Labor might not win, or at least not win in their own right. (And I think we should act as if the Liberal Democrats are supporting policies that the government they partially constitute has introduced.) For another, new governments are often sadly tardy in fixing mistakes of the past governments, so even a Labor win doesn’t mean things start getting better that week. So even if your current UK visa expires after 2015, I’d start thinking about what you plan to do next, assuming that you can’t apply for another visa without a 12 month gap in employment.