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188Temporal partsPhilosophy Compass 2 (5). 2007.This article discusses recent work in metaphysics on temporal parts. After a short introduction introducing the notion of a temporal part, we examine several well‐known arguments for the view that ordinary material objects such as tables, trees, and persons have temporal parts: (1) positing temporal parts makes it possible to solve puzzles of coincidence (e.g., the statue/lump puzzle); (2) positing temporal parts makes it possible to solve the problem of intrinsic change over time; and (3) the e…Read more
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176Epistemology: A Contemporary IntroductionOxford University Press. 2014.Epistemology has long mesmerized its practitioners with numerous puzzles. What can we know, and how can we know it? In Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction, Alvin Goldman, one of the most noted contemporary epistemologists, and Matthew McGrath, known for his work on a wide range of topics in the field, have joined forces to delve into these puzzles.
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173Clarifying Pragmatic Encroachment: A Reply to Charity Anderson and John Hawthorne on Knowledge, Practical Adequacy, and StakesOxford Studies in Epistemology 6. 2019.This chapter addresses concerns that pragmatic encroachers are committed to problematic knowledge variance. It first replies to Charity Anderson and John Hawthorne’s new putative problem cases, which purport to show that pragmatic encroachment is committed to problematic variations in knowledge depending on what choices are available to the potential knower. It argues that the new cases do not provide any new reasons to be concerned about the pragmatic encroacher’s commitment to knowledge-varian…Read more
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172Scott Soames: Understanding truth (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2). 2002.Consider Soames’ Version 1 of the liar paradox.
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160Deflationism and the normativity of truthPhilosophical Studies 112 (1). 2003.This paper argues, in response to Huw Price, that deflationism has the resources to account for the normativity of truth. The discussion centers on a principle of hyper-objective assertibility, that one is incorrect to assert that p if not-p. If this principle doesn't state a fact about truth, it neednt be explained by deflationists. If it does,, it can be explained.
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160Defeating pragmatic encroachment?Synthese 195 (7). 2018.This paper examines the prospects of a prima facie attractive response to Fantl and McGrath’s argument for pragmatic encroachment. The response concedes that if one knows a proposition to be true then that proposition is warranted enough for one to have it as a reason for action. But it denies pragmatic encroachment, insofar as it denies that whether one knows a proposition to be true can vary with the practical stakes, holding fixed strength of warrant. This paper explores two ways to allow kno…Read more
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155Knowing What Things Look Like: A reply to ShieberInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.In ‘Knowing What Things Look Like,’ I argued against the immediacy of visual objectual knowledge, i.e. visual knowledge that a thing is F, for an object category F, such as avocado, tree, desk, etc. Joseph Shieber proposes a challenging dilemma in reply. Either knowing what Fs look like requires having concepts such as looks or it doesn’t. Either way my argument fails. If knowing what Fs look like doesn’t require having such concepts, then he claims we can give an immediacy-friendly anti-intelle…Read more
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146Schellenberg on the epistemic force of experiencePhilosophical Studies 173 (4): 897-905. 2016.According to Schellenberg, our perceptual experiences have the epistemic force they do because they are exercises of certain sorts of capacity, namely capacities to discriminate particulars—objects, property-instances and events—in a sensory mode. She calls her account the “capacity view.” In this paper, I will raise three concerns about Schellenberg’s capacity view. The first is whether we might do better to leave capacities out of our epistemology and take content properties as the fundamental…Read more
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145Alston on the Epistemic Advantages of the Theory of AppearingJournal of Philosophical Research 41 (9999): 53-70. 2016.William Alston claimed that epistemic considerations are relevant to theorizing about the metaphysics of perceptual experience. There must be something about the intrinsic nature of a perceptual experience that explains why it is that it justifies one in believing what it does, rather than other propositions. A metaphysical theory of experience that provides the resources for such an explanation is to be preferred over ones that do not. Alston argued that the theory of appearing gains a leg up o…Read more
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144Précis of Knowledge in an Uncertain World (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (2): 441-446. 2012.
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129The concrete modal realist challenge to platonismAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (4). 1998.This Article does not have an abstract
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127Quasi-realism and the Humean defense of normative non-factualismPhilosophical Studies 90 (2): 113-127. 1998.
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125Platonism and Anti-Platonism in Mathematics (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (1): 239-242. 2001.Mark Balaguer has written a provocative and original book. The book is as ambitious as a work of philosophy of mathematics could be. It defends both of the dominant views concerning the ontology of mathematics, Platonism and Anti-Platonism, and then closes with an argument that there is no fact of the matter which is right.
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113Four-dimensionalism and the puzzles of coincidenceOxford Studies in Metaphysics 3 143-76. 2007.
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107Is Suspension of Judgment a Question-Directed Attitude? No, not Really (3rd ed.)In Matthias Steup & John Turri (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Blackwell. 2013.In what follows, I’ll discuss several approaches to suspension. As we’ll see, the issue of whether and in what sense(s) suspension is *question-directed* is important to developing an adequate account. I will argue that suspension isn’t question-directed in the way that curiosity, wondering, and inquiry are. The most promising approach, in my view, takes suspension to be an agential matter; it involves the will. As we’ll see, this view makes sense of a lot of familiar facts about suspension, and…Read more
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104Review of John Hawthorne, Knowledge and Lotteries (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2004 (8). 2004.
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96Between Deflationism and Correspondence TheoryRoutledge. 2000.McGrath argues for an original truth theory that combines elements of two well-known philosophical theories--deflationism and correspondence
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90Kornblith on Epistemic NormativityIn Luis Oliveira & Joshua DiPaolo (eds.), Kornblith and His Critics, Wiley-blackwell. forthcoming.Kornblith’s “Epistemic Normativity” is a classic in the now voluminous literature on the source of epistemic normativity. His account is as simple as it is bold: the source is desire, not a desire for true belief, or knowledge, but any set of desires. No matter what desires you have, so long as you are a being of a kind that employs beliefs in cost-benefit analysis, certain sorts of truth-centered epistemic norms will have normative force for you. We can distinguish two questions about epistemic…Read more
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88Jessica Brown: Fallibilism: Evidence and KnowledgeJournal of Philosophy 116 (11): 637-644. 2019.
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82Nonsubjectivism About How Things SeemIn Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford & Matthias Steup (eds.), Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles, Routledge. 2023.We regularly appeal to claims of the form it seems that p in defense of a claim p. When we do so, we typically take it seems that p to be a reason for thinking that p but also a reason that “gets at” a relevant body of facts and its support for p. Other things being equal, we should want to vindicate our ordinary beliefs on this matter. We should want to vindicate the claim that facts about things seeming certain ways can be reasons to think that things are that way while at the same time being …Read more
Brown University
PhD
St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Meta-Ethics |
PhilPapers Editorships
Epistemology |