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120Contextualism, 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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8FrontmatterIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. 2016.
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91From 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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597Contrastivism, 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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166Two 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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1333The 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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545Knowledge, 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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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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400The 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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83A 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
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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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3In defence of modest anti-luck epistemologyIn Kelly Becker & Tim Black (eds.), The Sensitivity Principle in Epistemology, Cambridge University Press. pp. 173--192. 2012.
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717An argument for the inconsistency of content externalism and epistemic internalismPhilosophia 31 (3-4): 345-354. 2004.Whereas a number of recent articles have focussed upon whether the thesis of content externalism is compatible with a certain sort of knowledge that is gained via first-person authority,1 far less attention has been given to the relationship that this thesis bears to the possession of knowledge in general and, in particular, its relation to internalist and externalist epistemologies. Nevertheless, although very few actual arguments have been presented to this end, there does seem to be a shared …Read more
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28The 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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26Chapter 3. Wittgenstein on the Structure of Rational EvaluationIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. pp. 61-88. 2016.
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104Greco 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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1197Putnam on Brains-in-Vats and Radical SkepticismIn Sanford Goldberg (ed.), Putnam on Brains in Vats, Cambridge University Press. 2016.
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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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228Moral 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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138McKinsey 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
University of St. Andrews
PhD, 2000
Irvine, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |