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929If Analytic Philosophy of Religion is Sick, Can It Be Cured?Religious Studies 56 (4): 558-577. 2020.In this paper, I argue that, if ‘the overrepresentation of Christian theists in analytic philosophy of religion is unhealthy for the field, since they would be too much influenced by prior beliefs when evaluating religious arguments’ (De Cruz and De Smedt (2016), 119), then a first step toward a potential remedy is this: analytic philosophers of religion need to restructure their analytical tasks. For one way to mitigate the effects of confirmation bias, which may be influencing how analytic phi…Read more
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937Scientific Progress: Why Getting Closer to Truth Is Not EnoughInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 31 (4): 415-419. 2017.ABSTRACTThis discussion note aims to contribute to the ongoing debate over the nature of scientific progress. I argue against the semantic view of scientific progress, according to which scientific progress consists in approximation to truth or increasing verisimilitude. If the semantic view of scientific progress were correct, then scientists would make scientific progress simply by arbitrarily adding true disjuncts to their hypotheses or theories. Given that it is not the case that scientists …Read more
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553What Isn’t Obvious about ‘obvious’: A Data-driven Approach to Philosophy of LogicIn Andrew Aberdein & Matthew Inglis (eds.), Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics, Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 201-224. 2019.It is often said that ‘every logical truth is obvious’ (Quine 1970: 82), that the ‘axioms and rules of logic are true in an obvious way’ (Murawski 2014: 87), or that ‘logic is a theory of the obvious’ (Sher 1999: 207). In this chapter, I set out to test empirically how the idea that logic is obvious is reflected in the scholarly work of logicians and philosophers of logic. My approach is data-driven. That is to say, I propose that systematically searching for patterns of usage in databases of sc…Read more
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617Why Scientific Knowledge Is Still the BestSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (9): 18-32. 2018.In his latest attack, even though he claims to be a practitioner of “close reading” (Wills 2018b, 34), it appears that Wills still has not bothered to read the paper in which I defend the thesis he seeks to attack (Mizrahi 2017a), or any of the papers in my exchange with Brown (Mizrahi 2017b; 2018a), as evidenced by the fact that he does not cite them at all. This explains why Wills completely misunderstands Weak Scientism and the arguments for the quantitative superiority (in terms of research …Read more
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384The (Lack of) Evidence for the Kuhnian Image of ScienceSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (7): 19-24. 2018.In their reviews of The Kuhnian Image of Science: Time for a Decisive Transformation? (2018), both Markus Arnold (2018) and Amanda Bryant (2018) complain that the contributors who criticize Kuhn’s theory of scientific change have misconstrued his philosophy of science and they praise those who seek to defend the Kuhnian image of science. In what follows, then, I would like to address their claims about misconstruing Kuhn’s theory of scientific change. But my focus here, as in the book, will be t…Read more
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420Weak Scientism Defended Once More: A Reply to WillsSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (6): 41-50. 2018.Bernard Wills (2018) joins Christopher Brown (2017, 2018) in criticizing my defense of Weak Scientism (Mizrahi 2017a, 2017b, 2018a). Unfortunately, it seems that Wills did not read my latest defense of Weak Scientism carefully, nor does he cite any of the other papers in my exchange with Brown.
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779Why Arguments from Expert Opinion are still Weak: A Reply to SeidelInformal Logic 36 (2): 238-252. 2016.In this paper, I reply to Seidel’s objections against my argument from expert performance to the effect that arguments from expert opinion are weak arguments. I clarify what Seidel takes to be unclear points in my argument and show that it withstands Seidel’s objections.
