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28Scepticism and CommonsenseAnalysis 82 (4): 716-725. 2022.Bergmann (2021) has written a sophisticated monograph on radical scepticism that offers a distinctive kind of commonsense response to this difficulty. My critic.
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27Philosophy for EveryoneRoutledge. 2013.Philosophy for Everyone begins by explaining what philosophy is before exploring the questions and issues at the foundation of this important subject.Key topics and their areas of focus include:Epistemology - what our knowledge of the world and ourselves consists in, and how we come to have it;Philosophy of Science - foundational conceptual issues in scientific research and practice;Philosophy of Mind - what it means for something to have a mind, and how minds should be understood and explained;…Read more
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27Doubt UndogmatizedPrincipia: An International Journal of Epistemology 4 (2). 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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27Veritic DesireHumana Mente 14 (39). 2021.The intellectual virtues are defined, in part, in terms of a love for the truth: veritic desire. Unpacking this idea is complicated, however, not least because of the difficulty of understanding the truth goal that is associated with veritic desire. In particular, it is argued that this cannot be formulated in terms of the maximization of one’s true beliefs. What is required, it is claimed, is a conception of veritic desire as aiming at understanding the fundamental nature of reality, where this…Read more
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27Scepticism and Epistemic Angst, ReduxSynthese 198 (Suppl 15): 3635-3664. 2019.Part one offers a précis of my book, Epistemic Angst, with particular focus on the themes discussed by the participants in this symposium. Part two then examines a number of topics raised in this symposium in light of this précis. These include how best to understand the ‘non-belief’ account of hinge epistemology, whether we should think of our hinge commitments as being a kind of procedural knowledge, whether hinge epistemology can be used to deal with underdetermination-based scepticism, what …Read more
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27Arguing About Knowledge (edited book)Routledge. 2008.What is knowledge? What are the sources of knowledge? What is the value of knowledge? What can we know? _Arguing About Knowledge_ offers a fresh and engaging perspective on the theory of knowledge. This comprehensive and imaginative selection of readings examines the subject in an unorthodox and entertaining manner whilst covering the fundamentals of the theory of knowledge. It includes classic and contemporary pieces from the most influential philosophers from Descartes, Russell, Quine and G.E.…Read more
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27Contextualism, Scepticism, and the Problem of Epistemic DescentDialectica 55 (4): 327-349. 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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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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26Venturinha and Epistemic VertigoPhilosophia 48 (5): 1699-1704. 2020.This paper critically explores Nuno Venturinha’s discussion of the Wittgensteinian notion of epistemic vertigo in the context of the radical sceptical problematic, at least as that notion has been recently articulated by Duncan Pritchard.
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26Extended knowledge and autonomous beliefInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.Adam Carter has recently presented a novel puzzle about extended knowledge – i.e. knowledge that results from extended cognitive processes. He argues that allowing for this kind of knowledge on the face of it entails that there could be instances of knowledge that are simply ‘engineered’ into the subject. The problem is that such engineered knowledge does not look genuine given that it results from processes that bypass the cognitive agency of the subject. Carter’s solution is to argue that we n…Read more
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25Omniscience and ignoranceVeritas – Revista de Filosofia da Pucrs 66 (1). 2021.God’s omniscience generates certain puzzles, not least regarding how such omniscience is compatible with human free will. One option in this regard is to impose limitations on the scope of God’s knowledge, but that then poses the further question of how such limitations can be compatible with God’s nature as a perfect being. I offer a novel way of approaching these questions, which appeals to what I claim is an independently motivated distinction between lacking knowledge and being ignorant. In …Read more
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25Virtuous Arguing With Conviction and HumilityEthical Theory and Moral Practice 1-14. forthcoming.Can one enter into an argument with one’s intellectual equals in good faith if one regards the matter in hand as already settled? Adopting such an attitude looks very much like taking a dogmatic stance, in that one is closing one’s mind to counterarguments in advance. Dogmatism is, of course, an intellectual vice. Moreover, such dogmatism seems morally problematic, in that one is failing to treat one’s adversary with due respect. While there is clearly something correct about this line of thinki…Read more
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25The Sources of ScepticismInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 6 (2-3): 203-227. 2016.
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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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24Cognitive Responsibility and the Epistemic VirtuesIn Ernest Sosa (ed.), Epistemology: An Anthology, Blackwell. pp. 2--462. 2005.I argue that the notion of reflective epistemic luck raises important questions about the centrality to epistemology of a conception of justification that demands that one is able to take cognitive responsibility for one’s beliefs. I take a critical look at some of the recent ‘virtue epistemologies’ that have been put forward in the recent literature which define knowledge in terms of the epistemic virtues and cognitive faculties. More specifically, I contrast broadly externalist construals of t…Read more
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24Wittgenstein’s On Certainty as Pyrrhonism in ActionIn Shyam Wuppuluri & Newton da Costa (eds.), Wittgensteinian : Looking at the World From the Viewpoint of Wittgenstein's Philosophy, Springer Verlag. pp. 91-106. 2019.I want to suggest a way of approaching On Certainty that treats what Wittgenstein is doing in the notebooks that make up this work as manifesting a kind philosophical practice that is broadly Pyrrhonian, at least on one reading of what this involves. Such a reading fits with the general philosophical quietism found in Wittgenstein’s work, particularly in his later writings, and is also supported by independent textual evidence that he was profoundly influenced by Pyrrhonian scepticism. Crucially…Read more
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23Educating for Virtuous Intellectual Character and Valuing TruthPhilosophies 8 (2): 29. 2023.This paper explores the thesis that the overarching goal of education is to cultivate virtuous intellectual character. It is shown how finally valuing the truth is central to this theory on account of how such valuing is pivotal to intellectual virtues. This feature of the proposal might be thought to be problematic for a number of reasons. For example, it could be argued that truth is not valuable, that insisting on valuing the truth in educational contexts could be politically dubious, or that…Read more
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23The sources of scepticismEstudios de Filosofía (Universidad de Antioquia) 60. 2019.It is claimed that the radical sceptical problem that is the focus of much of contemporary epistemological discussion in fact divides into two logically distinct subproblems --a formulation that turns on the closure principle, and a second formulation which turns on the underdetermination principle. The Wittgensteinian account of the structure of rational evaluation is set out, and it is shown how this proposal --at least when properly formulated--can deal with closure-based radical scepticism. …Read more
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23Chapter 6. Epistemological Disjunctivism and Closure-Based Radical SkepticismIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. pp. 144-166. 2016.
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22Chapter 1. Radical Skepticism and ClosureIn Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing, Princeton University Press. pp. 9-28. 2016.
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20Scepticism: A Very Short IntroductionOxford University Press. 2019.This book explores the nature of scepticism, asking when it is legitimate, for example as the driver of new ideas, and when it is problematic. It also tackles how scepticism is related to contemporary social and political phenomena, such as fake news, and examines a radical form of scepticism which maintains that knowledge is impossible.
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20Hinge commitments and trustSynthese 202 (5): 1-20. 2023.According to the innovative account of the structure of rational evaluation offered by Wittgenstein in his final notebooks, published as On Certainty, our rational practices necessarily presuppose arational hinge commitments. These are everyday, apparently mundane, commitments that we are optimally certain of, but which in virtue of the ‘hinge’ role that they play in our rational practices cannot themselves enjoy rational support. Granted that there are such hinge commitments, what is the nature…Read more
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20Socially Extended Epistemology (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2018.This volume explores the epistemology of distributed cognition, the idea that groups of people can generate cognitive systems that consist of all participating members. Can distributed cognitive systems generate knowledge in a similar way to individuals? If so, how does this kind of knowledge differ from normal, individual knowledge?
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20In Defense of Veritism: Responses to My CriticsEpistemology and Philosophy of Science 58 (4): 68-76. 2021.
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19Wittgenstein’s On Certainty as Pyrrhonism in ActionIn A. C. Grayling, Shyam Wuppuluri, Christopher Norris, Nikolay Milkov, Oskari Kuusela, Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, Beth Savickey, Jonathan Beale, Duncan Pritchard, Annalisa Coliva, Jakub Mácha, David R. Cerbone, Paul Horwich, Michael Nedo, Gregory Landini, Pascal Zambito, Yoshihiro Maruyama, Chon Tejedor, Susan G. Sterrett, Carlo Penco, Susan Edwards-Mckie, Lars Hertzberg, Edward Witherspoon, Michel ter Hark, Paul F. Snowdon, Rupert Read, Nana Last, Ilse Somavilla & Freeman Dyson (eds.), Wittgensteinian : Looking at the World From the Viewpoint of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, Springer Verlag. pp. 91-106. 2019.I want to suggest a way of approaching On Certainty that treats what Wittgenstein is doing in the notebooks that make up this work as manifesting a kind philosophical practice that is broadly Pyrrhonian, at least on one reading of what this involves. Such a reading fits with the general philosophical quietism found in Wittgenstein’s work, particularly in his later writings, and is also supported by independent textual evidence that he was profoundly influenced by Pyrrhonian scepticism. Crucially…Read more
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19Preface to the Cavell SymposiumInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 5 (1): 1. 2015._ Source: _Volume 5, Issue 1, pp 1 - 1 A preface to a symposium devoted to Stanley Cavell’s The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, featuring papers by Peter Fosl, Andrea Kern, and Stephen Mulhall
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18I—Duncan Pritchard: Radical Scepticism, Epistemic Luck, and Epistemic ValueAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 82 (1): 19-41. 2008.
University of St. Andrews
PhD, 2000
Irvine, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |