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62Précis of Epistemological Disjunctivism in advanceJournal of Philosophical Research. forthcoming.
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217Virtue epistemology and the acquisition of knowledgePhilosophical Explorations 8 (3). 2005.The recent literature on the theory of knowledge has taken a distinctive turn by focusing on the role of the cognitive and intellectual virtues in the acquisition of knowledge. The main contours and motivations for such virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge are here sketched and it is argued that virtue epistemology in its most plausible form can be regarded as a refined form of reliabilism, and thus a variety of epistemic externalism. Moreover, it is claimed that there is strong empirical supp…Read more
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24Cognitive Responsibility and the Epistemic VirtuesIn Ernest Sosa & Jaegwon Kim (eds.), Epistemology: An Anthology, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 2--462. 2000.I argue that the notion of reflective epistemic luck raises important questions about the centrality to epistemology of a conception of justification that demands that one is able to take cognitive responsibility for one’s beliefs. I take a critical look at some of the recent ‘virtue epistemologies’ that have been put forward in the recent literature which define knowledge in terms of the epistemic virtues and cognitive faculties. More specifically, I contrast broadly externalist construals of t…Read more
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203The Modal Account of LuckMetaphilosophy 45 (4-5): 594-619. 2014.This essay offers a rearticulation and defence of the modal account of luck that the author developed in earlier work . In particular, the proposal is situated within a certain methodology, a component of which is paying due attention to the cognitive science literature on luck ascriptions. It is shown that with the modal account of luck properly articulated it can adequately deal with some of the problems that have recently been offered against it, and that the view has a number of attractions …Read more
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58Greco on Reliabilism and Epistemic LuckPhilosophical Studies 130 (1): 35-45. 2006.I outline Greco’s response to the Pyrrhonian challenge to epistemic externalist theories of knowledge and offer two points of criticism. I also argue, however, that there is an account of epistemic luck available which can cast some light on the dispute that Greco is concerned with, and which could, in principle at least, be regarded as being in the spirit of the proposal that Greco sets out.
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15Chapter 5. Epistemological Disjunctivism and the Factivity of ReasonsIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. pp. 121-143. 2016.
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401Sensitivity, safety, and anti-luck epistemologyIn John Greco (ed.), The Oxford handbook of skepticism, Oxford University Press. 2008.This paper surveys attempts in the recent literature to offer a modal condition on knowledge as a way of resolving the problem of scepticism. In particular, safety-based and sensitivity-based theories of knowledge are considered in detail, along with the anti-sceptical prospects of an explicitly anti-luck epistemology.
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203Epistemic Virtue and the Epistemology of EducationJournal of Philosophy of Education 47 (2): 236-247. 2013.A certain conception of the relevance of virtue epistemology to the philosophy of education is set out. On this conception, while the epistemic goal of education might initially be promoting the pupil's cognitive success, it should ultimately move on to the development of the pupil's cognitive agency. A continuum of cognitive agency is described, on which it is ultimately cognitive achievement, and thus understanding, which is the epistemic goal of education. This is contrasted with a view on wh…Read more
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192The Structure of Sceptical ArgumentsPhilosophical Quarterly 55 (218). 2005.It is nowadays taken for granted that the core radical sceptical arguments all pivot upon the principle that the epistemic operator in question is 'closed' under known entailments. Accordingly, the standard anti-sceptical project now involves either denying closure or retaining closure by amending how one understands other elements of the sceptical argument. However, there are epistemic principles available to the sceptic which are logically weaker than closure but achieve the same result. Accor…Read more
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2NotesIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. pp. 189-216. 2016.
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180Scepticism and dreamingPhilosophia 28 (1-4): 373-390. 2001.In a recent, and influential, article, Crispin Wright maintains that a familiar form of scepticismwhich finds its core expression in Descartes’ dreaming argumentcan be defused (or, to use Wright’s own parlance, “imploded”), by showing how it employs self-defeating reasoning. I offer two fundamental reasons for rejecting Wright’s ‘implosion’ of scepticism. On the one hand, I argue that, even by Wright’s own lights, it is unclear whether there is a sceptical argument to implode in the first plac…Read more
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18MOOCS, by Jonathan Haber (review)Teaching Philosophy 38 (4): 455-458. 2015.No abstract available.
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30Knowledge or just a lucky guess?The Philosophers' Magazine 55 (55): 66-71. 2011.Our judgements about luck – and about related things, like risk – are for the most part sensitive to what is happening in close possible worlds rather than probabilities.
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70Epistemic AxiologyIn Martin Grajner & Pedro Schmechtig (eds.), Epistemic Reasons, Norms and Goals, De Gruyter. pp. 407-422. 2016.
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35Are Economic Decisions Rational? Path Dependence, Lock-In, and ‘Hinge’ PropositionsPhilosophy of Management 2 (3): 29-40. 2002.According to neo-classical economic theory, free markets should eventually settle at the most efficient equilibrium. Critics of the view have claimed, however, that even if the idealised conditions demanded by the theory were met (such that the markets in question were completely fee) one would still not find those markets settling at the optimally efficient equilibrium because of the path dependent' nature of economic decision-making. Essentially, the claim is that economic decision-making is a…Read more
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133Wright contra McDowell on perceptual knowledge and scepticismSynthese 171 (3). 2009.One of the key debates in contemporary epistemology is that between Crispin Wright and John McDowell on the topic of radical scepticism. Whereas both of them endorse a form of epistemic internalism, the very different internalist conceptions of perceptual knowledge that they offer lead them to draw radically different conclusions when it comes to the sceptical problem. The aim of this paper is to maintain that McDowell's view, at least when suitably supplemented with further argumentation (argum…Read more
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Contrastivism, scepticism, and evidenceIn Duncan Pritchard, Alan Millar & Adrian Haddock (eds.), Social Epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 22--305. 2008.
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16IndexIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. pp. 237-239. 2016.
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8AcknowledgmentsIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. 2016.
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197The Value of KnowledgeThe Harvard Review of Philosophy 16 (1): 86-103. 2009.The value of knowledge has always been a central topic within epistemology. Going all the way back to Plato’s Meno, philosophers have asked, why is knowledge more valuable than mere true belief? Interest in this question has grown in recent years, with theorists proposing a range of answers. But some reject the premise of the question and claim that the value of knowledge is ‘swamped’ by the value of true belief. And others argue that statuses other than knowledge, such as justification or under…Read more
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38Chapter 4. Hinge CommitmentsIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. pp. 89-120. 2016.
University of St. Andrews
PhD, 2000
Irvine, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |