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473Introduction [to Logos & Episteme, Special Issue: Intellectual Humility]Logos and Episteme 7 (7). 2016.While it is widely regarded that intellectual humility is among the intellectual virtues, there is as of yet little consensus on the matter of what possessing and exercising intellectual humility consists in, and how it should be best understood as advancing our epistemic goals. For example, does intellectual humility involve an underestimation of one’s intellectual abilities, or rather, does it require an accurate conception? Is intellectual humility a fundamentally interpersonal/social virtue…Read more
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41Knowledge and virtue: Response to kelpInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 17 (4). 2009.This Article does not have an abstract
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38Review of Jason Stanley, Knowledge and Practical Interests (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (6). 2006.
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69Doubt undogmatized: pyrrhonian scepticism, epistemological externalism and the 'metaepistemological' challengePrincipia: An International Journal of Epistemology 4 (2): 187-214. 2000.It has become almost a conventional wisdom to argue that Cartesian scepticism poses a far more radical sceptical threat than its classical Pyrrhonian counterpart. Such a view fails to recognise, however, that there is a species of sceptical concern that can only plausibly be regarded as captured by the Pyrrhonian strategy. For whereas Cartesian scepticism is closely tied to the contentious doctrine of epistemological internalism, it is far from obvious that Pyrrhonian scepticism bears any such t…Read more
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157Virtue epistemology and epistemic luck, revisitedMetaphilosophy 39 (1). 2008.In this article I return to an argument that I presented in earlier work to the effect that virtue epistemology is at worse false and at best unmotivated. In the light of recent responses to this argument from such figures as John Greco, Guy Axtell, and Kelly Becker, I here re-state and re-evaluate this argument. In the process the original argument is refined and supplemented in key respects and some of the main charges against it are shown to be unfounded. Nevertheless, I also argue that at le…Read more
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41I—Duncan Pritchard: Radical Scepticism, Epistemic Luck, and Epistemic ValueAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 82 (1): 19-41. 2008.
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520Anti-luck epistemologySynthese 158 (3): 277-297. 2007.In this paper, I do three things. First, I offer an overview of an anti- luck epistemology, as set out in my book, Epistemic Luck. Second, I attempt to meet some of the main criticisms that one might level against the key theses that I propose in this work. And finally, third, I sketch some of the ways in which the strategy of anti- luck epistemology can be developed in new directions
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298RiskMetaphilosophy 46 (3): 436-461. 2015.In this article it is argued that the standard theoretical account of risk in the contemporary literature, which is cast along probabilistic lines, is flawed, in that it is unable to account for a particular kind of risk. In its place a modal account of risk is offered. Two applications of the modal account of risk are then explored. First, to epistemology, via the defence of an anti-risk condition on knowledge in place of the normal anti-luck condition. Second, to legal theory, where it is show…Read more
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119Contextualism, scepticism, and the problem of epistemic descentDialectica 55 (4). 2001.Perhaps the most dominant anti‐sceptical proposal in recent literature –advanced by such figures as Stewart Cohen, Keith DeRose and David Lewis –is the contextualist response to radical scepticism. Central to the contextualist thesis is the claim that, unlike other non‐contextualist anti‐sceptical theories, contextualism offers a dissolution of the sceptical paradox that respects our common sense epistemological intuitions. Taking DeRose's view as representative of the contextualist position, it…Read more
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45The Opacity of KnowledgeEssays in Philosophy 2 (1): 1-17. 2001.Here is a common ‘intuition’ that you’ll often find expressed regarding the epistemological externalism/internalism distinction. It is the thought that epistemological internalism, whatever its other faults, at least leaves the possession of knowledge a transparent matter; whereas epistemological externalism, whatever its other merits, at least makes the possession of knowledge opaque. It is the status of this view of the externalism/internalism contrast that I wish to evaluate in this paper. In…Read more
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182How to be a neo-MooreanIn Sanford Goldberg (ed.), Internalism and externalism in semantics and epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 68--99. 2007.Much of the recent debate regarding scepticism has focussed on a certain template sceptical argument and a rather restricted set of proposals concerning how one might deal with that argument. Throughout this debate the ‘Moorean’ response to scepticism is often cited as a paradigm example of how one should not respond to the sceptical argument, so conceived. As I argue in this paper, however, there are ways of resurrecting the Moorean response to the sceptic. In particular, I consider the prospec…Read more
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95The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context (review)Philosophical Review 120 (3): 455-460. 2011.
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596Contrastivism, evidence, and scepticismSocial Epistemology 22 (3). 2008.I offer a critical treatment of the contrastivist response to the problem of radical scepticism. In particular, I argue that if contrastivism is understood along externalist lines then it is unnecessary, while if it is understood along internalist lines then it is intellectually dissatisfying. Moreover, I claim that a closer examination of the conditions under which it is appropriate to claim knowledge reveals that we can accommodate many of the intuitions appealed to by contrastivists without h…Read more
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164Two forms of epistemological contextualismGrazer Philosophische Studien 64 (1): 19-55. 2002.The recent popularity of contextualist treatments of the key epistemic concepts has tended to obscure the differences that exist between the various kinds of contextualist theses on offer. The aim of this paper is to contribute towards rectifying this problem by exploring two of the main formulations of the contextualist position currently on offer in the literature—the 'semantic' contextualist thesis put forward by Keith DeRose and David Lewis, and the 'inferential' contextualist thesis advance…Read more
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8FrontmatterIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. 2016.
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88From Epistemic Anti-Individualism to Intellectual HumilityRes Philosophica 93 (3): 533-552. 2016.Epistemic anti-individualism is the view that positive epistemic statuses fail to supervene on internal, physical or mental, properties of individuals. Intellectual humility is a central intellectual virtue in the pursuit of such statuses. After some introductory remarks, this paper provides an argument for epistemic anti-individualism with respect to a virtue-theoretic account of testimonial knowledge. An outline of a dual-aspect account of intellectual humility is then offered. The paper proce…Read more
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83Neo-mooreanism versus contextualismGrazer Philosophische Studien 69 (1): 1-24. 2005.Attributer contextualism has undoubtedly been the dominant anti-sceptical theory in the recent literature. Nevertheless, this view does face some fairly serious problems, and it is argued that when the contextualist position is compared to a refined version of the much derided 'Moorean' response to scepticism, then it becomes clear that there are distinct advantages to being a neo-Moorean rather than a contextualist.
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223Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Contemporary Anti-ScepticismIn D. Moyal-Sharrock & W. H. Brenner (eds.), Investigating On Certainty: Essays on Wittgenstein's Last Work, Palgrave-macmillan. 2005.This paper examines the relevance of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty to the contemporary debate regarding the problem of radical scepticism. In particular, it considers two accounts in the recent literature which have seen in Wittgenstein’s remarks on “hinge propositions” in On Certainty the basis for a primarily epistemological anti-sceptical thesis—viz., the inferential contextualism offered by Michael Williams and the ‘unearned warrant’ thesis defended by Crispin Wright. Both positions are shown …Read more
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116Scepticism and the possibility of knowledgeAnalysis 69 (2): 317-325. 2009.1. Quassim Cassam's subtle book, The Possibility of Knowledge, 1 contains many insights. My goal here is not to attempt to give a sense of all that this book has to offer – which I suspect would be foolhardy in the extreme – but rather to explore one particular central theme of this book that I find especially interesting – viz. the application of the ‘multi-level’ response to ‘how possible?’ questions that Cassam offers to the problem of radical scepticism.2. A central contention of Cassam's bo…Read more
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1318The Epistemology of Cognitive EnhancementJournal of Medicine and Philosophy (2): 220-242. 2016.A common epistemological assumption in contemporary bioethics held b y both proponents and critics of non-traditional forms of cognitive enhancement is that cognitive enhancement aims at the facilitation of the accumulation of human knowledge. This paper does three central things. First, drawing from recent work in epistemology, a rival account of cognitive enhancement, framed in terms of the notion of cognitive achievement rather than knowledge, is proposed. Second, we outline and respond to an…Read more
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540Knowledge, Understanding and Epistemic ValueRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 64 19-43. 2009.It is argued that a popular way of accounting for the distinctive value of knowledge by appeal to the distinctive value of cognitive achievements fails because it is a mistake to identify knowledge with cognitive achievements. Nevertheless, it is claimed that understanding, properly conceived, is a type of cognitive achievement, and thus that the distinctive value of cognitive achievements can explain why understanding is of special value
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112Radical Scepticism, Epistemological Externalism, and ClosureTheoria 68 (2): 129-161. 2002.A certain interpretation of Wittgenstein’s remarks in On Certaintyadvanced by such figures as Hilary Putnam, Peter Strawson, Avrum Stroll and Crispin Wrighthas become common currency in the recent literature. In particular, this reading focuses upon the supposed anti-sceptical import of the Wittgensteinian notion of a “hinge” proposition. In this paper it is argued that this interpretation is flawed both on the grounds that there is insufficient textual support for this reading and that, in an…Read more
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376The Routledge Companion to Epistemology (edited book)Routledge. 2010.Epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge, is at the core of many of the central debates and issues in philosophy, interrogating the notions of truth, objectivity, trust, belief and perception. _The Routledge Companion to Epistemology_ provides a comprehensive and the up-to-date survey of epistemology, charting its history, providing a thorough account of its key thinkers and movements, and addressing enduring questions and contemporary research in the field. Organized thematically, the _Compani…Read more
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82A Puzzle about WarrantPhilosophical Inquiry 23 (1-2): 59-71. 2001.A puzzle about warranted belief, often attributed to Kripke, has recently come to prominence. This puzzle claims to show that it follows from the possession of a warrant for one's belief in an empirical proposition that one is entitled to dismiss all subsequent evidence against that proposition as misleading. The two main solutions that have been offered to this puzzle in the recent literature - by James Cargile and David Lewis - argue for a revisionist epistemology which, respectively, either d…Read more
University of St. Andrews
PhD, 2000
Irvine, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |