•  245
    The Duplicity of Online Behavior
    In Berrin Beasley & Mitchell Haney (eds.), Social Media and Living Well, Lexington Books. pp. 31-43. 2015.
    People commonly believe that any form of deception, no matter how innocuous it is and no matter whether the deceiving person intended it otherwise, is always morally wrong. In this paper, I will argue that deceiving in real-time is morally distinguishable from deceiving on-line because online actions aren’t as fine-grained as actions occurring in real-time. Our failure to detect the fine-grained characteristics of another avatar leads us to believe that that avatar intended to do a moral harm. O…Read more
  •  410
    Minimalism about truth: special issue introduction
    Synthese 195 (3): 927-933. 2018.
    The theme of this special issue is minimalism about truth, a conception which has attracted extensive support since the landmark publication of Paul Horwich's Truth (1990). Many well-esteemed philosophers have challenged Horwich's alethic minimalism, an especially austere version of deflationary truth theory. In part, this is at least because his brand of minimalism about truth also intersects with several different literatures: paradox, implicit definition, bivalence, normativity, propositional…Read more
  •  756
    Review of Joshua Rasmussen's Defending the Correspondence Theory of Truth (review)
    Polish Journal of Philosophy 9 (2): 83-89. 2015.
  •  323
    The Inaccuracy of Partial Truth in Yablovian If-Thenism
    Australasian Philosophical Review 1 (2): 206-211. 2017.
    Yablo has argued for an alternative form of if-thenism that is more conducive with his figurative fictionalism. This commentary sets out to challenge whether the remainder, ρ, tends to be an inaccurate representation of the conditions that are supposed to complete the enthymeme from φ to Ψ. Whilst by some accounts the inaccuracies shouldn't set off any alarm bells, the truth of ρ is too inexact. The content of ρ, a partial truth, must display a sensitivity to the contextual background conditions…Read more
  •  76
    Many of Tarski’s better known papers are either about or include lengthy discussions of how to properly define various concepts: truth, logical consequence, semantic concepts, or definability. In general, these papers identify two primary conditions for successful definitions: formal correctness and material adequacy. Material adequacy requires that the concept expressed by the formal definition capture the intuitive content of truth. Our primary interest in this paper is to better understand Ta…Read more
  •  133
    What's Wrong with This Picture?: Teaching Ethics through Film to Wyoming High School Students
    with Robert Colter
    Teaching Philosophy 36 (3): 253-270. 2013.
    We regularly teach for the Wyoming High School Institute (“HSI”), a three-week college experience for rising high school juniors. The purpose of HSI is to introduce pre-college students to subjects not regularly taught in the secondary school curriculum. In our course, we introduce moral philosophy through the use of feature films. More narrowly, we challenge the students to examine moral reasoning through analysis of the moral reasoning of characters in these films. Our pedagogical approach is …Read more
  •  45
    Fixing the default position in Knobe's competence model
    with Justus Johnson
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (4): 352-353. 2010.
    Although we agree with the spirit of Knobe's competence model, our aim in this commentary is to argue that the default position should be made more precise. Our quibble with Knobe's model is that we find it hard to ascribe a coherent view to some experimental subjects if the default position is not clearly defined
  •  92
    Freeing Meno's Slave Boy: Scaffolded Learning in the Philosophy Classroom
    with Robert Colter
    Teaching Philosophy 38 (1): 25-49. 2015.
    This paper argues that a well known passage from Plato’s Meno exemplifies how to employ scaffolded learning in the philosophy classroom. It explores scaffolded learning by fully defining it, explaining it, and gesturing at some ways in which scaffolding has been implemented. We then offer our own model of scaffolded learning in terms of four phases and eight stages, and explicate our model using a well known example from Plato’s Meno as an exemplar. We believe that any practical concerns one mig…Read more
  •  222
    Recent work by Joshua Knobe indicates that people’s intuition about whether an action was intentional depends on whether the outcome is good or bad. This paper argues that part of the explanation for this effect is that there are stable individual differences in how ‘intentional’ is interpreted. That is, in Knobe’s cases, different people interpret the term in different ways. This interpretive diversity of ‘intentional’ opens up a new avenue to help explain Knobe’s results. Furthermore, the pape…Read more
  •  315
    Breaking the Language Barrier: Using Translations for Teaching Introductory Philosophy
    with Carmen Adel
    American Association of Philosophy Teachers Studies in Pedagogy 3 33-52. 2017.
    Some students who possess the same cognitive skill set as their counterparts but who neither speak nor write English fluently have to contend with an unnecessary barrier to academic success. While an administrative top-down approach has been in progress for many years to address this issue, enhancement of student performance begins in the classroom. Thus, we argue that instructors ought to implement a more organic bottom-up approach. If it is possible for instructors to make class content availa…Read more
  •  893
    Ordinary Truth in Tarski and Næss
    In Adrian Kuźniar & Joanna Odrowąż-Sypniewska (eds.), Uncovering Facts and Values: Studies in Contemporary Epistemology and Political Philosophy, Brill | Rodopi. pp. 67-90. 2016.
    Alfred Tarski seems to endorse a partial conception of truth, the T-schema, which he believes might be clarified by the application of empirical methods, specifically citing the experimental results of Arne Næss (1938a). The aim of this paper is to argue that Næss’ empirical work confirmed Tarski’s semantic conception of truth, among others. In the first part, I lay out the case for believing that Tarski’s T-schema, while not the formal and generalizable Convention-T, provides a partial account …Read more
  •  55
    Social Dexterity in Inquity and Argumentation: An Apologia of Socrates
    with Robert Colter
    American Association of Philosophy Teachers Studies in Pedagogy 2 6-27. 2016.
    While Euthyphro and Apology are widely taught, they do not offer a complete picture of the variety of ways in which Socrates interacts with his interlocutors in Plato’s dialogues. Perhaps the most important point we wish to bring home is that most, if not all, of Socrates’ discussions are carefully calibrated according to a certain social awareness. Through careful analysis of sections of the dialogues, we argue that aspects of discussions between Socrates and his interlocutors should serve as l…Read more
  •  506
    A conscientious resolution of the action paradox on Buridan's bridge'
    Southwest Philosophical Studies 25 85-93. 2003.
    The aim of this paper is to offer a critical assessment of Buridan's proposed solution to the bridge-keeper paradox. First, I will outline his proposed solution to the paradox, and, second, carefully analyse each issue mentioned in the proposed solution. Finally, I will attempt to conclude that Burden has implicitly accepted a three-valued logic that does not allow him to conclude that Plato ought not do anything.
  •  115
    Thinking about the Liar, Fast and Slow
    In Bradley Armour-Garb (ed.), Reflections on the Liar, Oxford University Press. pp. 39-70. 2017.
    The liar paradox is widely conceived as a problem for logic and semantics. On the basis of empirical studies presented here, we suggest that there is an underappreciated psychological dimension to the liar paradox and related problems, conceived as a problem for human thinkers. Specific findings suggest that how one interprets the liar sentence and similar paradoxes can vary in relation to one’s capacity for logical and reflective thought, acceptance of certain logical principles, and degree of …Read more
  •  51
    Review of Nicholas Rescher's Paradoxes (review)
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78 (3): 514-517. 2004.
    In this brief article, I review Nicholas Rescher's Paradoxes.
  •  50
    ‘Scaffolded learning’ describes a cluster of instructional techniques designed to move students from a novice position toward greater understanding, such that they become independent learners. Our Socratic Model of Scaffolded Learning includes two phases not normally included in discussions of scaffolded learning, the preparatory and problematizing phases. Our article will illuminate this blind spot by arguing that these crucial preliminary elements ought to be considered an integral part of a s…Read more
  •  163
    Act Individuation: An Experimental Approach
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 3 (2): 249-262. 2012.
    Accounts of act individuation have attempted to capture peoples’ pre-theoretic intuitions. Donald Davidson has argued that a multitude of action descriptions designate only one act, while Alvin Goldman has averred that each action description refers to a distinct act. Following on recent empirical studies, I subject these accounts of act individuation to experimentation. The data indicate that people distinguish between actions differently depending upon the moral valence of the outcomes. Thus, …Read more
  •  127
    Truth, Correspondence, and Gender
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 4 (4): 621-638. 2013.
    Philosophical theorizing about truth manifests a desire to conform to the ordinary or folk notion of truth. This practice often involves attempts to accommodate some form of correspondence. We discuss this accommodation project in light of two empirical projects intended to describe the content of the ordinary conception of truth. One, due to Arne Naess, claims that the ordinary conception of truth is not correspondence. Our more recent study is consistent with Naess’ result. Our findings sugges…Read more