Yasha Sapir
Email: jsapir [at] usc [dot] edu
I'm a philosophy graduate student at the University of Southern California. My main research interests are in epistemology, philosophy of language, and ethics.
Before USC, I was at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. And before that I was at Reed.
Teaching
Reasoning and Argument I: Propositional Logic. [Syllabus]
Reasoning and Argument II: Probability and Decision Theory. [Syllabus]
Publication
(2021). Hedging and the ignorance norm on inquiry (with Peter van Elswyk). Synthese. [preprint]
Peter and I defend the ignorance norm.
The ignorance norm: Interrogative attitudes directed at a question are never compatible with knowledge of the question’s answer.
We further argue that the norm is exhaustive.
The ignorance norm is exhaustive: All epistemic positions weaker than knowledge directed at the answer to a question are compatible with having an interrogative attitude towards that question.
We provide two arguments for thinking as much.
First, we construct an argument based on considerations about the role of hedging in inquiry.
Second, we construct an argument that's conditional on considerations related to the aim of inquiry as a goal-directed activity.
Works in Progress
A paper on the value of awareness growth (with June Lee-Rogers).
In which we explore how to think about the expected practical value of inquires in which an agent might become aware of novel options and hypotheses.
A paper on which update rules are optimal under conditions where it isn't certain what your priors are.
In which I show that adding in the detail an agent can be uncertain of her priors causes a lot of trouble for existing ways of thinking about which update rules are optimal.
A paper on how to build a pyramid with vague propositions.
In which I explain why posteriors in response to vague testimony are sometimes pyramid shaped.
A paper on ignorance and complicity.
In which I investigate whether there's an epistemic condition on being morally complicit.
A paper on complicity, silence, and influence.
In which I defend that complicity requires having been in a position to have an influence, and I discuss what that means for the thought that silence sometimes constitutes complicity.
A paper on inquiry and deception (with Brian Haas).
In which we defend a novel account of the constitutive effect of deception.