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156How to defeat belief in the external worldPacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (2). 2006.I defend the view that there is a privileged class of propositions – that there is an external world, among other such 'hinge propositions'– that possess a special epistemic status: justified belief in these propositions is not defeated unless one has sufficient reason to believe their negation. Two arguments are given for this conclusion. Finally, three proposals are offered as morals of the preceding story: first, our justification for hinge propositions must be understood as defeatable, secon…Read more
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156Epistemic conceptions of begging the questionErkenntnis 65 (3): 343-363. 2006.A number of epistemologists have recently concluded that a piece of reasoning may be epistemically permissible even when it is impossible for the reasoning subject to present her reasoning as an argument without begging the question. I agree with these epistemologists, but argue that none has sufficiently divorced the notion of begging the question from epistemic notions. I present a proposal for a characterization of begging the question in purely pragmatic terms.
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155The Social Value of Non-Deferential BeliefAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (1): 131-151. 2016.We often prefer non-deferential belief to deferential belief. In the last twenty years, epistemology has seen a surge of sympathetic interest in testimony as a source of knowledge. We are urged to abandon ‘epistemic individualism’ and the ideal of the ‘autonomous knower’ in favour of ‘social epistemology’. In this connection, you might think that a preference for non-deferential belief is a manifestation of vicious individualism, egotism, or egoism. I shall call this the selfishness challenge to…Read more
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138Knowledge and ConversationPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (3). 2009.You are clever, Thrasymachus, I said, for you know very well that if you asked anyone how much is twelve, and as you asked him you warned him: "Do not, my man, say that twelve is twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, for I will not accept such nonsense," it would be quite clear to you that no one can answer a question asked in those terms. (Republic 337b).
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135Desire and GoodnessPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (1): 160-180. 2021.Hume argued that passions, unlike judgments of the understanding, cannot be reasonable or unreasonable. Crucial for his argument was the premise that passions cannot be correct or incorrect. As he put it: “[a] passion is an original existence … and contains not any representative quality” and “passions are not susceptible of any … agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact … being original facts and realities, compleat in themselv…Read more
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109How to defend response moralismBritish Journal of Aesthetics 49 (3): 241-255. 2009.Here I defend response moralism, the view that some emotional responses to fi ctions are morally right, and others morally wrong, from the objection that responses to merely fi ctional characters and events cannot be morally evaluated. I defend the view that emotional responses to fi ctions can be morally evaluated only to the extent that said responses are responses to real people and events.
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86Assertion: New Philosophical Essays, edited by Jessica Brown and Herman Cappelen (review)Mind 121 (483): 784-788. 2012.
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81A Critical Introduction to SkepticismBloomsbury Academic. 2014.Skepticism remains a central and defining issue in epistemology, and in the wider tradition of Western philosophy. To better understand the contemporary position of this important philosophical subject, Allan Hazlett introduces a range of topics, including: • Ancient skepticism • skeptical arguments in the work of Hume and Descartes • Cartesian skepticism in contemporary epistemology • anti-skeptical strategies, including Mooreanism, nonclosure, and contextualism • additional varieties of skepti…Read more
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74On the special insult of refusing testimonyPhilosophical Explorations 20 (sup1): 37-51. 2017.In this paper, I defend the claim, made by G. E. M. Anscombe and J. L. Austin, that you can insult someone by refusing her testimony. I argue that refusing someone’s testimony can manifest doubt about her credibility, which in the relevant cases is offensive to her, given that she presupposed her credibility by telling what she did. I conclude by sketching three applications of my conclusion: to the issue of valuable false belief, to the issue of testimonial injustice, and to the issue of skepti…Read more
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72Possible evilsRatio 19 (2). 2006.I consider an objection to Lewisian modal realism: the view entails that there are a great many real evils that we ought to care about, but in fact we shouldn’t care about these evils. I reply on behalf of the modal realist – we should and do care about possible evils, and this is shown in our reactions to fictions about evils, which (plausibly, for the modal realist) are understood as making certain possible evils salient.
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69Critical InjusticeAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 57 (2): 129-144. 2020.In this paper I examine unjust deficits of criticism, or what I call cases of “critical injustice.” In paradigm cases of testimonial injustice, prejudice leads one person to give insufficient credibility to another. In paradigm cases critical injustice, prejudice leads one person to offer insufficient criticism of another. Here I articulate the concept of critical injustice and give an explanation of why it is a species of injustice. I also describe a non-prejudicial species of critical inju…Read more
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68Desire That Amounts to KnowledgePhilosophical Quarterly 71 (1): 56-73. 2021.I argue that desire sometimes amounts to knowledge, in the same sense that belief sometimes amounts to knowledge. The argument rests on two assumptions: that goodness is the correctness condition for desire and that knowledge is apt mental representation. Desire that amounts to knowledge—or ‘conative knowledge’—is illustrated by cases in which someone knows the goodness of something despite not believing that it is good.
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56Reasons for Action. Edited by David Sobel and Steven Wall. , £21.99 .) (review)Philosophical Quarterly 62 (247): 413-415. 2012.
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56Pragmatic Reasons: A Defense of Morality and Epistemology. By Jeremy Randel Koons. (Hampshire: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2009. Pp. 304. Price £62.00.) (review)Philosophical Quarterly 62 (247): 408-410. 2012.
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43Review of J. David Velleman, How We Get Along (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (11). 2009.
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43Book Review: In Praise of Reason. By Michael P. Lynch.International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 4 (1): 75-79. 2014.
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31Review of Joseph Keim Campbell and Michael O'Rourke, Harry S. Silverstein (eds.), Knowledge and Skepticism (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2011 (1). 2011.
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31Review of Pylyshyn, Things and Places (review)International Philosophical Quarterly 48 (4): 544-546. 2008.
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29New Waves in Metaphysics (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2010.Introduction; A.Hazlett Quantification, Naturalness, and Ontology; R.P.Cameron Two Problems of Composition in Collective Action; S.R.Chant Another Look at the Reality of Race, By Which I Mean Racef; J.Glasgow Bringing Things About; N.Judisch Interpretation: Its Scope and Limits; U.Kriegel Empirical Analyses of Causation; D.Kutach Brutal Individuation; A.Hazlett Ghosts in the World Machine? Humility and Its Alternatives; R.Langton& C.Robichaud Is Everything Relative? Anti-Realism, Truth, and Femi…Read more
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25Review of S. Soames, _Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century (review)International Philosophical Quarterly 50 (1): 131-136. 2010.
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25Things and Places: How Mind Connects with the World (review)International Philosophical Quarterly 48 (4): 544-546. 2008.
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