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135How lucky can you get?Synthese 158 (3): 315-327. 2007.In this paper, I apply Duncan Pritchard’s anti-luck epistemology to the case of knowledge through testimony. I claim that Pritchard’s distinction between veritic and reflective luck provides a nice taxonomy of testimony cases, that the taxonomic categories that emerge can be used to suggest precisely what epistemic statuses are transmissible through testimony, and that the resulting picture can make clear how testimony can actually be knowledge-generating
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116Epistemic Dependence in Testimonial Belief, in the Classroom and BeyondJournal of Philosophy of Education 47 (2): 168-186. 2013.The process of education, and in particular that involving very young children, often involves students' taking their teachers' word on a good many things. At the same time, good education at every level ought to inculcate, develop, and support students' ability to think for themselves. While these two features of education need not be regarded as contradictory, it is not clear how they relate to one another, nor is it clear how (when taken together) these features ought to bear on educational p…Read more
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668Should have knownSynthese 194 (8): 2863-2894. 2017.In this paper I will be arguing that there are cases in which a subject, S, should have known that p, even though, given her state of evidence at the time, she was in no position to know it. My argument for this result will involve making two claims. The uncontroversial claim is this: S should have known that p when another person has, or would have, legitimate expectations regarding S’s epistemic condition, the satisfaction of these expectations would require that S knows that p, and S fails to…Read more
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241The Psychology and Epistemology of Self-KnowledgeSynthese 118 (2). 1999.In this paper I argue, first, that the most influential (and perhaps only acceptable) account of the epistemology of self-knowledge, developed and defended at great length in Wright (1989b) and (1989c) (among other places), leaves unanswered a question about the psychology of self-knowledge; second, that without an answer to this question about the psychology of self-knowledge, the epistemic account cannot be considered acceptable; and third, that neither Wright's own answer, nor an interpretati…Read more
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84Can Asserting that p Improve the Speaker's Epistemic Position (And Is That a Good Thing)?Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (1): 157-170. 2017.In this paper I argue that there are cases in which a speaker S's observation of the fact that her assertion that p is accepted by another person enhances the strength of S's own epistemic position with respect to p, as compared to S's strength of epistemic position with respect to p prior to having made the assertion. I conclude by noting that the sorts of consideration that underwrite this possibility may go some distance towards explaining several aspects of our group life as epistemic subjec…Read more
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3Putting the Norm of Assertion to Work: the Case of TestimonyIn Jessica Brown & Herman Cappelen (eds.), Assertion: New Philosophical Essays, Oxford University Press. 2011.
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37What do you know when you know your own thoughts?In Susana Nuccetelli (ed.), New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge, Mit Press. 2003.
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24An Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (review)Teaching Philosophy 22 (1): 84-87. 1999.
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97The metasemantics of memoryPhilosophical Studies 153 (1): 95-107. 2011.In Sven Bernecker’s excellent new book, Memory, he proposes an account of what we might call the “metasemantics” of memory: the conditions that determine the contents of the mental representations employed in memory. Bernecker endorses a “pastist externalist” view, according to which the content of a memory-constituting representation is fixed, in part, by the “external” conditions prevalent at the time of the tokening of the original representation. Bernecker argues that the best version of a p…Read more
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139Interpersonal epistemic entitlementsPhilosophical Issues 24 (1): 159-183. 2014.In this paper I argue that the nature of our epistemic entitlement to rely on certain belief-forming processes—perception, memory, reasoning, and perhaps others—is not restricted to one's own belief-forming processes. I argue as well that we can have access to the outputs of others’ processes, in the form of their assertions. These two points support the conclusion that epistemic entitlements are “interpersonal.” I then proceed to argue that this opens the way for a non-standard version of anti-…Read more
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10The Brain in a Vat (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2015.The scenario of the brain in a vat, first aired thirty-five years ago in Hilary Putnam's classic paper, has been deeply influential in philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and metaphysics. This collection of new essays examines the scenario and its philosophical ramifications and applications, as well as the challenges which it has faced. The essays review historical applications of the brain-in-a-vat scenario and consider its impact on contemporary debates. They explore a diverse rang…Read more
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133Experts, semantic and epistemicNoûs 43 (4): 581-598. 2009.In this paper I argue that the tendency to defer in matters semantic is rationalized by our reliance on the say-so of others for much of what we know about the world. The result, I contend, is a new and distinctly epistemic source of support for the doctrine of attitude anti-individualism.
