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``The Value of Knowledge and Truth"In D. M. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan Reference Books. 2006.
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119On Lemke's Defence of a Causal Basing RequirementAnalysis 47 (3). 1987.LEMKE has recently taken issue (see ANALYSIS 46.3, June 1986, pp. 138-44) with my claim that no counterfactual causal account of the basing relation is plausible (see ANALYSIS 45.3, June 1985, pp. 153-8). Intuitively, a counterfactual causal account claims that belief is based on evidence if and only if the evidence either causes the belief or would have caused it had the actual cause been absent. This intuitive formulation accounts only for counterfactual causes of level one: events which would…Read more
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1``Scientific Naturalism and the Value of Knowledge"In Thomas M. Crisp, Matthew Davidson & David Vander Laan (eds.), Knowledge and Reality: Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga, Springer. pp. 193-214. 2006.
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13Omniscience and Eternity: A Reply to CraigFaith and Philosophy 18 (3): 369-376. 2001.Craig claims that my treatment of temporal indexicals such as ‘now’ is inadequate, and that my theory gives no general account of tense. Craig’s argument misunderstands the theory of indexicals I give, and I show how to extend the theory to give a general account of tense.
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``Restriction Strategies for Knowability: Lessons in False Hope"In Joseph Salerno (ed.), New Essays on Knowability, Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 205-222. 2009.
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106The incarnation and the knowability paradoxSynthese 173 (1). 2010.The best defense of the doctrine of the Incarnation implies that traditional Christianity has a special stake in the knowability paradox, a stake not shared by other theistic perspectives or by non-traditional accounts of the Incarnation. Perhaps, this stake is not even shared by antirealism, the view most obviously threatened by the paradox. I argue for these points, concluding that these results put traditional Christianity at a disadvantage compared to other viewpoints, and I close with some …Read more
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95Assertion, Knowledge, and LotteriesIn P. Greenough & D. Pritchard (eds.), Williamson on Knowledge, Oxford University Press. pp. 140--160. 2009.
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52Rationality and Reflection: How to Think About What to ThinkOxford University Press. 2014.Jonathan L. Kvanvig presents a new account of rationality, Perspectivalism, which both avoids elevating rationality so that only the most reflective of us are capable of rational beliefs, and avoids reducing it to the level of beasts. He defends optionality about what it is reasonable to think, and provides a framework for rational disagreement.
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46Divine TranscendenceReligious Studies 20 (3). 1984.representations, for the unconditioned transcendent surpasses every possible conception of a being, including even the conception of a Supreme Being... It is the religious function of atheism ever to remind us that the religious act has to do with the unconditioned transcendent, and that the representations of the Unconditioned are not objects concerning whose existence.., a discussion would be possible. The word >God= involves a double meaning: it connotes the unconditioned transcendent, the ul…Read more
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274The basic notion of justificationPhilosophical Studies 59 (3): 235-261. 1990.Epistemologists often offer theories of justification without paying much attention to the variety and diversity of locutions in which the notion of justification appears. For example, consider the following claims which contain some notion of justification: B is a justified belief, S's belief that p is justified, p is justified for S, S is justified in believing that p, S justifiably believes that p, S's believing p is justified, there is justification for S to believe that p, there is justific…Read more
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1``Infinitism, Holism, and the Regress Argument"In Peter Klein & John Turri (eds.), Infinitism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2012.
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25The Intellectual Virtues and the Life of the Mind (review)Philosophical Quarterly 44 (175): 254. 1994.
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35How to Be a ReliabilistAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 23 (2). 1986.In recent years, epistemologists have become increasingly impressed with reliabilist theories of justification. 1 Reliabilism is often formulated as the claim that a belief is justified 2 just in case it is a reliable belief; however, this formulation can be somewhat misleading. There is a sense in which a set of beliefs can be reliable, just as a certain history or testimony can be reliable: what one means is that a certain set of propositions is highly accurate, has mostly true members, or is …Read more
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91Warrant and Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Plantinga's Theory of Knowledge (edited book)Savage, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. 1996.Alvin Plantinga responds to the essays in a concluding chapter.
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4Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion Volume 3: Volume 3 (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2011.Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion is an annual volume offering a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this longstanding area of philosophy that has seen an explosive growth of interest over the past half century.
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59The Analogy Argument for a Limited Acccount of OmniscienceInternational Philosophical Quarterly 29 (2): 129-138. 1989.IN COMPARISON with other doctrines Cthe doctrine of omnipotence, for example Cthe proper formulation of the doctrine of omniscience has not seemed especially problematic. Once we accept the contemporary wisdom that knowledge is knowledge of truths, the formulation of the traditional doctrine seems straightforward: to be omniscient is just to know all truths. What has seemed problematic, rather, is whether the doctrine is itself true. In particular, many have wondered whether anyone can know the …Read more
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I came to epistemology through an interest in the concept of rationality, and especially through the attacks on the rationality of religious believers. My thoughts at the time focused on the disappointing quality of the arguments for and against religious belief, and I recall being astonished at the time that philosophers capable of such penetrating insight in other areas had nothing that seemed either penetrating or original. The defenders sounded too much like mere apologists for the faith, an…Read more
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87``The Swamping Problem Redux: Pith and Gist"In Duncan Pritchard, Alan Millar & Adrian Haddock (eds.), Social Epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 89-112. 2008.
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44On Denying a Presupposition of Sellars' Problem:A Defense of PropositionalismVeritas – Revista de Filosofia da Pucrs 50 (4): 173-190. 2005.There is a great divide between two approaches to epistemology over the past thirty to forty years. Some label the divide that between internalists and externalists, and that characterization may be accurate on some account of the distinction. I will pursue the divide from a different direction, in part because the literature on the distinction between internalism and externalism has become a mess, and I don’t want to clean up the mess here
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14Review: Zagzebski on Justification (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (1). 2000.
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St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Religion |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |