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89Two Routes to Empathy: Insights from Cognitive NeuroscienceIn Amy Coplan & Peter Goldie (eds.), Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 31-44. 2011.
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1055Internalism exposedJournal of Philosophy 96 (6): 271-293. 1999.In recent decades, epistemology has witnessed the development and growth of externalist theories of knowledge and justification. Critics of externalism have focused a bright spotlight on this approach and judged it unsuitable for realizing the true and original goals of epistemology. Their own favored approach, internalism, is defended as a preferable approach to the traditional concept of epistemic justification. I shall turn the spotlight toward internalism and its most prominent rationale, re…Read more
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35Replies to Perner and Brandl, Saxe, Vignemont, and CarruthersPhilosophical Studies 144 (3): 477-491. 2009.
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73The compatibility of mechanism and purposePhilosophical Review 78 (October): 468-82. 1969.Norman Malcolm's recent argument against the conceivability of mechanism rests on the claim that purposive explanations of behavior – that is, explanations of behavior in terms of desires or intentions – are incompatible with neurophysiological explanations of behavior. I admit that intentions or desires can be causes of behavior only if they are necessary for behavior, and, generally, that events can be causes only if they are necessary for their effects (except in cases of over-determination).…Read more
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1154Experts: Which ones should you trust?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (1): 85-110. 2001.Mainstream epistemology is a highly theoretical and abstract enterprise. Traditional epistemologists rarely present their deliberations as critical to the practical problems of life, unless one supposes—as Hume, for example, did not—that skeptical worries should trouble us in our everyday affairs. But some issues in epistemology are both theoretically interesting and practically quite pressing. That holds of the problem to be discussed here: how laypersons should evaluate the testimony of expert…Read more
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406ReliabilismStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.Reliabilism is a general approach to epistemology that emphasizes the truth conduciveness of a belief forming process, method, or other epistemologically relevant factor. The reliability theme appears both in theories of knowledge and theories of justification. ‘Reliabilism’ is sometimes used broadly to refer to any theory of knowledge or justification that emphasizes truth getting or truth indicating properties. These include theories originally proposed under different labels, such as ‘trackin…Read more
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81An Epistemological Approach to ArgumentationInformal Logic 23 (1): 51-63. 2003.The evaluation of arguments and argumentation is best understood epistemologically. Epistemic circularity is not formally defective but it may be epistemologically objectionable. Sorenson's doubts about the syntactic approach to circularity are endorsed with qualifications. One explanation of an argument's goodness is its ability to produce justified belief in its conclusion by means of justified belief in its premises, but matters are not so simple for interpersonal argumentation. Even when an …Read more
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303Systems-oriented social epistemologyIn Tamar Szabó Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 189-214. 2005.
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130Epistemology and the theory of problem solvingSynthese 55 (1): 21-48. 1983.Problem solving has recently become a central topic both in the philosophy of science and in cognitive science. This paper integrates approaches to problem solving from these two disciplines and discusses the epistemological consequences of such an integration. The paper first analyzes problem solving as getting a true answer to a question. It then explores some stages of cognitive activity relevant to question answering that have been delineated by historians and philosophers of science and by …Read more
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280Philosophical naturalism and intuitional methodologyProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. forthcoming.
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33Does one size fit all? Hurley on shared circuitsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 31 (1): 27-28. 2008.Hurley's high level of generality suggests that a control-theoretic framework underpins all of the phenomena in question, but this is problematic. In contrast to the action-perception domain, where the control-theoretic framework certainly applies, there is no evidence that this framework equally applies to feelings and emotions, such as pain, touch, and disgust, where mirroring and simulational mindreading are also found
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11Ziff on the Inconsistency of EnglishAnalysis 22 (5): 106. 1962.In an _obiter dictum_ of his recent book _Semantic Analysis_, Paul Ziff discusses the claim that the existence of so-called 'semantic paradoxes' establishes the inconsistency of the English language. Ziff argues that this claim is not justified. I shall try to show that, whether or not the claim is justified, Ziff's argument against it is not a good one.
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247Mirroring, mindreading, and simulationIn Jaime A. Pineda (ed.), Mirror Neuron Systems: The Role of Mirroring Processes in Social Cognition, Springer Science. pp. 311-330. 2008.What is the connection between mirror processes and mindreading? The paper begins with definitions of mindreading and of mirroring processes. It then advances four theses: (T1) mirroring processes in themselves do not constitute mindreading; (T2) some types of mindreading (“low-level” mindreading) are based on mirroring processes; (T3) not all types of mindreading are based on mirroring (“high-level” mindreading); and (T4) simulation-based mindreading includes but is broader than mirroring-based…Read more
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35Comment on Plantinga's "Epistemic Justification"Noûs 20 (1): 19. 1986.Plantinga raises two objections against reliabilism, one a putative counterexample, and the second the familiar generality problem. However, his counterexample fails when applied to a sophisticated version of reliabilism, at least the version presented in "Epistemology and Cognition". The generality problem can also be met, I believe, if cognitive process types are understood as purely psychological natural kinds, not as types that refer to external objects or circumstances, for example.
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133Veritistic Social EpistemologyThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 5 107-114. 2000.Epistemology needs a social branch to complement its traditional, ‘individualist’ branch. Like its individualist sister, social epistemology would be an evaluative enterprise. It would assess (actual and possible) social practices in terms of their propensities to promote or inhibit knowledge, where knowledge is understood in the sense of true belief. Social epistemology should examine the practices of many types of players, as well as technological and institutional structures: speakers, hearer…Read more
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27Is less knowledge better than more?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (5): 751-752. 2000.When a distinction is drawn between “total” knowledge and “problem-specific” knowledge, it is seen that successful users of the recognition heuristic have more problem-specific knowledge than people unable to exploit this heuristic. So it is not ignorance that makes them smart, but knowledge.
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146Recursive tracking versus process reliabilismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (1): 223-230. 2009.Sherrilyn Roush’s Tracking Truth (2005) is an impressive, precision-crafted work. Although it sets out to rehabilitate the epistemological theory of Robert Nozick’s "Philosophical Explanations" (1981), its departures from Nozick’s line are extensive and original enough that it should be regarded as a distinct form of epistemological externalism. Roush’s mission is to develop an externalism that averts the problems and counterexamples encountered not only by Nozick’s theory but by other varieties…Read more
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1The Need for Social EpistemologyIn Brian Leiter (ed.), The future for philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 182-207. 2004.
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25Reply to BraybrookePhilosophical Studies 30 (4): 273-275. 1976.A few comments may help set the record straight on the issues Braybrooke raises (or reraises). First, I concede that my treatment of the relation between resources and opportunity costs was inaccurate. Braybrooke is correct in saying that opportunity costs may rise while resources are also rising. By itself, however, this does not resolve the question of whether power is inversely related to opportunity cost. It may still be true that one's power goes down when opportunity cost rises, even if on…Read more
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290A Moderate Approach to Embodied Cognitive ScienceReview of Philosophy and Psychology 3 (1): 71-88. 2012.Many current programs for cognitive science sail under the banner of “embodied cognition.” These programs typically seek to distance themselves from standard cognitive science. The present proposal for a conception of embodied cognition is less radical than most, indeed, quite compatible with many versions of traditional cognitive science. Its rationale is based on two elements, each of which is theoretically plausible and empirically well-founded. The first element invokes the idea of “bodily f…Read more
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118Toward a theory of social powerPhilosophical Studies 23 (4): 221-268. 1972.The concept of power has long played a significant role in political thought, and recent decades have witnessed many attempts to analyze power and provide criteria for its measurement. In spite of this impressive literature, however, our understanding of power remains inadequate. Specifically, no fully comprehensive conceptual framework exists within which questions about power can be formulated precisely and dealt with systematically. In the absence of such a framework it is difficult to invest…Read more
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104Epistemic Paternalism: Communication Control in Law and SocietyJournal of Philosophy 88 (3): 113-131. 1991.
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57Psychological, Social, and Epistemic Factors in the Theory of SciencePSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994 277-286. 1994.This article blends psychological and social factors in the explanation of science, and defends the compatibility of a psychosocial picture with an epistemic picture. It examines three variants of the 'political' approach to interpersonal persuasion advocated by Latour and others. In each case an 'epistemic' or mixed account is more promising and empirically better supported. Psychological research on motivated reasoning shows the epistemic limits of interest-driven belief. Against social constr…Read more
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175Argumentation and social epistemologyJournal of Philosophy 91 (1): 27-49. 1994.What is a good argument? That depends on what is meant by 'argument'. In formal logic, an argument is a set of sentences or propositions, one designated as conclusion and the remainder as premises. On this conception of argument, there are two kinds of goodness. An argument is good in a weak sense if the conclusion either follows deductively from the premises or receives strong evidential support from them. An argument is good in a strong sense if, in addition to this, it has only true premises.…Read more
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441Epistemology and cognitionHarvard University Press. 1986.Against the traditional view, Alvin Goldman argues that logic, probability theory, and linguistic analysis cannot by themselves delineate principles of rationality or justified belief. The mind's operations must be taken into account.
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Précis and update of Epistemology and cognitionIn Marjorie Clay & Keith Lehrer (eds.), Knowledge and skepticism, Westview Press. pp. 69-88. 1989.Epistemics as a whole would have a larger scope, encompassing secondary as well as primary individual epistemology and social epistemology in addition. There are a variety of terms of intellectual evaluation, many of interest to epistemology. The ones most commonly used in the discipline are ‘justified’ and ‘rational.’ Another central term of intellectual appraisal, which oddly has received only scant attention in the field, is ‘intelligent.’ Epistemology should be concerned with this range of i…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |