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59Account for macro-level causationSynthese 101 (2): 129-156. 1994.By a macro-level feature, I understand any feature that supervenes on, and is thus realized in, lower-level features. Recent discussions by Kim have suggested that such features cannot be causally relevant insofar as they are not classically reducible to lower-level features. This seems to render macro-level features causally irrelevant. I defend the causal relevance of some such features. Such features have been thought causally relevant in many examples that have underpinned philosophical work…Read more
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75The Epistemological Spectrum: At the Interface of Cognitive Science and Conceptual AnalysisOxford University Press. 2011.Henderson and Horgan set out a broad new approach to epistemology. They defend the roles of the a priori and conceptual analysis, but with an essential empirical dimension. 'Transglobal reliability' is the key to epistemic justification. The question of which cognitive processes are reliable depends on contingent facts about human capacities.
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7Simulation and epistemic competenceIn H. Kobler & K. Steuber (eds.), Empathy and Agency: The Problem of Understanding in the Social Sciences, Westview. 2000.Epistemology has recently come to more and more take the articulate form of an investigation into how we do, and perhaps might better, manage the cognitive chores of producing, modifying, and generally maintaining belief-sets with a view to having a true and systematic understanding of the world. While this approach has continuities with earlier philosophy, it admittedly makes a departure from the tradition of epistemology as first philosophy
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25Philosophy of Science AssociationIn Richard Boyd, Philip Gasper & J. D. Trout (eds.), The Philosophy of Science, Mit Press. pp. 58--4. 1991.
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109Iceberg EpistemologyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (3): 497-535. 2000.Accounts of what it is for an agent to be justified in holding a belief commonly carry commitments concerning what cognitive processes can and should be like. A concern for the plausibility of such commitments leads to a multi-faceted epistemology in which elements of traditionally conflicting epistemologies are vindicated within a single epistemological account. The accessible and articulable states that have been the exclusive focus of much epistemology must constitute only a proper subset of …Read more
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128Explanation and rationality naturalizedPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 40 (1): 30-58. 2010.Familiar accounts have it that one explains thoughts or actions by showing them to be rational. It is common to find that the standards of rationality presupposed in these accounts are drawn from what would be thought to be aprioristic sources. I advance an argument to show this must be mistaken. But, recent work in epistemology and on rationality takes a less aprioristic approach to such standards. Does the new (psychological or cognitive scientific) realism in accounts of rationality itself si…Read more
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Epistemic Evaluation: Point and Purpose in Epistemology (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2015.
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289The A Priori Isn’t All That It Is Cracked Up to Be, But It Is SomethingPhilosophical Topics 29 (1/2): 219-250. 2001.Alvin Goldman’s contributions to contemporary epistemology are impressive—few epistemologists have provided others so many occasions for reflecting on the fundamental character of their discipline and its concepts. His work has informed the way epistemological questions have changed (and remained consistent) over the last two decades. We (the authors of this paper) can perhaps best suggest our indebtedness by noting that there is probably no paper on epistemology that either of us individually o…Read more
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367Risk sensitive animal knowledgePhilosophical Studies 166 (3): 599-608. 2013.A discussion of Sosa's Knowing Full Well. The authors focus on the understood place and significance of animal and reflective knowledge.
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40One naturalized epistemological argument against coherentist accounts of empirical knowledgeErkenntnis 43 (2). 1995.The argument I present here is an example of the manner in which naturalizing epistemology can help address fairly traditional epistemological issues. I develop one argument against coherentist epistemologies of empirical knowledge. In doing so, I draw on BonJour (1985), for that account seems to me to indicate the direction in which any plausible coherentist account would need to be developed, at least insofar as such accounts are to conceive of justification in terms of an agent (minimally) po…Read more
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19Epistemic Rationality, Epistemic Motivation, and Interpretive CharityProtoSociology 8 4-29. 1996.On what has become the received view of the principle of charity, it is a fundamental methodological constraint on interpretation that we find peoples’ intentional states patterned in ways that are characterized by norms of rationality. This recommended use of normative principles of rationality to inform intentional description is epistemically unmotivated. To say that the received view lacks epistemic motivation is to say that to interpret as it recommends would be epistemically irresponsible …Read more
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119What Is a Priori and What Is It Good For?Southern Journal of Philosophy 38 (S1): 51-86. 2000.The doctrine is familiar. In a sentence, a priori truths are those that are knowable on the basis of reflection alone (independent of experience) by anyone who has acquired the relevant concepts. This expresses the classical conception of the a priori. Of course, there are those who despair of finding any truths that fully meet these demands. Some of the doubters are convinced, however, that the demands, are somewhat inflated by an epistemological tradition that was nevertheless on to something …Read more
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12Accounting for Macro-Level CausationSynthese 101 (2): 129-156. 1994.By a macro-level feature, I understand any feature that supervenes on, and is thus realized in, lower-level features. Recent discussions by Kim have suggested that such features cannot be causally relevant insofar as they are not classically reducible to lower-level features. This seems to render macro-level features causally irrelevant. I defend the causal relevance of some such features. Such features have been thought causally relevant in many examples that have underpinned philosophical work…Read more
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81The importance of explanation in Quine's principle of charity in translationPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 18 (3): 355-369. 1988.
