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42Psychology and Philosophical AnalysisProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 89 (1): 195-209. 1989.It is often said that philosophical analysis is an a priori enterprise. Since it prominently features thought experiments designed to elicit the meaning, or semantic properties, of words in one's own language, it seems to be a purely reflective inquiry, requiring no observational or empirical component. I too have sometimes acquiesced in this sort of view. While arguing that certain phases of epistemology require input from psychology and other cognitive sciences, I have granted that the more 'c…Read more
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361Strong and weak justificationPhilosophical Perspectives 2 51-69. 1988.It is common in recent epistemology to distinguish different senses, or conceptions, of epistemic justification. The proposed oppositions include the objective/subjective, internalist/externalist, regulative/nonregulative, resource-relative/resource-independent, personal/verific, and deontological/evaluative conceptions of justification. In some of these cases, writers regard both members of the contrasting pair as legitimate; in other cases only one member. In this paper I want to propose anoth…Read more
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108What Is Democracy (and What Is Its Raison D’Etre)?Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (2): 233-256. 2015.This article aims to say what democracy is or what the predicate ‘democratic’ means, as opposed to saying what is good, right, or desirable about it. The basic idea—by no means a novel one—is that a democratic system is one that features substantial equality of political power. More distinctively it is argued that ‘democratic’ is a relative gradable adjective, the use of which permits different, contextually determined thresholds of democraticness. Thus, a system can be correctly called ‘democra…Read more
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37Legal evidenceIn Martin P. Golding & William A. Edmundson (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory, Blackwell. pp. 163-175. 2004.This chapter contains section titled: Scope of the Topic A Unified Theory: The Search for Truth The Adversary System and the Search for Truth Truth, Reliability, and Bayesianism Applications of Quasi‐objective Bayesianism References Further Reading.
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71Replies to Perner and Brandl, Saxe, Vignemont, and CarruthersPhilosophical Studies 144 (3): 477-491. 2009.
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85Two Routes to Empathy: Insights from Cognitive NeuroscienceIn Amy Coplan & Peter Goldie (eds.), Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, Oxford University Press. pp. 31-44. 2011.
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1116Internalism 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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395ReliabilismStanford 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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7A guide to social epistemologyIn Alvin I. Goldman & Dennis Whitcomb (eds.), Social Epistemology: Essential Readings, Oxford University Press. pp. 11-37. 2011.
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71The 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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1185Experts: 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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279Philosophical naturalism and intuitional methodologyProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. forthcoming.
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374Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-readingTrends in Cognitive Sciences 2 (12): 493-501. 1998.A new class of visuomotor neuron has been recently discovered in the monkey’s premotor cortex: mirror neurons. These neurons respond both when a particular action is performed by the recorded monkey and when the same action, performed by another individual, is observed. Mirror neurons appear to form a cortical system matching observation and execution of goal-related motor actions. Experimental evidence suggests that a similar matching system also exists in humans. What might be the functional r…Read more
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299Systems-oriented social epistemologyIn Tamar Szabó Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 189-214. 2005.
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128Epistemology 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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444ExpertiseTopoi 37 (1): 3-10. 2018.This paper offers a sizeable menu of approaches to what it means to be an expert. Is it a matter of reputation within a community, or a matter of what one knows independently of reputation? An initial proposal characterizes expertise in dispositional terms—an ability to help other people get answers to difficult questions or execute difficult tasks. What cognitive states, however, ground these abilities? Do the grounds consist in “veritistic” states or in terms of evidence or justifiedness? To w…Read more
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48Ziff 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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239Mirroring, mindreading, and simulationIn Jaime A. Pineda (ed.), Mirror Neuron Systems: The Role of Mirroring Processes in Social Cognition, Humana Press. pp. 311-330. 2009.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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156Recursive 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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41Can science know when you're conscious? Epistemological foundations of consciousness researchJournal of Consciousness Studies 7 (5): 3-22. 2000.Consciousness researchers standardly rely on their subjects’ verbal reports to ascertain which conscious states they are in. What justifies this reliance on verbal reports? Does it comport with the third-person approach characteristic of science, or does it ultimately appeal to first-person knowledge of consciousness? If first-person knowledge is required, does this pass scientific muster? Several attempts to rationalize the reliance on verbal reports are considered, beginning with attempts to d…Read more
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132Veritistic 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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24Reply 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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190A priori warrant and naturalistic epistemology: The seventh Philosophical Perspectives lecturePhilosophical Perspectives 13 1-28. 1999.Epistemology has recently witnessed a number of efforts to rehabilitate rationalism, to defend the existence and importance of a priori knowledge or warrant construed as the product of rational insight or apprehension (Bealer 1987; Bigelow 1992; BonJour 1992, 1998; Burge 1998; Butchvarov 1970; Katz 1998; Plantinga 1993). This effort has sometimes been coupled with an attack on naturalistic epistemology, especially in BonJour 1994 and Katz 1998. Such coupling is not surprising, because naturalist…Read more
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1The Need for Social EpistemologyIn Brian Leiter (ed.), The Future for Philosophy, Clarendon Press. pp. 182-207. 2004.
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |