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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.
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257On the Inflation of NecessitiesMetaphysica 13 (1): 51-54. 2012.This brief paper argues that Kripke’s thesis of the necessity of origin has some implausible consequences
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257No Luck With Knowledge? On a Dogma of EpistemologyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 89 (3): 523-551. 2012.Current epistemological orthodoxy has it that knowledge is incompatible with luck. More precisely: Knowledge is incompatible with epistemic luck . This is often treated as a truism which is not even in need of argumentative support. In this paper, I argue that there is lucky knowledge. In the first part, I use an intuitive and not very developed notion of luck to show that there are cases of knowledge which are “lucky” in that sense. In the second part, I look at philosophical conceptions of luc…Read more
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252Information, Closure, And Knowledge: On Jäger’s Objection To DretskeErkenntnis 64 (3): 403-408. 2006.Christoph Jäger (2004) argues that Dretske's information theory of knowledge raises a serious problem for his denial of closure of knowledge under known entailment: Information is closed under known entailment (even under entailment simpliciter); given that Dretske explains the concept of knowledge in terms of "information", it is hard to stick with his denial of closure for knowledge. Thus, one of the two basic claims of Dretske would have to go. Since giving up the denial of closure would comm…Read more
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219Nearly Solving the Problem of Nearly Convergent KnowledgeSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (10): 16-21. 2018.This is a reply to Chris Tweed's recent attempt to solve the problem of "nearly convergent knowledge" and thus defend a binary account of knowledge against a contrastivist alternative. Ingenuous as his proposal is, it still does not solve the problem.
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217The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context, Vol. I – Keith DeRosePhilosophical Quarterly 60 (239): 424-427. 2010.A review and discussion of Keith DeRose's "The Case for Contextualism".
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212Involvement and Detachment: A Paradox of Practical ReasoningIn Allen Coates (ed.), Peter Baumann and Monika Betzler, eds., Practical Conflicts, Duke University Press. pp. 244-261. 2007.For each of the many goals of an agent it is true that the agent wants its realization. Given further very plausible assumptions, one can show that there is no good reason for an agent not to want the realization of all of his goals. However, it seems also true that reaching all of one’s goals would be extremely boring; most human beings would consider such a life not worth living. In this respect, leading a life is like playing some game: A game loses its point if one always easily wins. Human …Read more
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207Contrastivism Rather than Something Else? On the Limits of Epistemic ContrastivismErkenntnis 69 (2): 189-200. 2008.One of the most recent trends in epistemology is contrastivism. It can be characterized as the thesis that knowledge is a ternary relation between a subject, a proposition known and a contrast proposition. According to contrastivism, knowledge attributions have the form “S knows that p, rather than q”. In this paper I raise several problems for contrastivism: it lacks plausibility for many cases of knowledge, is too relaxed concerning the third relatum, and overlooks a further relativity of the …Read more
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172Was Moore a Moorean? On Moore and ScepticismEuropean Journal of Philosophy 17 (2): 181-200. 2009.One of the most important views in the recent discussion of epistemological scepticism is Neo-Mooreanism. It turns a well-known kind of sceptical argument (the dreaming argument and its different versions) on its head by starting with ordinary knowledge claims and concluding that we know that we are not in a sceptical scenario. This paper argues that George Edward Moore was not a Moorean in this sense. Moore replied to other forms of scepticism than those mostly discussed nowadays. His own anti-…Read more
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168IntroductionIn Peter Baumann (ed.), Epistemic Contextualism: A Defense, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 1-5. 2016.Introduction to and overview over my book "Epistemic Contextualism. A Defense" (OUP 2016)
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167On ReflectionPhilosophical Quarterly 64 (256): 510-512. 2014.Review of Kornblith, "On Reflection".
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160Factivity and contextualismAnalysis 70 (1): 82-89. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation).
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152Knowledge and DogmatismPhilosophical Quarterly 63 (250): 1-19. 2013.There is a sceptical puzzle according to which knowledge appears to license an unacceptable kind of dogmatism. Here is a version of the corresponding sceptical argument: (1) If a subject S knows a proposition p, then it is OK for S to ignore all evidence against p as misleading; (2) It is never OK for any subject to ignore any evidence against their beliefs as misleading; (3) Hence, nobody knows anything.I distinguish between different versions of the puzzle (mainly a ‘permissibility’ version an…Read more
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137Reliabilism—modal, probabilistic or contextualistGrazer Philosophische Studien 79 (1): 77-89. 2009.This paper discusses two versions of reliabilism: modal and probabilistic reliabilism. Modal reliabilism faces the problem of the missing closeness metric for possible worlds while probalistic reliabilism faces the problem of the relevant reference class. Despite the severity of these problems, reliabilism is still very plausible (also for independent reasons). I propose to stick with reliabilism, propose a contextualist (or, alternatively, harmlessly relativist) solution to the above problems a…Read more
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129Persons, Human Beings, and RespectPolish Journal of Philosophy 1 (2): 5-17. 2007.Human dignity seems very important to us. At the same time, the concept ‘human dignity’ is extrordinarily elusive. A good way to approach the questions “What is it?” and “Why is it important?” is to raise another question first: In virtue of what do human beings have dignity? Speciesism - the idea that human beings have a particular dignity because they are humans - does not seem very convincing. A better answer says that human beings have dignity because and insofar as they are persons. I discu…Read more
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128Lotteries And ContextsErkenntnis 61 (2): 415-428. 2004.There are many ordinary propositions we think we know. Almost every ordinary proposition entails some "lottery proposition" which we think we do not know but to which we assign a high probability of being true (for instance: “I will never be a multi-millionaire” entails “I will not win this lottery”). How is this possible - given that some closure principle is true? This problem, also known as “the Lottery puzzle”, has recently provoked a lot of discussion. In this paper I discuss one of the mos…Read more
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120Problems 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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120Counting 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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112Is Knowledge Safe?American Philosophical Quarterly 45 (1). 2008.One of the most interesting accounts of knowledge which have been recently proposed is the safety account of knowledge. According to it, one only knows that p if one's true belief that p could not have easily been false: S believes that p ==> p (where "==>" stands for the subjunctive conditional). This paper presents a counter-example and discusses attempts to fix the problem. It turns out that there is a deeper underlying problem which does not allow for a solution that would help the safety th…Read more
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107Enlightenment as Perfection, Perfection as Enlightenment? Kant on Thinking for Oneself and Perfecting OneselfJournal of Philosophy of Education 56 281-289. 2022.Kant’s views about the nature and value of enlightenment have been discussed very much since 1784, and without ever losing any of their relevance and importance. I will discuss a topic that has not been discussed quite that extensively: Kant’s conception of enlightenment as it relates to the idea of perfection (Vollkommenheit) in particular. Is the project of enlightenment also a project of perfection (and vice versa), and if yes, in what sense and to what degree? My aim is twofold here: not jus…Read more
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102Theory Choice and the Intransitivity of 'Is a Better Theory Than'Philosophy of Science 72 (1): 231-240. 2005.There is a very plausible principle of the transitivity of justifying reasons. It says that if "p" is better justified than "q" (all things considered) and "q" better than "r", then "p" is better justified than "r" (all things considered). There is a corresponding principle of rational theory choice. Call one theory "a better theory than" another theory if all criteria of theory choice considered (explanatory power, simplicity, empirical adequacy, etc.), the first theory meets the criteria bette…Read more
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101The case for contexualismAnalysis 70 (1): 149-160. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation).
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101Experiencing things together: What is the problem?Erkenntnis 66 (1-2). 2007.Suppose someone hears a loud noise and at the same time sees a yellow flash. It seems hard to deny that the person can experience loudness and yellowness together. However, since loudness is experienced by the auditory sense whereas yellowness is experienced by the visual sense it also seems hard to explain how.
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100WAMs: Why Worry?Philosophical Papers 40 (2). 2011.Abstract One of the most popular objections against epistemic contextualism is the so-called ?warranted assertability? objection. The objection is based on the possibility of a ?warranted assertability manoeuvre?, also known as a WAM. I argue here that WAMs are of very limited scope and importance. An important class of cases cannot be dealt with by WAMs. No analogue of WAMs is available for these cases. One should thus not take WAMs too seriously in the debate about epistemic contextualism.
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95Three Doors, Two Players, and Single-Case ProbabilitiesAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 42 (1). 2005.The well known Monty Hall-problem has a clear solution if one deals with a long enough series of individual games. However, the situation is different if one switches to probabilities in a single case. This paper presents an argument for Monty Hall situations with two players (not just one, as is usual). It leads to a quite general conclusion: One cannot apply probabilistic considerations (for or against any of the strategies) to isolated single cases. If one does that, one cannot but violate a …Read more
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95Practical Conflicts: New Philosophical Essays (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2004.Practical conflicts pervade human life. Agents have many different desires, goals, and commitments, all of which can come into conflict with each other. How can practical reasoning help to resolve these practical conflicts? In this collection of essays a distinguished roster of philosophers analyse the diverse forms of practical conflict. Their aim is to establish an understanding of the sources of these conflicts, to investigate the challenge they pose to an adequate conception of practical rea…Read more
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92Inductive knowledge and lotteries: Could one explain both ‘safely’?Ratio 34 (2): 118-126. 2021.Safety accounts of knowledge claim, roughly, that knowledge that p requires that one's belief that p could not have easily been false. Such accounts have been very popular in recent epistemology. However, one serious problem safety accounts have to confront is to explain why certain lottery‐related beliefs are not knowledge, without excluding obvious instances of inductive knowledge. We argue that the significance of this objection has hitherto been underappreciated by proponents of safety. We d…Read more
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91Justification 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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79A 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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76Varieties of contextualism: Standards and descriptionsGrazer Philosophische Studien 69 (1): 229-246. 2005.Most contextualists agree that contexts differ with respect to relevant epistemic standards. In this paper, I discuss the idea that the difference between more modest and stricter standards should be explained in terms of the closeness or remoteness of relevant possible worlds. I argue that there are serious problems with this version of contextualism. In the second part of the paper, I argue for another form of contextualism that has little to do with standards and a lot with the well-known pro…Read more
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 |