Greenville, North Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Epistemology
  •  120
    Reply on behalf of Joe
    Sophia 48 (4): 461-465. 2009.
    This is a reply to W. Paul Franks’ critique (‘Why a Believer Could Believe that God Answers Prayers’) of my recent paper in Sophia (2007). I argue that Franks’ Plantinga-inspired criticism fails because it turns on the dubious assumption that the efficacy of prayer could provide evidence for the existence of God.
  •  139
    How to fake Munchausen's syndrome
    Philosophical Psychology 23 (5): 565-574. 2010.
    Sorensen raises the issue of whether it is logically possible to fake Munchausen's syndrome by way of a fictional exchange between a physician and an insurance company. In this paper, it is shown that it is possible to fake Munchausen's syndrome and to fake faking Munchausen's syndrome. The implications of this on deeper philosophical issues such as Lewis' puzzle of iterated pretence and “internalist” versus “externalist” accounts of faking are discussed. An externalist account of faking is defe…Read more
  •  138
    Virtual Child Pornography
    Public Affairs Quarterly 18 (1): 75-90. 2004.
  •  111
    Not too proud to Beg (the question): Why inferentialism cannot account for the a priori
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 73 (1): 113-131. 2006.
    The inferentialist account of the a priori says that basic logical beliefs can be justified by way of rule circular inference. I argue that this account of the a priori fails to skirt the charge of begging the question, that the reasons offered in support of it are weak and that it makes justifying logical beliefs too easy. I also argue that recent modifications to inferentialism spell doom for it as a general theory of a priori justification.
  •  164
    Truthmaker maximalism is the claim that every truth has a truthmaker. The case of negative truths leads some philosophers to postulate negative states of affairs or to give up on truthmaker maximalism. This paper defends a version of the incompatibility view of negative truths. Negative truths can be made true by positive facts, and thus, truthmaker maximalism can be maintained without postulating negative states of affairs