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100Disagreement, Defeat, and AssertionIn David Phiroze Christensen & Jennifer Lackey (eds.), The Epistemology of Disagreement: New Essays, Oxford University Press. pp. 167. 2013.
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156Relying on others: an essay in epistemologyOxford University Press. 2010.Sanford Goldberg investigates the role that others play in our attempts to acquire knowledge of the world.
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315The problem of the many mindsMinds and Machines 16 (4): 463-470. 2006.It is argued that, given certain reasonable premises, an infinite number of qualitatively identical but numerically distinct minds exist per functioning brain. The three main premises are (1) mental properties supervene on brain properties; (2) the universe is composed of particles with nonzero extension; and (3) each particle is composed of continuum-many point-sized bits of particle-stuff, and these points of particle-stuff persist through time.
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48Assertion: On the Philosophical Significance of Assertoric SpeechOxford University Press. 2015.Sanford C. Goldberg presents a novel account of the speech act of assertion. He argues that this type of speech act is answerable to an epistemic, context-sensitive norm. On this basis he shows the philosophical importance of assertion for key debates in philosophy of language and mind, epistemology, and ethics
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109An anti-individualistic semantics for 'empty' natural kind termsGrazer Philosophische Studien 70 (1): 147-168. 2006.Several authors (Boghossian 1998; Segal 2000) allege that 'empty' would-be natural kind terms are a problem for anti-individualistic semantics. In this paper I rebut the charge by providing an anti-individualistic semantics for such terms.
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103Must Differences in Cognitive Value be Transparent?Erkenntnis 69 (2): 165-187. 2008.Frege’s ‘differential dubitability’ test is a test for differences in cognitive value: if one can rationally believe that p while simultaneously doubting that q, then the contents p and q amount to different ‘cognitive values’. If subject S is rational, does her simultaneous adoption of different attitudes towards p and q require that the difference between p and q(as cognitive values) be transparent to her? It is natural to think so. But I argue that, if attitude anti-individualism is true…Read more
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2The Knowledge Account of Assertion and the Conditions on Testimonial KnowledgeIn Duncan Pritchard & Patrick Greenough (eds.), Williamson on Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2009.
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IntroductionIn Internalism and externalism in semantics and epistemology, Oxford University Press. 2007.
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142Epistemic extendedness, testimony, and the epistemology of instrument-based beliefPhilosophical Explorations 15 (2). 2012.In Relying on others [Goldberg, S. 2010a. Relying on others: An essay in epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press], I argued that, from the perspective of an interest in epistemic assessment, the testimonial belief-forming process should be regarded as interpersonally extended. At the same time, I explicitly rejected the extendedness model for beliefs formed through reliance on a mere mechanism, such as a clock. In this paper, I try to bolster my defense of this asymmetric treatment. I argu…Read more
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143Self‐ascription, Self‐knowledge, and the Memory ArgumentAnalysis 57 (3): 211-219. 1997.is tendentious. (Throughout this paper I shall refer to this claim as
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204Comments on Miranda Fricker's Epistemic InjusticeEpisteme 7 (2): 138-150. 2010.Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice is a wide-ranging and important book on a much-neglected topic: the injustice involved in cases in which distrust arises out of prejudice. Fricker has some important things to say about this sort of injustice: its nature, how it arises, what sustains it, and the unhappy outcomes associated with it for the victim and the society in which it takes place. In the course of developing this account, Fricker also develops an account of the epistemology of testimony…Read more
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3Reductionism and the distinctiveness of testimonial knowledgeIn Jennifer Lackey & Ernest Sosa (eds.), The Epistemology of Testimony, Oxford University Press. pp. 127--44. 2006.
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1Work: The Case of TestimonyIn Jessica Brown & Herman Cappelen (eds.), Assertion: New Philosophical Essays, Oxford University Press. pp. 175. 2011.
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138Anti-Individualism: Mind and Language, Knowledge and JustificationCambridge University Press. 2007.Sanford C. Goldberg argues that a proper account of the communication of knowledge through speech has anti-individualistic implications for both epistemology and the philosophy of mind and language. In Part I he offers a novel argument for anti-individualism about mind and language, the view that the contents of one's thoughts and the meanings of one's words depend for their individuation on one's social and natural environment. In Part II he discusses the epistemic dimension of knowledge commun…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |