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Epistemology

Northwestern has a large and lively community of scholars working in epistemology. 

If you have any questions about the program, do not hesitate to contact one of the faculty members listed below.  Additional resources can be found on our LEMMings site.

 

Core Faculty

Fabrizio Cariani

(Philosophy): epistemic rationality, decision theory, judgment aggregation, probabilistic epistemology

Sanford Goldberg

(Philosophy): reliabilism, internalism/externalism, the epistemology of testimony, self-knowledge, semantic responses to skepticism

Michael Glanzberg

(Philosophy) The nature of linguistic meaning (the nature of quantification, how lexical items encode concepts, relativism about linguistic content), the semantics-pragmatics-syntax interface, the role of mathematical techniques in the empirical study of language, truth and paradox, and the status of unrestricted quantification.

Jennifer Lackey

(Philosophy): the epistemology of testimony, the epistemology of disagreement, norms of assertion, the value of knowledge, and the epistemology of memory

Peter Ludlow

(Philosophy): contextualism

Baron Reed

(Philosophy): skepticism, fallibilism, certainty, the Gettier problem, contextualism and invariantism, history of epistemology

 

Jennifer Lackey in the audience at the Graduate Epistemology Conference. April 2010.

 

Additional Faculty

Faculty with a very strong, secondary interest in epistemology:

Sean Ebels Duggan

(Philosophy): the epistemology of disagreement, the a priori

David Ebrey

(Philosophy): Ancient Greek Epistemology, theory of knowledge, the value of knowledge

Stefan Kaufmann

(Linguistics): epistemic modals

Lance Rips

(Psychology):  Reasoning, epistemic modals

Sandy Zabell

(Statistics): probabilistic epistemology

 

Grad student Ezra Cook and Prof. Peter Ludlow at Michael Titelbaum's Epistemology Brownbag. April 2010.

 

Recent Graduate Course Offerings in Epistemology and Related Fields

Grad course: “Philosophy of Mathematics” (Cariani, Ebels Duggan)

Grad course: “Epistemology” (Reed, Lackey)

Grad course: "Reasoning and Rationality" (Cariani)

Grad Seminar: “Contextualism and Invariantism” (Reed)

Grad Seminar: "Fallibilism" (Reed)

Grad Seminar: “The Epistemology of Disagreement and Expertise” (Lackey)

Grad Seminar: "Practical Reasoning and Choice" (Cariani)

Grad Seminar: “Skepticism Ancient and Modern” (Reed)

Grad Seminar: “Social Epistemology: The Epistemology of Groups” (Lackey)

 

Activities and Resources

In addition to courses and graduate seminars, there are a number of other regular activities:

• The Epistemology Brownbag Series

• The Midwest Epistemology Workshop

• The Metaphysics and Epistemology Reading Group

• Northwestern-Notre Dame Graduate Epistemology Conference

• Edinburgh Exchange Program

• LEMMings Website

 

	Matthew Mullins, Seth Mayer, Tim Sundell, Jennifer Lackey and John Burgess at Michael Bergmann's Epistemology Brown Bag. May 2010.
	2009-2010 Brady Professor Robert Audi reads intently at Fabrizio Cariani's Epistemology Brown Bag. December 2009.
	The audience at the Graduate Epistemology Conference. April 2010.