Philosophy Surprises

What surprised you about philosophy and/or about this course?  Good or bad:  don't hold back.  What, if anything, will you take with you into other classes, your life, the world?

knowers in Feminist Philosophy of Science

Discuss the shift in knower from the traditional, Cartesian picture to the contemporary feminist picture.  (discuss embodiment, relational knowledge, knowers-in-communities).

News...rape trial

The woman who is accusing two police officers of raping her remained calm and confident during her eight-hour testimony, even going on the attack. http://nyti.ms/gHQc2S

TED re: women

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hanna_rosin_new_data_on_the_rise_of_women.html

Oleanna

Some prompts for your blogging:
* How would you know if you'd been sexually or otherwise harassed?
* How do you determine if someone else has been sexually or otherwise harassed?
* How do you go about finding the truth?  Is there such a thing as truth?  A single, universal truth?  Could there be more than a single truth about a situation?  Are there certain processes which help us seek truth?
* Comment on rationality, emotion, coercion, and/or power and how they affect the characters in this play.
* What really happened in this story?  Could anyone really know?

Knowledge & Standards

What is the relationship of knowledge to belief?  How does that impact actions regarding others?  For example, if I know that my brother cheats on his taxes, does that oblige me to anything?  Does it depend on who I am (say, if I were an IRS agent vs. just a sibling vs. a prosecutor)?

What standards are there for knowledge?  How might naturalized epistemology or social epistemology approaches provide answers here?  Is there one standard for knowledge, another for belief?  Or, is there one standard for knowledge in one context (low stakes) and another standards in a different, higher stakes context?  Danielle will love this question, no doubt!

sexual harassment & epistemology topics

v  Why is having knowledge good?  Is it bad to fail to have/attain knowledge?  Is it a moral failing to turn away from knowledge?  Consider a specific, real example, like sexual harassment (although you can use a different example).  Have I failed if I deliberately choose to avoid learning about a friend/colleague/neighbor behavior?

v  Regarding Sexual Harassment, what do we mean by “know”?  How do I know when I am being harassed?  When I am harassing?  What standard of knowledge do I need to employ in order to take punitive action (pressing charges, telling others that so-and-so is a harasser, etc.)?  Refer to Section 5 of the SEP “Epistemology”.

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