Yasha Sapir
Email: jsapir [at] usc [dot] edu
I'm a fourth year 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
Fall 2024, Reasoning and Argument I: Propositional Logic. [Syllabus]
Fall 2024, 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 vague communication. [handout]
In which I discuss how hearers may change their credences in response to assertions of vague sentences.
A paper on ignorance and complicity. [handout]
In which I argue that non-culpable ignorance doesn't absolve you of complicity.
A paper on complicity and silence.
In which I defend a signaling-based account of why silence can make people complicit.