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406More in Defense of Weak ScientismSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (4): 7-25. 2018.In my (2017a), I defend a view I call Weak Scientism, which is the view that knowledge produced by scientific disciplines is better than knowledge produced by non-scientific disciplines. Scientific knowledge can be said to be quantitatively better than non-scientific knowledge insofar as scientific disciplines produce more impactful knowledge–in the form of scholarly publications–than non-scientific disciplines (as measured by research output and research impact). Scientific knowledge can be sai…Read more
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804The “Positive Argument” for Constructive Empiricism and Inference to the Best ExplanationJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 49 (3). 2018.In this paper, I argue that the “positive argument” for Constructive Empiricism (CE), according to which CE “makes better sense of science, and of scientific activity, than realism does” (van Fraassen 1980, 73), is an Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE). But constructive empiricists are critical of IBE, and thus they have to be critical of their own “positive argument” for CE. If my argument is sound, then constructive empiricists are in the awkward position of having to reject their own “po…Read more
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546Gettier Cases, Mental States, and Best Explanations: Another Reply to AtkinsLogos and Episteme 9 (1): 75-90. 2018.I have argued that Gettier cases are misleading because, even though they appear to be cases of knowledge failure, they are in fact cases of semantic failure. Atkins has responded to my original paper and I have replied to his response. He has then responded again to insist that he has the so-called “Gettier intuition.” But he now admits that intuitions are only defeasible, not conclusive, evidence for and/or against philosophical theories. I address the implications of Atkins’ admission in this…Read more
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919Does Non-Moral Ignorance Exculpate? Situational Awareness and Attributions of Blame and ForgivenessActa Analytica 33 (2): 161-179. 2018.In this paper, we set out to test empirically an idea that many philosophers find intuitive, namely that non-moral ignorance can exculpate. Many philosophers find it intuitive that moral agents are responsible only if they know the particular facts surrounding their action. Our results show that whether moral agents are aware of the facts surrounding their action does have an effect on people’s attributions of blame, regardless of the consequences or side effects of the agent’s actions. In gener…Read more
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461In Defense of Weak Scientism: A Reply to BrownSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6 (2): 9-22. 2017.In “What’s So Bad about Scientism?” (Mizrahi 2017), I argue that Weak Scientism, the view that “Of all the knowledge we have, scientific knowledge is the best knowledge” (Mizrahi 2017, 354; emphasis in original) is a defensible position. That is to say, Weak Scientism “can be successfully defended against objections” (Mizrahi 2017, 354). In his response to Mizrahi (2017), Christopher Brown (2017) provides more objections against Weak Scientism, and thus another opportunity for me to show that We…Read more
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799"Ought Implies Can,” Framing Effects, and "Empirical Refutations"Philosophia 46 (1): 165-182. 2018.This paper aims to contribute to the current debate about the status of the “Ought Implies Can” principle and the growing body of empirical evidence that undermines it. We report the results of an experimental study which show that people judge that agents ought to perform an action even when they also judge that those agents cannot do it and that such “ought” judgments exhibit an actor-observer effect. Because of this actor-observer effect on “ought” judgments and the Duhem-Quine thesis, talk o…Read more
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912Show Me the Argument: Empirically Testing the Armchair Philosophy PictureMetaphilosophy 49 (1-2): 58-70. 2018.Many philosophers subscribe to the view that philosophy is a priori and in the business of discovering necessary truths from the armchair. This paper sets out to empirically test this picture. If this were the case, we would expect to see this reflected in philosophical practice. In particular, we would expect philosophers to advance mostly deductive, rather than inductive, arguments. The paper shows that the percentage of philosophy articles advancing deductive arguments is higher than those ad…Read more
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414The Kuhnian Image of Science: Time for a Decisive Transformation? (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield. 2018.More than 50 years after the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s seminal book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, this volume assesses the adequacy of the Kuhnian model in explaining certain aspects of science, particularly the social and epistemic aspects of science. One argument put forward is that there are no good reasons to accept Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis, according to which scientific revolutions involve the replacement of theories with conceptually incompatible ones. Perhaps, there…Read more
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1158Arguments from Expert Opinion and Persistent BiasArgumentation 32 (2): 175-195. 2018.Accounts of arguments from expert opinion take it for granted that expert judgments count as (defeasible) evidence for propositions, and so an argument that proceeds from premises about what an expert judges to a conclusion that the expert is probably right is a strong argument. In Mizrahi (2013), I consider a potential justification for this assumption, namely, that expert judgments are significantly more likely to be true than novice judgments, and find it wanting because of empirical evidence…Read more
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974Intuition Talk is Not Methodologically Cheap: Empirically Testing the “Received Wisdom” About Armchair PhilosophyErkenntnis 83 (3): 595-612. 2018.The “received wisdom” in contemporary analytic philosophy is that intuition talk is a fairly recent phenomenon, dating back to the 1960s. In this paper, we set out to test two interpretations of this “received wisdom.” The first is that intuition talk is just talk, without any methodological significance. The second is that intuition talk is methodologically significant; it shows that analytic philosophers appeal to intuition. We present empirical and contextual evidence, systematically mined fr…Read more
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5301The Problem of Natural Inequality: A New Problem of EvilPhilosophia 42 (1): 127-136. 2014.In this paper, I argue that there is a kind of evil, namely, the unequal distribution of natural endowments, or natural inequality, which presents theists with a new evidential problem of evil. The problem of natural inequality is a new evidential problem of evil not only because, to the best of my knowledge, it has not yet been discussed in the literature, but also because available theodicies, such the free will defense and the soul-making defense, are not adequate responses in the face of thi…Read more
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3271‘Ought’ Does Not Imply ‘Can’Philosophical Frontiers 4 (1): 19-35. 2009.According to the Ought-Implies-Can principle (OIC), an agent ought to perform a certain action only if the agent can perform that action. Proponents of OIC interpret this supposed implication in several ways. Some argue that the implication in question is a logical one, namely, entailment. Some think that the relation between ‘ought’ and ‘can’ is a relation of presupposition. Still others argue that ‘ought’ conversationally implicates ‘can’. Opponents of OIC offer a variety of counterexamples in…Read more
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390Why the ultimate argument for scientific realism ultimately failsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (1): 132-138. 2012.In this paper, I argue that the ultimate argument for Scientific Realism, also known as the No-Miracles Argument (NMA), ultimately fails as an abductive defence of Epistemic Scientific Realism (ESR), where (ESR) is the thesis that successful theories of mature sciences are approximately true. The NMA is supposed to be an Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) that purports to explain the success of science. However, the explanation offered as the best explanation for success, namely (ESR), fail…Read more
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1095Does the Method of Cases Rest on a Mistake?Review of Philosophy and Psychology 5 (2): 183-197. 2014.In this paper, I argue that the method of cases (namely, the method of using intuitive judgments elicited by intuition pumps as evidence for and/or against philosophical theories) is not a reliable method of generating evidence for and/or against philosophical theories. In other words, the method of cases is unlikely to generate accurate judgments more often than not. This is so because, if perception and intuition are analogous in epistemically relevant respects, then using intuition pumps to e…Read more
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1063On Proving Too MuchActa Analytica 28 (3): 353-358. 2013.It is quite common to object to an argument by saying that it “proves too much.” In this paper, I argue that the “proving too much” charge can be understood in at least three different ways. I explain these three interpretations of the “proving too much” charge. I urge anyone who is inclined to level the “proving too much” charge against an argument to think about which interpretation of that charge one has in mind
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1040Don't Believe the Hype: Why Should Philosophical Theories Yield to Intuitions?Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 34 (3): 141-158. 2015.In this paper, I argue that, contrary to common opinion, a counterexample against a philosophical theory does not amount to conclusive evidence against that theory. Instead, the method of counterexamples allows for the derivation of a disjunction, i.e., ‘either the theory is false or an auxiliary assumption is false’, not a negation of the target theory. This is so because, whenever the method of counterexamples is used in an attempt to refute a philosophical theory, there is a crucial auxiliary…Read more
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64A Reply to Patton's "Incommensurability and the Bonfire of the Meta-Theories"Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4 (10): 51-53. 2015.I reply to Patton's "Incommensurability and the Bonfire of the Meta-Theories"
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1413Why Hypothetical Syllogism is Invalid for Indicative ConditionalsThought: A Journal of Philosophy 2 (1): 40-43. 2013.In this article, I present a schema for generating counterexamples to the argument form known as Hypothetical Syllogism with indicative conditionals. If my schema for generating counterexamples to HS works as I think it does, then HS is invalid for indicative conditionals
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948Transcendental Arguments, Conceivability, and Global Vs. Local SkepticismPhilosophia 45 (2): 735-749. 2017.In this paper, I argue that, if transcendental arguments are to proceed from premises that are acceptable to the skeptic, the Transcendental Premise, according to which “X is a metaphysically necessary condition for the possibility of Y,” must be grounded in considerations of conceivability and possibility. More explicitly, the Transcendental Premise is based on what Szabó Gendler and Hawthorne call the “conceivability-possibility move.” This “inconceivability-impossibility” move, however, is a …Read more
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2960New Puzzles About Divine AttributesEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5 (2): 147-157. 2013.According to traditional Western theism, God is maximally great (or perfect). More explicitly, God is said to have the following divine attributes: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. In this paper, I present three puzzles about this conception of a maximally great (or perfect) being. The first puzzle about omniscience shows that this divine attribute is incoherent. The second puzzle about omnibenevolence and omnipotence shows that these divine attributes are logically incompatible. T…Read more
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336Take My Advice—I Am Not Following It: Ad Hominem Arguments as Legitimate Rebuttals to Appeals to AuthorityInformal Logic 30 (4): 435-456. 2010.In this paper, I argue that ad hominem arguments are not always fallacious. More explicitly, in certain cases of practical reasoning, the circumstances of a person are relevant to whether or not the conclusion should be accepted. This occurs, I suggest, when a person gives advice to others or prescribes certain courses of action but fails to follow her own advice or act in accordance with her own prescriptions. This is not an instance of a fallacious tu quoque provided that such circumstantial a…Read more
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401Comment on David Kaspar's IntuitionismReason Papers 37 (2): 26-35. 2015.In his book Intuitionism, David Kaspar is after the truth. That is to say, on his view, “philosophy is the search for the whole truth” (p. 7). Intuitionism, then, “reflects that standpoint” (p. 7). My comments are meant to reflect the same standpoint. More explicitly, my aim in these comments is to evaluate the arguments for intuitionism, as I understand them from reading Kaspar’s book. In what follows, I focus on three arguments in particular, which c…Read more
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