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65Précis of Epistemological Disjunctivism in advanceJournal of Philosophical Research. forthcoming.
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198The 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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402Sensitivity, 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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204Epistemic 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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193The 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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16Chapter 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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183Scepticism 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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Contrastivism, scepticism, and evidenceIn Duncan Pritchard, Alan Millar & Adrian Haddock (eds.), Social Epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 22--305. 2008.
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851On Metaepistemological ScepticismIn Brett Coppenger & Michael Bergmann (eds.), Intellectual Assurance: Essays on Traditional Epistemic Internalism, 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
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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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38Chapter 4. Hinge CommitmentsIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. pp. 89-120. 2016.
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158Virtue 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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274Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Twin EarthEuropean Journal of Philosophy 22 (3): 335-357. 2011.A popular form of virtue epistemology—defended by such figures as Ernest Sosa, Linda Zagzebski and John Greco—holds that knowledge can be exclusively understood in virtue-theoretic terms. In particular, it holds that there isn't any need for an additional epistemic condition to deal with the problem posed by knowledge-undermining epistemic luck. It is argued that the sustainability of such a proposal is called into question by the possibility of epistemic twin earth cases. In particular, it is a…Read more
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181Scepticism, epistemic luck, and epistemic angstAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (2). 2005.A commonly expressed worry in the contemporary literature on the problem of epistemological scepticism is that there is something deeply intellectually unsatisfying about the dominant anti-sceptical theories. In this paper I outline the main approaches to scepticism and argue that they each fail to capture what is essential to the sceptical challenge because they fail to fully understand the role that the problem of epistemic luck plays in that challenge. I further argue that scepticism is best …Read more
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106Engel on pragmatic encroachment and epistemic valueSynthese 194 (5): 1477-1486. 2017.I discuss Engel’s critique of pragmatic encroachment in epistemology and his related discussion of epistemic value. While I am sympathetic to Engel’s remarks on the former, I think he makes a crucial misstep when he relates this discussion to the latter topic. The goal of this paper is to offer a better articulation of the relationship between these two epistemological issues, with the ultimate goal of lending further support to Engel’s scepticism about pragmatic encroachment in epistemology. As…Read more
University of St. Andrews
PhD, 2000
Irvine, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |