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Molyneux's QuestionsIn Ralph Schumacher (ed.), Perception and Reality, Mentis. pp. 168-187. 2004.More than 300 years ago, William Molyneux raised an important and puzzling question which still creates a lot of controversy. What is known as “Molyneux’s question“ was made famous by John Locke’s quote of Molyneux in the second edition of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding: “Suppose a Man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a Cube, and a Sphere of the same metal, and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt one and t’other, which is the…Read more
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46Ist der Begriff des Wissens inkohärent?Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 55 (4). 2001.This is a response to Ansgar Beckermann's argument to the effect that the concept of knowledge is incoherent and should thus be given up.
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1202Zwei Seiten der Kantschen Begründung von Eigentum und StaatKant Studien 85 (2): 147-159. 1994.Abstract. Kant's political philosophy in general is characterized by two aspects which sometimes compete with each other and sometimes supplement each other: an individualist element on the one hand and a social or "communitarian" element on the other hand. This paper deals with Kant's theory of private property. It attempts to show something that is usually overlooked in the secondary literature: that Kant has two, not just one argument for property. One is based on his theory of freedom and ex…Read more
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378Epistemic Contrastivism, Knowledge and Practical ReasoningErkenntnis 81 (1): 59-68. 2016.Epistemic contrastivism is the view that knowledge is a ternary relation between a person, a proposition and a set of contrast propositions. This view is in tension with widely shared accounts of practical reasoning: be it the claim that knowledge of the premises is necessary for acceptable practical reasoning based on them or sufficient for the acceptability of the use of the premises in practical reasoning, or be it the claim that there is a looser connection between knowledge and practical re…Read more
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23¿ Se puede saber lo que se quiere?Ideas Y Valores 44 (96-97): 3-22. 1995.Can one come to know what one wants? In some very simple cases, the answer has to be positive but in some other cases the answer is not so clear. The answer depends on what kind of self-knowledge one is taking about. This article also aims at elucidating the notion of knowledge of one's own desires.
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559Knowledge across Contexts. A Problem for Subject-Sensitive InvariantismDialogue 55 (2): 363-380. 2016.The possibility of knowledge attributions across contexts (where attributor and subject find themselves in different epistemic contexts) can create serious problems for certain views of knowledge. Amongst such views is subject—sensitive invariantism—the view that knowledge is determined not only by epistemic factors (belief, truth, evidence, etc.) but also by non—epistemic factors (practical interests, etc.). I argue that subject—sensitive invariantism either runs into a contradiction or has to …Read more
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Der Denker als Seiltänzer. Ludwig Wittgenstein über Religion, Mystik und Ethik (review)Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 57 (1). 2003.
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123Problems for Sinnott-Armstrong's moral contrastivismPhilosophical Quarterly 58 (232). 2008.In his recent book Moral Skepticisms Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues in great detail for contrastivism with respect to justified moral belief and moral knowledge. I raise three questions concerning this view. First, how would Sinnott-Armstrong account for constraints on admissible contrast classes? Secondly, how would he deal with notorious problems concerning relevant reference classes? Finally, how can he account for basic features of moral agency? It turns out that the last problem is the mos…Read more
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1221Defending the One Percent? Poor Arguments for the Rich?The Harvard Review of Philosophy XXI 21 106-112. 2014.This is a reply to and critique of Gregory Mankiw's recent paper "Defending the One Percent".
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81A Puzzle About Responsibility: A Problem and its Contextualist SolutionErkenntnis 74 (2): 207-224. 2011.This paper presents a puzzle about moral responsibility. The problem is based upon the indeterminacy of relevant reference classes as applied to action. After discussing and rejecting a very tempting response I propose moral contextualism instead, that is, the idea that the truth value of judgments of the form S is morally responsible for x depends on and varies with the context of the attributor who makes that judgment. Even if this reply should not do all the expected work it is a first step.
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2Müller, Synonymie und Analytizität: Zwei sinnvolle Begriffe (review)Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 24 (1): 94-99. 1999.
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Response to Schaffer's ReplyIn Stefan Toiksdorf (ed.), Conceptions of Knowledge, De Gruyter. pp. 425-431. 2012.This is a response to Jonathan Schaffer's reply to my criticism of contrastivism.
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92Justification and the Truth-Connection By Clayton Littlejohn (review)Analysis 74 (4): 731-733. 2014.Review of Littlejohn, "Justification and the Truth Connection".
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971To Thine Own Self Be Untrue: A Diagnosis of the Cable Guy ParadoxLogique Et Analyse 51 (204): 355-364. 2008.Hájek has recently presented the following paradox. You are certain that a cable guy will visit you tomorrow between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. but you have no further information about when. And you agree to a bet on whether he will come in the morning interval (8, 12] or in the afternoon interval (12, 4). At first, you have no reason to prefer one possibility rather than the other. But you soon realise that there will definitely be a future time at which you will (rationally) assign higher proba…Read more
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Kant y el yoIn Felipe Castañeda, Vincente Durán & Luis Eduardo Hoyos (eds.), Immanuel Kant: vigencia de la filosofía crítica, Siglo Del Hombre Editores. pp. 79-89. 2007.An interpretation and discussion of Kant's theory of the self.
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34Gerhard Ernst: Das problem Des wissens, paderborn: Mentis 2002Grazer Philosophische Studien 68 (1): 221-223. 2005.Review of Ernst, "Das Problem des Wissens".
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330The Scottish Pragmatist? The Dilemma of Common Sense and the Pragmatist Way OutReid Studies 2 (2): 47-58. 1999.One of the great attractions of Thomas Reid's account of knowledge is that he attempted to avoid the alternative between skepticism and dogmatism. This attempt, however, faces serious problems. It is argued here that there is a pragmatist way out of the problems, and that there are even hints to this solution in Reid's writings.
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1Epistemic contractsIn Georg Meggle (ed.), Social Facts and Collective Intentionality. Philosophische Forschung / Philosophical research, Dr. Hänsel-hohenhausen. pp. 1--19. 2002.The idea of a social contract has played a major role in modern political philosophy but not in modern epistemology, -- not even in more recent "social theories of knowledge". The idea of an epistemic contract, however, is very interesting and deserves more attention. In this paper, I discuss arguments to the effect that we cannot do without epistemic contracts. I come to the conclusion that these arguments are not convincing. If one wants to make use of contractarian arguments in epistemology, …Read more
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Handlung, Absicht und InstrumentalitätIn Christoph Hubig, Andreas Luckner & Nadia Mazouz (eds.), Handeln und Technik - mit und ohne Heidegger, Lit-verlag. pp. 77-82. 2007.This paper argues that two types of action - routine action and affective action - have been neglected in current action theory. Inquiry into these kinds of action can lead to interesting insights.
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124Counting on numbersAnalysis 69 (3): 446-448. 2009.1. Here is a very simple game. You come up with a number and I come up with a number. If I come up with the higher number, I win; otherwise you win. You go first. Call this ‘The Very Simple Game’. Few would play it if they had to go first and many if they are guaranteed to go second.2. Here is another one. You come up with a number n and I come up with a number m. If m times 1/ n > 1, then I win; if not, then you win. You go first. Call this ‘Still The Very Simple Game’. Since I win just in case…Read more
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168On ReflectionPhilosophical Quarterly 64 (256): 510-512. 2014.Review of Kornblith, "On Reflection".
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DisculpasIn Flor Emilce Cely & William Duica (eds.), Intersubjetividad. Ensayos filosóficos sobre autoconciencia, sujeto y acción, Universidad Nacional De Colombia. pp. 271-281. 2009.A discussion of different aspects (including the logical form) of apologies.
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The Social Construction of Social RealityDissertatio 19 313-322. 2004.This is a critical discussion of John Searle's views on the metaphysics of the social.
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Leading a Human Life. Wittgenstein, Intentionality, and Romanticism (review)Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 54 (4). 2000.
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989Molyneux's Question and the Berkeleian AnswerIn Jean Paul Margot & Mauricio Zuluaga (eds.), Jean Paul Margot & Mauricio Zuluaga (eds.), Perspectivas de la Modernidad. Siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII, Colección Artes Y Humanidades. pp. 217-234. 2011.Amongst those who answered Molyneux’s question in the negative or at least not in the positive, George Berkeley is of particular interest because he argued for a very radical position. Most of his contribution to the discussion can be found in his Essay towards a New Theory of Vision. I will give an exposition of his view (2) and then move on to a critical discussion of this kind of view, - what one could call the “Berkeleian view” (3). I think that the problems of what has become a standard neg…Read more
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72I Know. Modal Epistemology and ScepticismPhilosophical Quarterly 64 (257): 640-644. 2014.Review of Freitag, "I know".
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485Empiricism, stances, and the problem of voluntarismSynthese 178 (1): 27-36. 2011.Voluntarism about beliefs is the view that persons can be free to choose their beliefs for non-epistemic (truth-related) reasons (cf. Williams 1973). One problem for belief voluntarism is that it can lead to Moore-paradoxality. The person might believe that a.) there are also good epistemic reasons for her belief, or that b.) there are no epistemic reasons one way or the other, or that c.) there are good epistemic reasons against her belief. If the person is aware of the fact that she chose her…Read more
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270Single-case probabilities and the case of Monty Hall: Levy’s viewSynthese 162 (2): 265-273. 2008.In Baumann (American Philosophical Quarterly 42: 71–79, 2005) I argued that reflections on a variation of the Monty Hall problem throws a very general skeptical light on the idea of single-case probabilities. Levy (Synthese, forthcoming, 2007) puts forward some interesting objections which I answer here.
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |