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289Dwindling ConfirmationPhilosophy of Science 81 (1): 114-137. 2014.We show that as a chain of confirmation becomes longer, confirmation dwindles under screening-off. For example, if E confirms H1, H1 confirms H2, and H1 screens off E from H2, then the degree to which E confirms H2 is less than the degree to which E confirms H1. Although there are many measures of confirmation, our result holds on any measure that satisfies the Weak Law of Likelihood. We apply our result to testimony cases, relate it to the Data-Processing Inequality in information theory, and e…Read more
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96The role of coherence in epistemic justificationAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (1). 2001.Among many reasons for which contemporary philosophers take coherentism in epistemology seriously, the most important is probably the perceived inadequacy of alternative accounts, most notably misgivings about foundationalism. But coherentism also receives straightforward support from cases in which beliefs are apparently justified by their coherence. From the perspective of those against coherentism, this means that an explanation is needed as to why in these cases coherence apparently justifie…Read more
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Sceptical Paradoxes of Rule FollowingDissertation, University of Southern California. 1991.In this dissertation I examine the sceptical problem of rule following presented by Saul Kripke in his interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein's later works: Do any facts determine what rule we were following in our apparently rule-following activities such as the use of language? I distinguish three ways of understanding this question--modest scepticism, radical scepticism, and metascepticism--and address them in Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the dissertation, respectively. ;Part 1 discusses modest sceptic…Read more
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274Justification by Coherence from ScratchPhilosophical Studies 125 (3): 305-325. 2005.In this paper we make three points about justification of propositions by coherence “from scratch”, where pieces of evidence that are coherent have no individual credibility. First, we argue that no matter how many pieces of evidence are coherent, and no matter what relation we take coherence to be, coherence does not make independent pieces of evidence with no individual credibility credible. Second, we show that an intuitively plausible informal reasoning for justification by coherence from sc…Read more
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264A defense of reductionism about testimonial justification of beliefsNoûs 40 (2). 2006.This paper defends reductionism about testimonial justification of beliefs against two influential arguments. One is the empirical argument to the effect that the reductionist justification of our trust in testimony is either circular since it relies on testimonial evidence or else there is scarce evidence in support of our trust in testimony. The other is the transcendental argument to the effect that trust in testimony is a prerequisite for the very existence of testimonial evidence since with…Read more
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113The problem of the criterion in rule-followingPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (3): 501-525. 2000.This paper addresses the issue of rule-following in the context of the problem of the criterion. It presents a line of reasoning which concludes we do not know what rule we follow, but which develops independently of the problem of extrapolation that plays a major role in many recent discussions of rule-following. The basis of the argument is the normativity of rules, but the problem is also distinct from the issue of the gap between facts and values in axiology. The paper further points out tha…Read more
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91Internalism and Externalism in Meliorative EpistemologyErkenntnis 76 (1): 59-72. 2012.This paper addresses the meta-epistemological dispute over the basis of epistemic evaluation from the standpoint of meliorative epistemology. Meliorative epistemology aims at guiding our epistemic practice to better results, and it comprises two levels of epistemic evaluation. At the social level (meliorative social epistemology) appropriate experts conduct evaluation for the community, so that epistemic evaluation is externalist since each epistemic subject in the community need not have access…Read more
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19Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (1): 292-296. 2008.
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91The Role of Coherence of Evidence in the Non-Dynamic Model of ConfirmationErkenntnis 63 (3): 317-333. 2005.This paper examines the role of coherence of evidence in what I call the non-dynamic model of confirmation. It appears that other things being equal, a higher degree of coherence among pieces of evidence raises to a higher degree the probability of the proposition they support. I argue against this view on the basis of three related observations. First, we should be able to assess the impact of coherence on any hypothesis of interest the evidence supports. Second, the impact of coherence among t…Read more
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62Mediated ConfirmationBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (3): 847-874. 2017.ABSTRACT This article aims to achieve two things: to identify the conditions for transitivity in probabilistic support in various settings, and to uncover the components and structure of the mediated probabilistic relation. It is shown that when the probabilistic relation between the two propositions, x and z, is mediated by multiple layers of partitions of propositions, the impact x has on z consists of the purely indirect impact, the purely bypass impact, and the mixed impact. It is also shown…Read more
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22The Problem of Rule‐Following in Compositional SemanticsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 33 (1): 97-107. 2010.