Monday 3rd December, 14:30 – 17:00, Swingland, Marlowe, University of Kent
Philosophers and social scientists have long debated epistemological questions, seeking to understand what it means to believe, to know, to doubt, to be ignorant, to draw inferences and so on. However, it is not only academics who are interested in thinking about thought, or what psychologists have called ‘metacognition’. Many subjects of ethnographic studies have tacit assumptions, or formulate explicit theories, about the nature of thoughts and the proper relationship one ought to have to them. Ethnographic research can teach us great lessons about the extent to which such thought about thought can vary, or be transmitted from one person to another.
This informal workshop will feature a number of experienced ethnographic researchers speaking about how thought about thought features in the social worlds they have studied before engaging in discussion with the audience. Confirmed speakers include Professor Tanya Luhrmann (Stanford), Dr Joanna Cook (UCL) and Dr Jonathan Mair (Kent).