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89Two approaches to epistemic defeatIn Deane-Peter Baker (ed.), Alvin Plantinga, Cambridge University Press. pp. 107-124. 2007.There are two different kinds of theories of the concept of epistemic defeat. One theory begins with propositional relationships, only by implication describing what happens in the context of a noetic system. Such a theory places inforrmation about defeat up front, not informing us of how the defeat relationships play out in the context of actual belief, at least not initially. The other theory takes a back door to the concept of defeat, assuming a context of actual belief and an entire noetic s…Read more
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94In Defense of CoherentismJournal of Philosophical Research 22 299-306. 1997.Alvin Plantinga and John Pollock both think that coherentism is a mistaken theory of justification, and they do so for different reasons. In spite of these differences, there are remarkable connections between their criticisms. Part of my goal here is to show what these connections are. I will show that Plantinga’s construal of coherentism presupposes Pollock’s arguments against that view, and I will argue that coherentists need not breathe their last in response to the contentions of either. Co…Read more
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122Propositionalism and the metaphysics of experiencePhilosophical Issues 17 (1). 2007.The view I've been defending in the theory of justification I have termed ‘propositionalism’. It counsels beginning inquiry into the nature of justification by adopting a particular form of evidentialism, according to which the first task is to describe the abstract relation of evidencing that holds between propositional contents. Such an approach has a variety of implications for the theory of justification itself, and many of the motivations for the view are of a standard internalist variety. …Read more
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``Virtue Epistemology"In Sven Bernecker & Duncan Pritchard (eds.), Routledge Companion to Epistemology, Routledge. 2010.
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54``Coherentism: Misconstrual and Misapprehension"Southwest Philosophy Review 11 (1): 159-169. 1995.Some critics of coherentism have depicted it so that it founders on the distinction between warrant for the content of a belief and warrant for the believing itself. This distinction has to do with the basing relation: one might have warrant for the content of what one believes without basing one's belief properly, without holding the belief because of what warrants it. When the first kind of warrant obtains, I will say that a belief is propositionally warranted.
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264Swain on the basing relationAnalysis 45 (3): 153. 1985.Suppose we want to know whether a person justifiably believes a certain claim. Further, suppose that our interest in this question is because we take such justification to be necessary for knowledge. To justifiably believe a claim requires more than there being a justification for that claim. Presumably, there is a justification for accepting all sorts of scientific theories of which I have no awareness; because of my lack of awareness, I do not justifiably believe those theories. Further, even …Read more
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``Heaven and Hell"In Philip L. Quinn & Charles Taliaferro (eds.), A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 562-568. 1997.
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121The value of understandingIn Pritchard, Haddock & MIllar (eds.), Epistemic Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 95--112. 2009.
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11Of Reflective AscentIn T. Dougherty (ed.), Evidentialism and its Discontents, Oxford University Press. pp. 34. 2011.
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1391Coherentism and justified inconsistent beliefs: A solutionSouthern Journal of Philosophy 50 (1): 21-41. 2012.The most pressing difficulty coherentism faces is, I believe, the problem of justified inconsistent beliefs. In a nutshell, there are cases in which our beliefs appear to be both fully rational and justified, and yet the contents of the beliefs are inconsistent, often knowingly so. This fact contradicts the seemingly obvious idea that a minimal requirement for coherence is logical consistency. Here, I present a solution to one version of this problem.
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75``Closure and Alternative Possibilities"In John Greco (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Skepticism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 456-484. 2008.
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Responses to CriticsIn Pritchard, Haddock & Millar (eds.), Epistemic Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 339-353. 2009.I begin by expressing my sincere thanks to my critics for taking time from their own impressive projects in epistemology to consider mine. Often, in reading their criticisms, I had the feeling of having received more help than I really wanted! But the truth of the matter is that we learn best by making mistakes, and I appreciate the conscientious attention to my work that my critics have shown
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20Divine transcendenceReligious Studies 20 (3): 377-387. 1984.Christians hold that God is transcendent, that He is other than all else that exists. For example, Paul Tillich claims, The divine beings and the Supreme Being, God, are representations of that which is ultimately referred to in the religious act. They are 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 w…Read more
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7The Incomplete Universe: Totality, Knowledge, and TruthPhilosophical Books 35 (2): 117-119. 1994.
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337Lewis on Finkish DispositionsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (3): 703-710. 1999.Finkish dispositions, those dispositions that are lost when their conditions of realization occur, pose deep problems for counterfactual accounts of dispositions. David Lewis has argued that the counterfactual approach can be rescued, offering such an account that purports to handle finkish as well as other dispositions. The paper argues that Lewis’s account fails to account for several kinds of dispositions, one of which involves failure to distinguish parallel processes from unitary processes.
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88Adams on actualism and presentismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (2): 289-298. 1989.According to the TDT, no singular propositions about an individual and no "thisnesses" of individuals exist prior to the existence of the individual in question, where a thisness "is the property of being x, or of being identical with x" and a "singular proposition about an individual x is a proposition that involves or refers to x directly, perhaps by having x or the thisness of x as a constituent, and not merely by way of x's qualitative properties or relations to other individuals" (p. 315) …Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Religion |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |