"The Fragmentation of America" with Victor Kumar

A talk by Victor Kumar, Hosted by the Department of Philosophy. Abstract: Donald Trump is president of the United States. Again. How did Americans elect someone so corrupt, so autocratic, so...unburdened by knowledge? This may not seem like a philosophical question, but research in social epistemology helps us answer it. In this talk, I'll draw on and build upon work by social epistemologists like Thi Nguyen and Dan Williams to explain Trump's enduring appeal. People are trapped in echo chambers and swamped by misinformation, yes, but that's only part of the story -- and some elements of this story are misleading. To understand how the country got to this place, we must understand how each side's epistemic dysfunctions have fed the other's.