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101What is This Thing Called Philosophy? (edited book)Routledge. 2015._What is this thing called Philosophy?_ is the definitive textbook for all who want a thorough introduction to the field. It introduces philosophy using a question-led approach that reflects the discursive nature of the discipline. Edited by Duncan Pritchard, each section is written by a high-profile contributor focusing on a key area of philosophy, and contains three or four question-based chapters offering an accessible point of engagement. The core areas of philosophy covered are: Ethics Poli…Read more
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57Wittgenstein on Faith and Reason: The Influence of NewmanIn Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), God, Truth, and Other Enigmas, De Gruyter. pp. 197-216. 2015.
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41IntroductionSynthese 158 (3): 273-275. 2007.I introduce the topic of this special issue of Synthese, and give an overview of the articles collected here.
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8Meta-Epistemological Constraints on Anti-Sceptical TheoriesFacta Philosophica 3 (1): 101-26. 2001.
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17Knowledge and ValueIn Peter Adamson (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2010.
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57The Power, and Limitations, of Virtue EpistemologyIn Ruth Groff & John Greco (eds.), Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism, Routledge. pp. 248--269. 2013.
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11CoherentismIn Sven Bernecker & Duncan Pritchard (eds.), Routledge Companion to Epistemology, Routledge. 2010.
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134Epistemological disjunctivismOxford University Press. 2012.Epistemological disjunctivism in outline -- Favouring versus discriminating epistemic support -- Radical scepticsim.
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254Zagzebski on RationalityEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 6 (4): 39--46. 2014.This paper examines Linda Zagzebski’s account of rationality, as set out in her rich, wide-ranging, and important book, Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief. We briefly describe the account that she offers and then consider its plausibility. In particular, in the first section we argue that a number of Zagzebski’s claims with regard to rationality require more support than she offers for them. Moreover, in the second section, we contend that far from offering…Read more
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46Chapter 2. Radical Skepticism and UnderdeterminationIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. pp. 29-60. 2016.
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103Greco on knowledge: Virtues, contexts, achievementsPhilosophical Quarterly 58 (232). 2008.I discuss John Greco's paper 'What's Wrong with Contextualism?', in which he outlines a theory of knowledge which is virtue-theoretic while also being allied to a form of attributor contextualism about 'knows'.
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1165Putnam on Brains-in-Vats and Radical SkepticismIn Sanford Goldberg (ed.), Putnam on Brains in Vats, Cambridge University Press. 2016.
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221Seeing it for oneself: Perceptual knowledge, understanding, and intellectual autonomyEpisteme 13 (1): 29-42. 2016.The idea of is explored. It is claimed that there is something epistemically important about acquiring one's knowledge first-hand via active perception rather than second-hand via testimony. Moreover, it is claimed that this kind of active perceptual seeing it for oneself is importantly related to the kind of understanding that is acquired when one possesses a correct and appropriately detailed explanation of how cause and effect are related. In both cases we have a kind of seeing it for oneself…Read more
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24The value of knowledgeThe Philosophers' Magazine 26 54-55. 2004.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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45Epistemically useful false beliefsPhilosophical Explorations 20 (sup1): 4-20. 2017.Our interest is in the possibility of there being a philosophically interesting set of useful false beliefs where the utility in question is specifically epistemic. As we will see, it is hard to delineate plausible candidates in this regard, though several are promising at first blush. We begin with the kind of strictly false claims that are said to be often involved in good scientific practice, such as through the use of idealisations and fictions. The problem is that it is difficult to see tha…Read more
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229Moral and epistemic luckMetaphilosophy 37 (1). 2005.It is maintained that the arguments put forward by Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel in their widely influential exchange on the problem of moral luck are marred by a failure to (i) present a coherent understanding of what is involved in the notion of luck, and (ii) adequately distinguish between the problem of moral luck and the analogue problem of epistemic luck, especially that version of the problem that is traditionally presented by the epistemological sceptic. It is further claimed that on…Read more
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137McKinsey paradoxes, radical skepticism, and the transmission of knowledge across known entailmentsSynthese 130 (2): 279-302. 2002.A great deal of discussion in the recent literature has been devoted to the so-called 'McKinsey' paradox which purports to show that semantic externalism is incompatible with the sort of authoritative knowledge that we take ourselves to have of our own thought contents. In this paper I examine one influential epistemological response to this paradox which is due to Crispin Wright and Martin Davies. I argue that it fails to meet the challenge posed by McKinsey but that, if it is set within an ext…Read more
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812Recent Work on Radical SkepticismAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 39 (3): 215-257. 2002.This discussion surveys recent developments in the treatment of the epistemological problem of skepticism. These are arguments which attack our knowledge of certain truths rather than, say, our belief in the existence of certain entities. In particular, this article focuses on the radical versions of these skeptical arguments, arguments which purport to show that knowledge is, for the most part, impossible, rather than just that we lack knowledge in a particular discourse. Although most of the k…Read more
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82Evidentialism, internalism, disjunctivismIn Trent Dougherty (ed.), Evidentialism and its Discontents, Oxford University Press. 2011.
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1185Knowledge‐How and Cognitive AchievementPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (1): 181-199. 2015.According to reductive intellectualism, knowledge-how just is a kind of propositional knowledge (e.g., Stanley & Williamson 2001; Stanley 2011a, 2011b; Brogaard, 2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2011, 2009, 2011). This proposal has proved controversial because knowledge-how and propositional knowledge do not seem to share the same epistemic properties, particularly with regard to epistemic luck. Here we aim to move the argument forward by offering a positive account of knowledge-how. In particular, we propos…Read more
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205Knowledge, luck and lotteriesIn Vincent Hendricks (ed.), New Waves in Epistemology, Palgrave-macmillan. 2007.It is a platitude in epistemology to say that knowledge excludes luck. Indeed, if one can show that an epistemological theory allows ‘lucky’ knowledge, then that usually suffices to warrant one in straightforwardly rejecting the view. Even despite the prevalence of this intuition, however, very few commentators have explored what it means to say that knowledge is incompatible with luck. In particular, no commentator, so far as I am aware, has offered an account of what luck is and on this basis …Read more
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219Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our BelievingPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (3): 70-90. 2016.Support is canvassed for a novel solution to the sceptical problem regarding our knowledge of the external world. Key to this solution is the claim that what initially looks like a single problem is in fact two logically distinct problems. In particular, there are two putative sceptical paradoxes in play here, which each trade on distinctive epistemological theses. It is argued that the ideal solution to radical scepticism would thus be a biscopic proposal—viz., a two-pronged, integrated, underc…Read more
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160Radical scepticism, epistemic luck, and epistemic valueAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 82 (1): 19-41. 2008.It is argued that it is beneficial to view the debate regarding radical scepticism through the lens of epistemic value. In particular, it is claimed that we should regard radical scepticism as aiming to deprive us of an epistemic standing that is of special value to us, and that this methodological constraint on our dealings with radical scepticism potentially has important ramifications for how we assess the success of an anti-sceptical strategy.
University of St. Andrews
PhD, 2000
Irvine, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |