Objective
The present project aims to provide a naturalistic account of epistemic norms, and of the associated epistemic awareness in children and adults from different cultures. Epistemics norms (ENs) such as intelligibility, relevance, truth, coherence and consensus are dimensions on which mental contents can be evaluated for their contribution to knowledge acquisition. Although EN sensitivity is central in education, little is known about 1) how to systematically analyze and inventory ENs, nor about 2) How and to what extent, children and adults from different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds recognize them in making epistemic decisions. Specialists in philosophy of mind, developmental and adult congitive science, along with field anthropology, will apply their methods to address these questions in an interdisciplinary spirit. A common methodological guideline will be to study EN sensitivity as embedded in self-evaluative judgments, and to focus on cases of conflict between various ENs, such as consensus versus truth. This research should reveal how EN sensitivity develops in European and Japanese children, what role is to be assigned, in norm dominance, to emotional interaction, epistemic or social deference, and how EN sensitivity is transferred, in similar tasks and contexts, from self to others and reciprocally.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
ERC-2010-AdG_20100407
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Funding Scheme
ERC-AG - ERC Advanced GrantHost institution
75230 Paris
France