Meet Darby Vickers, Guest of Episode 6

Darby Vickers is a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. Her research sits at the intersection between epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of education. She examines the philosophical questions at this intersection (e.g. are we ethically obligated to disseminate certain types of information? how can we train the next generation to be ethical? Should education be pleasurable?). She holds an MA in classics (also from UC Irvine) and much of her research focuses on ancient Greek philosophy. Her current research comprises of three projects that tackle this issue from different angles. The first project is her dissertation, in which she analyzes Plato’s views on intergenerational transmission of ethical knowledge. For the second project, Darby serves as a co-investigator on a Cognitive Science study which examines the effect of a particular model of writing workshop on doctoral wellness and research productivity. Her third project is an academic communication and information literacy project (“Archaeology in a Post-Truth World), which draws resources from philosophy, cognitive science, archaeology, and history to help figure out how to train students and the public to effectively spot fake news.