Jennifer Lackey

Jennifer Lackey is an American academic and the Wayne and Elizabeth Jones Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. She is also a Professor of Law (courtesy) and the Founding Director of the Northwestern Prison Education Program. Additionally, she holds a position as a Senior Research Associate at the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, University of Johannesburg. Lackey's research primarily lies within the field of social epistemology. She is recognized for her contributions challenging the traditional view of testimony as a purely transmissive epistemic source. In her book, "Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge," she introduces the widely discussed creationist teacher case to argue that testimony can also be generative, meaning it can create new knowledge rather than just passing it along. This theory emphasizes linguistic or communicative elements in testimonial exchanges over the internal states of speakers. Her other works explore the norm of assertion, the role of memory as a generative epistemic source, and the definition of lying. Furthermore, Lackey critiques virtue epistemology, particularly its focus on a knower's deserving credit for a true belief, arguing that it faces a dilemma in accounting for knowledge from testimony or distinguishing genuine knowledge from Gettier cases.