The PhD course this year will be taught by Prof. Ernesto Sosa (Rutgers). It will take place on Tuesday June 10, Thursday June 12 and Friday June 13, 12-14, at the María Zambrano Seminar. As probably you already know, the annual PhD course is a mandatory training activity for LOGOS PhD students or those registered in the philosophy branch of CCiL. I am looking forward to seeing you all there.
As usually, the course will be based on a new book that the invited professor is concluding. The title and abstract of Prof. Sosa's book are below.
Dawning Light Epistemology and Domains of Trust, E. Sosa
The seminar (and the colloquium talk scheduled for Wednesday of that week) will take up some chapters of a book manuscript in progress.
One main feature is the idea of "default assumptions." We will discuss a constitutive role for such assumptions in domains such as athletic competitions, legal proceedings that restrict "admissible evidence," the practice of religious faith, and the domain of close friendship. We will consider their epistemic role in such "domains of trust."
Here are two ways default assumptions acquire philosophical interest: (a) They define and sustain such "domains of trust." (b) Relatedly, they provide a basis for a distinctive and novel approach to philosophical skepticism.
A second main concern of the seminar will be to explore an alternative to familiar philosophical methodologies, whether naturalist or x-phi. A sort of dawning light epistemology conceptually engineers a supportive setting for realist armchair intuitions.
Finally, time allowing we will take up a contrast with knowledge first epistemology.
The manuscript in progress aims to enhance the telic virtue epistemology laid out in Judgment and Agency (OUP, 2015) and Epistemic Explanations (OUP, 2021). But the new work goes beyond those texts, and no prior familiarity whatever with the earlier work will be presupposed.