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88Inferential 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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305In his 1963 article, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”1 Edmund Gettier devised a pair of counterexamples designed to illustrate that knowledge cannot be adequately defined as justified true belief. The basic idea behind both of his counterexamples is that one can be justified in believing a falsehood P from which one deduces a truth Q, in which case one has a justified true belief in Q but does not know Q. Gettier’s article inspired numerous other counterexamples, and the search was on for a…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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Chapter 11. The Value of KnowledgeIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 65-69. 2012.
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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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3Chapter 19. Misleading DefeatersIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 95-98. 2012.
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4Chapter 4. Intuitions about KnowledgeIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 12-18. 2012.
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24Chisholm and coherencePhilosophical Studies 38 (1). 1980.It is generally conceded that a principle of coherence is needed to give a complete account of justification. Even the most prominent foundationalists of this century have included coherence principles among those epistemic principles which they defend. Against this prevailing view, I suggest that a principle of coherence is not needed in order to give an adequate account of justification. However, Instead of arguing directly for this claim, I defend the only slightly less controversial claim th…Read more
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119Epistemically 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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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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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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2Chapter 13. Reverse Lottery StoriesIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 73-77. 2012.
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116Three attempts to refute skepticism and why they failIn Steven 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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Chapter 8. Knowledge BlocksIn When is True Belief Knowledge?, Princeton University Press. pp. 46-50. 2012.
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107Conceptual diversity in epistemologyIn Paul K. Moser (ed.), The Oxford handbook of epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 177--203. 2002.In “Conceptual Diversity in Epistemology,” Richard Foley reflects on such central topics in epistemology as knowledge, warrant, rationality, and justification, with the purpose of distinguishing such concepts in a general theory. Foley uses “warrant” to refer to that which constitutes knowledge when added to true belief and suggests that rationality and justification are not linked to knowledge by necessity. He proceeds to offer a general schema for rationality. This schema enables a distinction…Read more
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70Intellectual 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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426Beliefs, 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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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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91Reply 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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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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97Fumerton’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.