Lecture on June 19th, 2019
Fake News, False Beliefs, and the Fallible Art of Knowledge Maintenance
Professor Axel Gelfert, TU Berlin
About the lecture
The term 'fake news' has become emblematic of the pitfalls of public communication in a changed media landscape. Initially introduced in an effort to encourage media literacy, the term has also been co-opted by those wishing to discredit the so-called 'legacy' (or 'mainstream') news media. Yet in spite of its being contested, the term has significant diagnostic potential. It forces us to think hard about what distinguishes merely false reports (perhaps due to simple error) from systematic distortions within journalism. In many ways, it brings us back to an age-old question: What makes something (or someone) a trustworthy source of information? And how can we follow informational routines that limit our risk of being exposed to systematically distorted claims? The present talk surveys these problems and argues that the acquisition of new cutting-edge information may trade off against the goal of knowledge maintenance. By privileging the former, we may endanger the latter, yet both are required if we are to successfully navigate the treacherous oceans of information.
About the speaker
Axel Gelfert is a Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Technical University of Berlin, where he works at the intersection of social epistemology and philosophy of science and technology. He is the author of A Critical Introduction to Testimony (Bloomsbury 2014) and How to Do Science With Models (Springer 2016). Prior to coming to Berlin, he spent more than a decade teaching at the National University of Singapore.
photo credit: TU Berlin / Christian Kielmann
Wednesday, 19. June 2019, 18:15-19:45
Main Campus, West Wing, Room ESA W 221
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1
20146 Hamburg
poster lecture Prof. Axel Gelfert [pdf]
programme "Taming the Machines" [pdf]
site plans:
lecture halls at Edmund-Siemers Allee 1: ESA1 [pdf]
University of Hamburg (Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1 is number 12 in C3 of the map): UHH [pdf]