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Some ins and outs of transglobal reliabilismIn Sanford Goldberg (ed.), Internalism and externalism in semantics and epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 100. 2007.
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85Practicing safe epistemologyPhilosophical Studies 102 (3). 2001.Reliablists have argued that the important evaluative epistemic concept of being justified in holding a belief, at least to the extent that that concept is associated with knowledge, is best understood as concerned with the objective appropriateness of the processes by which a given belief is generated and sustained. In particular, they hold that a belief is justified only when it is fostered by processes that are reliable (at least minimally so) in the believer’s actual world.[1] Of course, rel…Read more
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11Introduction: The Point and Purpose of Epistemic EvaluationIn David K. Henderson & John Greco (eds.), Epistemic Evaluation: Purposeful Epistemology, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 1-28. 2015.This introductory chapter proceeds in three parts. The first section characterizes the general approach to epistemology around which the volume revolves—purposeful epistemology—and examines the general motivation for that approach. The guiding idea is that considerations about the point and purpose of epistemic evaluation might fruitfully constrain epistemological theory and yield insights for epistemological reflection. The second section explores the approach by characterizing some important v…Read more
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275Epistemic competence and contextualist epistemology: Why contextualism is not just the poor person's coherentismJournal of Philosophy 91 (12): 627-649. 1994.
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44The Role and Limitations of Rationalizing Explanation in the Social SciencesCanadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (2). 1989.
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27A critical perspective on a critical perspective on social scienceMetascience 24 (3): 457-461. 2015.Yoshida considers two broad understandings of how social scientists can and should “describe and explain other cultures or their aspects under concepts of rationality” . In the one corner is a family of approaches that Yoshida finds deeply flawed: cultural interpretivist approaches. Five authors representative of this family are given fine chapter length examinations: Winch, Taylor, Geertz, Sahlins, and Obeyesekere. In the other corner is Yoshida’s favored approach: critical rationalism. This ap…Read more
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Contents/Links I. The Referentialist's Objection and the Issues it Raises II. From Uses of Descriptions to Aspects of Concepts III. A Straightforward Understanding IV. A More Sophisticated Understanding V. What is Attributively Associated with "Justification"?
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62On the testability of psychological generalizations (psychological testability)Philosophy of Science (December) 586 (December): 586-606. 1991.Rosenberg argues that intentional generalizations in the human sciences cannot be law-like because they are not amenable to significant empirical refinement. This irrefinability is said to result from the principle that supposedly controls in intentional explanation also serving as the standard for successful interpretation. The only credible evidence bearing on such a principle would then need conform to it. I argue that psychological generalizations are refinable and can be nomic. I show how e…Read more
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72Gate-Keeping ContextualismEpisteme 8 (1): 83-98. 2011.This paper explores a position that combines contextualism regarding knowledge with the idea that the central point or purpose of the concept of knowledge is to feature in attributions that keep epistemic gate for contextually salient communities. After highlighting the main outlines and virtues of the suggested gate-keeping contextualism, two issues are pursued. First, the motivation for the view is clarified in a discussion of the relation between evaluative concepts and the purposes they serv…Read more
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71What does it take to be a true believer? Against the opulent ideology of eliminative materialismIn Christina E. Erneling & D. Johnson (eds.), Mind As a Scientific Object, Oxford University Press. 2005.
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Contemporary accounts of what it is for an agent to be justified in holding a given belief commonly carry substantive commitments concerning what cognitive processes can and should be like. In this paper, we argue that concern for the plausiblity of such psychological commitments leads to significant epistemological results. In particular, it leads to a multi-faceted epistemology in which elements of traditionally conflicting epistemologies are vindicated within a single epistemological account.…Read more
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176Common formulations of the principle of charity in translation seem to undermine attributions of irrationality in social scientific accounts that are otherwise unexceptionable. This I call the problem of irrationality. Here I resolve the problem of irrationality by developing two complementary views of the principle of charity. First, I develop the view (ill-developed in the literature at present) that the principle of charity is preparatory, being needed in the construction of provisional first…Read more
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43Simulation theory versus theory theory: A difference without a difference in explanationsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 34 (S1): 65-93. 1996.
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21Rationalizing Explanation, Normative Principles, and Descriptive GeneralizationsBehavior and Philosophy 19 (1). 1991.
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University of Nebraska, LincolnDepartment of PhilosophyRobert R. Chambers Distinguished Professorship of Philosophy and the Moral Sciences
Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Philosophy of Physical Science |