Epistemological Problems of Privacy and Secrecy

The notion of privacy is a widely discussed notion nowadays, especially by ethicists and legal scholars. This is due primarily because many recent technological developments can be seen to interact negatively with our privacy. Only think of such hotly debated issues as cookies, GPS-devices that track one’s whereabouts, and CCTV-cameras. Despite the large interest in privacy, epistemologists have for the most part been silent about this topic. This is surprising since privacy seems to be intimately connected with the notion of knowledge. Indeed, the core of a privacy violation is that the violater comes to know propositions about you that you would rather kept secret. In order to make progress in the privacy debate, it would be worth investigating what epistemology has to offer in this respect and to see whether epistemological theorizing might supplement ethical theorizing about privacy in certain ways.

The purpose of the 2012 Episteme conference is to to do just this. It aims take some first steps towards establishing “the epistemology of privacy” as an important new area of epistemological investigation. In particular, this conference aims to elucidate the role knowledge plays in the privacy debate. Furthermore, given the relation between privacy and secrecy, this conference also aims to investigate the notion of secrecy as an epistemological notion. The theme of the conference thus is “Epistemological Issues of Privacy and Secrecy”.

John Hardwig (University of Tennessee)
Alvin Goldman (Rutgers University)
Klemens Kappel (University of Copenhagen)
Peter Ludlow (Northwestern University)
Sanford Goldberg (Northwestern University)
Don Fallis (University of Arizona)

Submission procedure
The submission procedure for this conference is now closed.

As part of this conference, there will be a number of open sessions for which the organizers would like to invite submissions. Papers that address any aspect of the conference, broadly conceived, will be welcome. Submissions from graduate students are also welcome.

Submissions should be in the form of a detailed abstract of 300 words and must be made electronically. Papers should be suitable for a presentation of 30 minutes with a 15-minute Q&A session.

Please send submissions to the conference email address:

The extended deadline for submissions was March 23rd 2012, and we aim to notify the authors of the result of the review process by the end of March 2012. Enquiries about the call for papers should be directed to the conference program chair, Martijn Blaauw,

Authors of accepted papers are automatically registered for the conference and have to pay the normal conference fees. See below under ‘registration’ for more information on the conference fees and on how to register.

Episteme special issue
A special issue of Episteme will arise out of this conference. This issue might include some papers from the open sessions. Therefore, it is essential that submitted papers are not already published or due to be published elsewhere. Complete written versions of the papers must be ready by the time of the conference to be eligible for consideration for inclusion in the special issue. Papers from the open session that one wishes to be considered for publication in the special issue will undergo anonymous peer review.

Potential topics and themes
Below follows a non-exhaustive list of topics and themes that might be addressed by the papers in the open sessions. Note that, even though the issue of privacy borders on several fiels of philosopy (such as epistemology, ethics and political philosophy), we have a decided preference for orientations that are heavily epistemological.

Privacy and the value of knowledge
A central thought in epistemology is that knowledge is distinctively valuable and that our social practices should therefore promote it. If that is true, however, how should we explain that with respect to private matters knowledge of these private matters doesn’t seem distinctively valuable at all and that knowledge seems to be even less valuable than true belief?

Privacy and the value of ignorance
Epistemology focuses on knowledge and tries to explain what its value is. Privacy suggests that there might also be a value to ignorance. What could the epistemic value of ignorance be?

Knowledge and secrecy
In contexts of the accessibility and transparency of information on the Internet one sometimes hears slogans like “Knowledge wants to be free”. (Compare, for instance, Wiki-leak activities). But what is meant by this? Should this be taken as a universal maxim that governs social-political policies? This would impact not only on issues of privacy but also on issues of secrecy. If there is a right to protect privacy, might there also be an argument to protect secrets?

Privacy and contexts of epistemic appraisal
Privacy seems to have a contextual element. In some contexts, one might want to protect one’s privacy, but in other contexts one might consent to opening up one’s privacy. This might, for instance, depend on the stakes the subject faces in a given context. How should we think of the relation between this kind of contextuality and the debate about the contextuality of knowledge, where the stakes are sometimes thought to play a role in evaluating the truth-value of a knowledge ascription?

Privacy and assertion
According to the knowledge account of assertion, one should assert that P only if one knows that P. Assertions of P can invade on someone’s privacy. Should norms for assertion be specified that accommodate this idea?

Knowing-who and personal data
The notion of “personal data” is central in the privacy debate. But what exactly personal data are remains unclear. Can epistemology shed some light on this issue by, for instance, establishing a connection between knowing-who and personal data?

Privacy and epistemic justice
Knowledge is central to privacy. Privacy violations seem to be a form of injustice. If one’s privacy has been violated, has an epistemic injustice been done to the person whose privacy has been violated?

Privacy and trust
“Trust” is a central theme in contemporary epistemology. How do concerns about one’s privacy interact with the notion of trust?

Conference fees:

Early bird, registration before May 30th
*Faculty members: EUR 295. This includes two conferences dinners, three lunches, coffee, tea, and snacks and refreshments during the conference.
*PhD students: EUR 225. This includes two conference dinners, three lunches, coffee, tea, and snacks and refreshments during the conference.
*MA students: EUR 195. This includes two conference dinners, three lunches, coffee, tea, and snacks and refreshments during the conference.
*Registration fee per day, without conference dinner: EUR 40.

Full conference fee for registration after May30th
EUR 325 for everyone.

You can register for the conference by filling in this form.
After you have registered for the conference, you will receive a confirmation email indicating how you can pay the conference fee.

Note: visitors to the 2012 Episteme conference might want to combine their visit to the Netherlands with the conference on extended cognition that our colleagues from Eindhoven University of Technolgy are organizing June 6&7:
http://w3.ieis.tue.nl/en/groups/pe/research/philosophyethics_of_technology/upcoming_events/extended_cognition_and_epistemology/

The 2012 Episteme conference will be hosted by the Department of Philosophy of Delft University of Technology, in collaboration with the 3TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology and the editor-in-chief of Episteme, Professor Alvin Goldman. The main organiser and program chair of the conference is Martijn Blaauw. The conference secretary is Henneke Filiz-Piekhaar.