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146Epistemic relativismPhilosophical Issues 14 (1). 2004.Epistemic relativism rejects the idea that claims can be assessed from a universally applicable, objective standpoint. It is greatly disdained because it suggests that the real ‘basis’ for our views is something fleeting, such as ‘‘the techniques of mass persuasion’’ (Thomas Kuhn 1970) or the determination of intellectuals to achieve ‘‘solidarity’’ (Rorty 1984) or ‘‘keep the conversation going’’ (Rorty 1979). But epistemic relativism, like skepticism, is far easier to despise than to convincingl…Read more
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160The Philosophy of DeathCambridge University Press. 2009.The Philosophy of Death is a discussion of the basic philosophical issues concerning death, and a critical introduction to the relevant contemporary philosophical literature. Luper begins by addressing questions about those who die: What is it to be alive? What does it mean for you and me to exist? Under what conditions do we persist over time, and when do we perish? Next, he considers several questions concerning death, including: What does dying consist in; in particular, how does it differ fr…Read more
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121Contrastivism and SkepticismInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 2 (1): 51-58. 2012.Recently, Jonathan Schaffer has defended a contrastivist analysis of knowledge. By appealing to his account, he has attempted to steer a path between skepticism and Moore-style antiskepticism: much like sensitivity theorists and contextualists, he offers significant concessions to, but ultimately rejects, both. In this essay I suggest that in fact Schaffer ends up succumbing to skepticism
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59Re-Reading: G.E. Moore, "Certainty" in his 'Philosophical Papers'Philosophical Papers 36 (1). 2007.
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29. indtscernability skepticismIn Essential Knowledge: Readings in Epistemology, Longman. pp. 285. 2003.
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7Epicurus' death is nothing to us argumentIn Michael Bruce & Steven Barbone (eds.), Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. 2011.
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196The epistemic closure principleStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.Most of us think we can always enlarge our knowledge base by accepting things that are entailed by (or logically implied by) things we know. The set of things we know is closed under entailment (or under deduction or logical implication), which means that we know that a given claim is true upon recognizing, and accepting thereby, that it follows from what we know. However, some theorists deny that knowledge is closed under entailment, and the issue remains controversial. The arguments against cl…Read more
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90Restorative Rigging and the Safe Indication AccountSynthese 153 (1): 161-170. 2006.Typical Gettieresque scenarios involve a subject, S, using a method, M, of believing something, p, where, normally, M is a reliable indicator of the truth of p, yet, in S’s circumstances, M is not reliable: M is deleteriously rigged. A different sort of scenario involves rigging that restores the reliability of a method M that is deleteriously rigged: M is restoratively rigged. Some theorists criticize the safe indication account of knowledge defended by Luper, Sosa, and Williamson on the ground…Read more
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35PersimalsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 52 (S1): 140-162. 2014.What sort of thing, fundamentally, are you and I? For convenience, I use the term persimal to refer to the kind of thing we are, whatever that kind turns out to be. Accordingly, the question is, what are persimals? One possible answer is that persimalhood consists in being a human animal, but many theorists, including Derek Parfit and Jeff McMahan, not to mention John Locke, reject this idea in favor of a radically different view, according to which persimalhood consists in having certain sorts …Read more
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54The Skeptics: Contemporary Essays (edited book)Ashgate Publishing. 2003.Presented throughout in an accessible style, this book will prove particularly useful for students, researchers and general readers of philosophy who are ...
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2Cartesian SkepticismIn Duncan Pritchard & Sven Bernecker (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, Routledge. pp. 414--424. 2011.
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29The AMA on Euthanasia and Assisted SuicidePerspectives in Biology and Medicine 59 (2): 189-197. 2016.The American Medical Association opposes physician-assisted suicide on the grounds that it “would ultimately cause more harm than good,” because it is “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer,” and because it “would be difficult or impossible to control and would pose serious societal risks”. It condemns the practice of euthanasia as conducted by physicians for these reasons as well, and adds, by way of clarifying the serious risks at hand, that “euthanasia could readily b…Read more
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55Despite its plausibility, I mean to resist this argument. I will reject premise 1 on the grounds that dying may be atemporally bad for us. I will also reject premise 3. Some postmortem events are bad for some of us while we are alive. But I am not going to report some new exotic particle that makes backwards causation possible. As far as I know, 6 is true. If an event is responsible for a harm that we incur before the event itself occurs, it might be said to harm us retroactively ; if when or af…Read more
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32Living Up to DeathInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 18 (4): 603-606. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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38Essential Knowledge: Readings in Epistemology (edited book)Longman. 2003.With its balance of both classic selections and cutting-edge contemporary writings, this anthology for the beginning student clearly covers all the major historical and leading contemporary approaches to epistemology, or the theory of knowledge. One reviewer says: “...admirably even-handed and fair in its explanations of various views...The chapter introductions are concise and informative... not only are readings selected so as to engage one another in important ways, but the editor serves as a…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Normative Ethics |