Conference - Good Judgment, Critical Thinking and Epistemic Virtues

31 October 2018

The Department of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands) will host an International Conference on Good Judgment, Critical Thinking and Epistemic Virtues in Academic Education on 3-4 April 2019. This conference brings together philosophers, philosophers of education, and educators at academic institutions worldwide.

Universities arguably have epistemic responsibilities to promote a variety of epistemically valuable states, skills, and dispositions in their students, such as good judgment, epistemic virtues, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and critical thinking skills, among others. Philosophers and theorists of education raise a variety of questions about these. For instance, which of them, if any, should higher educational systems promote through their curricular content, pedagogical practices, and guiding conceptions of the purposes or roles of universities? The answers to such big questions depend on issues of moral, social, and political significance – offering ways to connect reflection on the responsibilities of universities to debates in the wider histories of philosophy. What, for instance, is ‘good judgment’? Are the epistemic virtues textured by the social identities of different subjects? Is the promotion of critical thinking skills naturally sympathetic to certain types of political theory?

  • December 20, 2018 deadline for abstracts
  • January 10, 2019 notification of acceptance or rejection
  • April 3-4, 2019 conference at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands