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87Inferential Justification and the Infinite RegressAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 15 (4). 1978.It is commonly thought that the requirements of inferential justification are such that necessarily the process of inferentially justifying a belief will come to an end. But, If this is so, We should be able to pick out those requirements of justification which necessitate an end to the justification process. Unfortunately, Although there is nearly unanimous agreement as to the need for such an end, It is by no means clear which particular requirements of justification impose this need. I examin…Read more
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77Is it Possible to have Contradictory Beliefs?Midwest Studies in Philosophy 10 (1): 327-355. 1986.
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423Beliefs, Degrees of Belief, and the Lockean ThesisIn Franz Huber & Christoph Schmidt-Petri (eds.), Degrees of belief, Springer. pp. 37-47. 2009.What propositions are rational for one to believe? With what confidence is it rational for one to believe these propositions? Answering the first of these questions requires an epistemology of beliefs, answering the second an epistemology of degrees of belief.
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132A common complaint against contemporary epistemology is that its issues are too rarified and, hence, of little relevance for the everyday assessments we make of each other=s beliefs. The notion of epistemic rationality focuses on a specific goal, that of now having accurate and comprehensive beliefs, whereas our everyday assessments of beliefs are sensitive to the fact that we have an enormous variety of goals and needs, intellectual as well as nonintellectual. Indeed, our everyday assessments o…Read more
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Chapter 11. The Value of KnowledgeIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 65-69. 2012.
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Chapter 18. Instability and KnowledgeIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 91-94. 2012.
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Chapter 20. Believing That I Don’t KnowIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 99-101. 2012.
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116Epistemically Rational Belief and Responsible BeliefThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 5 181-188. 2000.Descartes, and many of the other great epistemologists of the modern period, looked to epistemology to put science and intellectual inquiry generally on a secure foundation. Epistemology’s role was to provide assurances of the reliability of properly conducted inquiry. Indeed, its role was nothing less than to be czar of the sciences and of intellectual inquiry in general. This conception of epistemology is now almost universally regarded as overly grandiose. Nonetheless, Descartes and the other…Read more
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76When is True Belief Knowledge?Princeton University Press. 2012.Her belief is true, but it isn't knowledge. This is a classic illustration of a central problem in epistemology: determining what knowledge requires in addition to true belief.
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Evidence as a Tracking Relation,'In Luper-Foy Steven (ed.), The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and His Critics, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 119. 1987.
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114Three attempts to refute skepticism and why they failIn S. Luper (ed.), The Skeptics: Contemporary Essays, Ashgate Publishing. 2003.One of the advantages of classical foundationalism was that it was thought to provide a refutation of skeptical worries, which raise the specter that our beliefs might be extensively mistaken. The most extreme versions of these worries are expressed in familiar thought experiments such as the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis, which imagines a world in which, unbeknownst to you, your brain is in a vat hooked up to equipment programmed to provide it with precisely the same visual, auditory, tactile, and …Read more
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1Chapter 7. The Beetle in the BoxIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 41-45. 2012.
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2Chapter 14. Lucky KnowledgeIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 78-80. 2012.
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1Chapter 26. Epistemology within a General Theory of RationalityIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 124-133. 2012.
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117Intellectual Trust in Oneself and OthersCambridge University Press. 2001.To what degree should we rely on our own resources and methods to form opinions about important matters? To what degree should we depend on various authorities, such as a recognized expert or a social tradition? In this provocative account of intellectual trust and authority, Richard Foley argues that it can be reasonable to have intellectual trust in oneself even though it is not possible to provide a defence of the reliability of one's faculties, methods and opinions that does not beg the ques…Read more
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1Chapter 23. A Priori KnowledgeIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 110-112. 2012.
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62``Epistemic Luck and the Purely Epistemic"American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (2): 113-124. 1984.
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2Chapter 12. The Lottery and PrefaceIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 70-72. 2012.
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90Reply to Van InwagenAnalysis 40 (March): 101-103. 1980.I reply to professor vaninwagen's comment on an earlier paper of mine ("analysis", March 1979), In which I argue that compatibilists are not committed to accepting the claim that people might have control over the past
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3Chapter 2. Post-Gettier Accounts of KnowledgeIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 6-8. 2012.
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Chapter 21. Introspective KnowledgeIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 102-105. 2012.
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4Chapter 15. Closure and SkepticismIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 81-85. 2012.
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95Fumerton’s PuzzleJournal of Philosophical Research 15 109-113. 1990.There is a puzzle that is faced by every philosophical account of rational belief, rational strategy, rational planning or whatever. I describe this puzzle, examine Richard Fumerton’s proposed solution to it and then go on to sketch my own preferred solution.