•  66
    Kornblith on Epistemic Normativity
    In 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
  •  56
    Pragmatic Encroachment in Epistemology (edited book)
    with Brian Kim
    Routledge. 2019.
    According to philosophical lore, epistemological orthodoxy is a purist epistemology in which epistemic concepts such as belief, evidence, and knowledge are characterized to be pure and free from practical concerns. In recent years, the debate has focused narrowly on the concept of knowledge and a number of challenges have been posed against the orthodox, purist view of knowledge. While the debate about knowledge is still a lively one, the pragmatic exploration in epistemology has just begun. Thi…Read more
  •  52
    Perceptual Capacities: Questions for Schellenberg
    Analysis 79 (4): 730-739. 2019.
    According to Schellenberg’s capacitism, perception is constituted by employing perceptual capacities to discriminate and single out particulars, including objects, events and property instances. To say that perception is so constituted, for her, is to say that perceptual states have the content, phenomenal character, and evidential force they do in virtue of the fact that they are yielded by employing perceptual capacities.1 1
  •  48
    Nonsubjectivism About How Things Seem
    In 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
  •  34
    Epistemology: An Anthology (edited book)
    Wiley. 2008.
    New and thoroughly updated, Epistemology: An Anthology continues to represent the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in the theory of knowledge. Concentrates on the central topics of the field, such as skepticism and the Pyrrhonian problematic, the definition of knowledge, and the structure of epistemic justification Offers coverage of more specific topics, such as foundationalism vs coherentism, and virtue epistemology Presents wholly new sections on 'Testimon…Read more
  •  25
    A rigorous, authoritative new anthology which brings together some of the most significant contemporary scholarship on the theory of knowledge Carefully-calibrated and judiciously-curated, this strong and contemporary new anthology builds upon Epistemology: An Anthology, Second Edition (Wiley Blackwell, 2008) by drawing a concise and well-balanced selection of higher-level readings from a large, diverse, and evolving body of research. Includes 17 readings that represent a broad and vital part of…Read more
  •  12
    The Justification of Memory Beliefs: Evidentialism, Reliabilism, Conservatism
    In Brian P. McLaughlin & Hilary Kornblith (eds.), Goldman and His Critics, Blackwell. pp. 69-87. 2016.
    This chapter follows Conee and Feldman in assuming the traditional conception of the mental. Thus, the author takes it that mentalistic evidentialism is inconsistent with process reliabilism. It examines Goldman's critique of evidentialism's account of the justification of memory beliefs and discusses a problem for Goldman's own reliabilist account of memory beliefs. The chapter distinguishes two sorts of epistemic status at issue and not usually clearly separated in these debates, historical ju…Read more
  •  12
    Scott Soames: Understanding Truth
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2): 410-417. 2002.
  •  3
    Arguing for shifty epistemology
    with J. Fantl
    In Jessica Brown & Mikkel Gerken (eds.), Knowledge Ascriptions, Oxford University Press. pp. 55--74. 2012.
    Shifty epistemologists allow that the truth value of “knowledge”-ascriptions can vary not merely because of such differences, but because of factors not traditionally deemed to matter to whether someone knows, like salience of error possibilities and practical stakes. Thus, contextualists and subject-sensitive invariantists are both examples. This paper examines two strategies for arguing for shifty epistemology: the argument-from-instances strategy, which attempts to show that the truth-value o…Read more
  •  1
    Between Deflationism and the Correspondence Theory
    Dissertation, Brown University. 1998.
    I offer an account of truth that combines elements of deflationism and traditional correspondence theories. We need such an intermediary account, I argue, in order to adequately answer two kinds of questions: "Why do we find it obvious that 'p' is true iff p?" and "Why is it contingent that 'p' is true iff p?" If what it is for 'p' to be true is explained by simply saying that p, as the deflationist claims, it is hard to see how it could be contingent that 'p' is true iff p. But if it is claimed…Read more
  • Matthew McGrath
    Philosophy 74 587-610. 1998.
  • Having false reasons
    with Juan Comesaña
    In Clayton Littlejohn & John Turri (eds.), Epistemic Norms: New Essays on Action, Belief, and Assertion, Oxford University Press. 2013.