•  91
    Wittgenstein on Faith and Reason: The Influence of Newman
    In Miroslaw Szatkowski (ed.), God, Truth, and other Enigmas, De Gruyter. pp. 197-216. 2015.
  •  79
    Introduction
    Synthese 158 (3): 273-275. 2007.
    I introduce the topic of this special issue of Synthese, and give an overview of the articles collected here.
  •  31
    Coherentism
    In Sven Bernecker & Duncan Pritchard (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, Routledge. 2013.
  •  238
    Epistemological disjunctivism
    Oxford University Press. 2012.
    Epistemological disjunctivism in outline -- Favouring versus discriminating epistemic support -- Radical scepticsim.
  •  716
    Zagzebski on Rationality
    with Shane Ryan
    European 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
  •  148
    Certainty and scepticism
    Philosophical Issues 18 (1): 58-67. 2008.
    No Abstract
  •  87
    The three 'uctions
    The Philosophers' Magazine 34 83-85. 2006.
  •  310
    Epistemic Virtue and the Epistemology of Education
    Journal 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
  •  151
    Review: Scepticism Comes Alive (review)
    Mind 116 (462): 423-427. 2007.
  •  240
    Two forms of epistemological contextualism
    Grazer 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
  •  136
    Evidentialism, internalism, disjunctivism
    In Trent Dougherty (ed.), Evidentialism and its Discontents, Oxford University Press. pp. 235-253. 2011.
    Duncan Pritchard argues that Conee and Feldman have made a mistake by tying their evidentialist views to a classical internalism which accepts the theses of MENT, ACCESS, and DISC. The polar opposite of this classical internalist position is classical externalism, which denies MENT, ACCESS, and DISC. But, Pritchard observes, there are positions intermediate between classical internalism and classical externalism. In particular, there is the epistemic disjunctivist’s position which accepts MENT a…Read more
  •  943
    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
  •  204
    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
  •  1778
    Disjunctivism and Scepticism
    In Diego E. Machuca & Baron Reed (eds.), Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present, Bloomsbury Academic. 2018.
    An overview of the import of disjunctivism to the problem of radical scepticism is offered. In particular, the disjunctivist account of perceptual experience is set out, along with the manner in which it intersects with related positions such as naïve realism and intentionalism, and it is shown how this account can be used to a motivate an anti-sceptical proposal. In addition, a variety of disjunctivism known as epistemological disjunctivism is described, and it is explained how this proposal of…Read more
  •  326
    Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing
    Philosophy 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
  •  205
    Knowledge, luck and lotteries
    In 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
  •  761
    Anti-luck epistemology
    Synthese 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
  •  303
    Reforming Reformed Epistemology
    International Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1): 43-66. 2003.
    ABSTRACT: Perhaps the most influential proposal in the recent literature on the epis- temology of religious belief has been Alvin Plantinga’s anti-evidentialist contention that we should treat certain religious beliefs as properly basic. In order to support this anti-skeptical maneuver, Plantinga (along with other “reformed” epistemologists such as William Alston) has looked to the kind of anti-evidentialist model that is standardly offered as regards the epistemology of perceptual belief a…Read more
  •  299
    Contextualism, Skepticism and Warranted Assertibility Manoeuvres
    In Joseph Campbell (ed.), Knowledge and Skepticism, Mit Press. pp. 85-104. 2010.
    Attributer contextualists maintain that the verb 'knows' is context-sensitive in the sense that the truth conditions of a sentence of the form "S knows that p" can be dependent upon the ascriber's context. One natural objection against attributer contextualism is that it confuses the impropriety of certain assertions which ascribe knowledge to agents with the falsity of those assertions. In an influential article, Keith DeRose has defended attributer contextualism against this charge by proposin…Read more
  •  1648
    On Metaepistemological Scepticism
    In Brett Coppenger & Michael Bergmann (eds.) https://philpapers.org/rec/BERTEI-5, Oxford University Press. 2016.
    Fumerton’s distinctive brand of metaepistemological scepticism is compared and contrasted with the related position outlined by Stroud. It is argued that there are at least three interesting points of contact between Fumerton and Stroud’s metaepistemology. The first point of contact is that both Fumerton and Stroud think that (1) externalist theories of justification permit a kind of non-inferential, perceptual justification for our beliefs about non-psychological reality, but it’s not sufficien…Read more
  •  258
    Is `god exists' a `hinge proposition' of religious belief?
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 47 (3): 129-140. 2000.
    There are parallels between certain responses to local epistemological scepticism about religious belief and an influential reply to radical epistemological scepticism. What ties both accounts together is that they utilise, either implicitly or explicitly, a “hinge” proposition thesis which maintains that the pivotal beliefs in question are immune to sceptical attack even though they lack sufficient epistemic grounds. It is argued that just as this strategy lacks any anti-sceptical efficacy in t…Read more
  •  198
    The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context (review)
    with Robin McKenna
    Philosophical Review 120 (3): 455-460. 2011.
  •  314
    Virtue epistemology and the acquisition of knowledge
    Philosophical 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
  • GASCOIGNE, N.-Scepticism
    Philosophical Books 44 (3): 275-276. 2003.