Cfp: "Cognitive Ecology: the Role of the Concept of Knowledge in our Social Cognitive Ecology," University of Edinburgh, June 3-4, 2010.

2010 Episteme Conference. The overarching purpose of the 2010 Episteme conference is to explore how our epistemic concepts—and the concept of knowledge in particular—figure in our cognitive ecology in general and in our social cognitive ecology in particular. For the purpose of the conference, the phrase ‘social cognitive ecology’ is to be understood broadly as encompassing individual and intersubjective thought as well as ordinary conversation and public discourse.We think and talk about a wide variety of epistemic, doxastic and factual affairs by way of various epistemic concepts. This is especially so when it comes to the concept of knowledge and its linguistic counterpart ‘knowledge’. For example, we often criticize each others’ actions and assertions in terms of knowledge. Furthermore, we think of knowledge as something distinctively valuable to achieve and disseminate. Indeed, we often seek to organize society in a manner that promotes the achievement and transfer of knowledge. In sum, our epistemic concepts—and especially the concept of knowledge—play a number of very important roles in our social cognitive ecology. And yet the roles that these concepts play in our thought and talk about epistemic, doxastic and factual matters is inadequately understood. The aim of the 2010 Episteme conference is to rectify this inadequacy. Keynote Speaker: Martin Kusch (Cambridge/Vienna) 'Knowledge and Certainties in the Epistemic State of Nature' Plenary Speakers: Lorraine Code (York) 'TBC' Sandy Goldberg (Northwestern) 'TBC' Hilary Kornblith (UMass) 'Why Should We Care about the Concept of Knowledge?' Ram Neta (UNC, Chapel Hill) 'Knowledge as a Natural Norm of Belief' Discussants-At-Large: David Bloor (Edinburgh) Miranda Fricker (Birkbeck) Alan Millar (Stirling) All general inquiries about this conference should be addressed to Prof. Duncan Pritchard (duncan.pritchard@ed.ac.uk). Visit the conference page here: http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/events/EpistemeConf2010.html.