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203Epistemic Circularity: Vicious, Virtuous and BenignInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 1 (2): 105-112. 2011.Sosa's work on epistemic circularity has significance beyond his own brand of virtue epistemology, with its characteristic distinction between animal and reflective knowledge. On the contrary, it demonstrates the necessity of embracing foundationalism and externalism in epistemology, while at the same time answering various charges (some perennial) against epistemology in general. This paper distinguishes six kinds of epistemic circularity that are discussed in Sosa's work: two virtuous, two vic…Read more
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37Epistemic Evaluation: Purposeful Epistemology (edited book)Oxford University Press UK. 2015.Epistemic Evaluation aims to explore and apply a particular methodology in epistemology. The methodology is to consider the point or purpose of our epistemic evaluations, and to pursue epistemological theory in light of such matters. Call this purposeful epistemology. The idea is that considerations about the point and purpose of epistemic evaluation might fruitfully constrain epistemological theory and yield insights for epistemological reflection. Several contributions to this volume explicitl…Read more
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19Discrimination and Testimonial KnowledgeEpisteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology 4 (3): 335-351. 2007.
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393Recent Work on Testimonial KnowledgeAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 49 (1): 15-28. 2012.Recent interest in the epistemology of testimony can be traced to C. A. J. Coady's Testimony: A Philosophical Study (1992) and then a collection of papers edited by Bimal Krishna Matilal and Arindam Chakrabarti, Knowing from Words (1994). These two volumes framed several issues in the epistemology of testimony and largely set the agenda for work in that area over the next two decades. One major issue in this literature is whether testimonial knowledge can be "reduced" to some other kind of knowl…Read more
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26A Realist Conception of Truth (review)International Philosophical Quarterly 38 (3): 313-317. 1998.
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38Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification (review)International Philosophical Quarterly 37 (1): 115-119. 1997.
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147Virtue, Luck and the Pyrrhonian ProblematicPhilosophical Studies 130 (1): 9-34. 2006.A number of contemporary philosophers endorse a Pyrrhonian theme: that one has knowledge only if one knows or understands that one’s beliefs are reliably formed. Otherwise, one is like a man who grasps gold in the dark: such a man is successful, but his success is a matter of luck, and so not creditable to him. It is argued that the skeptical problem and the problem of moral luck share a common structure and a common solution. Specifically, a virtue-theoretic approach helps us to understand impo…Read more
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166Cognitive integration and the ownership of belief: Response to BerneckerPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (1). 2008.This paper responds to Sven Bernecker’s argument that agent reliabilism cannot accommodate internalist intuitions about clarvoyance cases. In section 1 we clarify a version of agent reliabilism and Bernecker’s objections against it. In section 2 we say more about how the notion of cognitive integration helps to adjudicate clairvoyance cases and other proposed counterexamples to reliabilism. The central idea is that cognitive integration underwrites a kind of belief ownership, which in turn und…Read more
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3267Knowledge as Credit for True BeliefIn Michael DePaul & Linda Zagzebski (eds.), Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives From Ethics and Epistemology, Clarendon Press. pp. 111-134. 2003.The paper begins by reviewing two problems for fallibilism: the lottery problem, or the problem of explaining why fallible evidence, though otherwise excellent, is not enough to know that one will lose the lottery, and Gettier problems. It is then argued that both problems can be resolved if we note an important illocutionary force of knowledge attributions: namely, that when we attribute knowledge to someone we mean to give the person credit for getting things right. Alternatively, to say that …Read more
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228Virtues and Vices of Virtue EpistemologyCanadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (3): 413-432. 1993.In recent years, virtue epistemology has won the attention of a wide range of philosophers. A developed form of the position has been expounded forcefully by Ernest Sosa and represents the most plausible version of reliabilism to date. Through the person of Alvin Plantinga, virtue epistemology has taken philosophy of religion by storm, evoking objections and defenses in a wide variety of journals and volumes. Historically, virtue epistemology has its roots in the work of Thomas Reid, and the exp…Read more
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84How to beat a sceptic without begging the questionRatio 6 (1): 1-15. 1993.In this paper I offer a solution to scepticism about the world which neither embraces idealism, nor ends in a stalemate, nor begs the question against the sceptic. In the first part of the paper I explicate the sceptical argument and try to show why it has real force. In the next part of the paper I propose a version of the relevant possibilities approach to scepticism. The central claim of the proposed solution is that a sceptical possibility undermines knowledge only if the possibility is true…Read more
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22Skepticism and the Modern OntologyProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 73 217-228. 1999.
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421What is transmission*?Episteme 13 (4): 481-498. 2016.Almost everyone believes that testimony can transmit knowledge from speaker to hearer. What some philosophers mean by this is ordinary and pedestrian-- they mean only that, in at least some cases, a speaker S knows that p, S testifies that p to a hearer H, and H comes to know that p as a result of believing S's testimony. There is disagreement about how this occurs, but that it does occur is sufficient for the transmission of knowledge in the intended sense. On this understanding of transmissi…Read more
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83Cognitive Integration and the Ownership of Belief: Response to BerneckerPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (1): 173-184. 2008.Sven Bernecker has raised questions about how agent reliabilism should adjudicate clairvoyance cases.1 Bernecker’s charge is that the view cannot accommodate internalist intuitions about such cases while remaining psychologically plausible. His more specific charge is that invoking the notion of cognitive integration does not help. This paper responds to Bernecker’s charges. In section 1 we clarify a version of agent reliabilism and Bernecker’s objections against it. In section 2 we say more abo…Read more
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161Religious Knowledge in the Context of Conflicting TestimonyProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 83 61-76. 2009.An adequate account of testimonial knowledge in general explains how religious knowledge can be grounded in testimony, and even in the context of conflicting testimonial traditions. Three emerging trends in epistemology help to make that case. The first is to make a distinction between two projects of epistemology: “the project of explanation” and “the project of vindication.” The second is to emphasize a distinction between knowledge and understanding. The third is to ask what role the concept …Read more
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312Agent reliabilismPhilosophical Perspectives 13 273-296. 1999.This paper reviews two skeptical arguments and argues that a reliabilist framework is necessary to avoid them. The paper also argues that agent reliabilism, which makes the knower the seat of reliability, is the most plausible version of reliabilism.
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80Plantinga, Foundationalism, and the Charge of Self-referential IncoherenceGrazer Philosophische Studien 31 (1): 187-193. 1988.Alvin Plantinga charges classical foundationalism with self-referential incoherence, meaning that that doctrine employs criteria for rationally acceptable propositions which exclude the criteria themselves. More specifically, the charge is that the criteria are neither properly basic nor supported by properly basic propositions. In section 1 the doctrine of classical foundationalism is briefly explained. In section 2, a defense against Plantinga's objection is provided showing how the foundation…Read more
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149Virtue Epistemology: Contemporary Readings (edited book)MIT Press. 2012.Virtue epistemology is a diverse and flourishing field, one of the most exciting developments in epistemology to emerge over the last three decades. Virtue epistemology begins with the premise that epistemology is a normative discipline and, accordingly, a central task of epistemology is to explain the sort of normativity that knowledge, justified belief, and the like involve. A second premise is that a focus on the intellectual virtues is essential to carrying out this central task. This collec…Read more
Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |