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604Nicholas of Cusa’s De pace fidei and the meta-exclusivism of religious pluralismInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 74 (2): 219-235. 2013.In response to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Nicholas of Cusa wrote De pace fidei defending a commitment to religious tolerance on the basis of the notion that all diverse rites are but manifestations of one true religion. Drawing on a discussion of why Nicholas of Cusa is unable to square the two objectives of arguing for pluralistic tolerance and explaining the contents of the one true faith, we outline why theological pluralism is compromised by its own meta-exclusivism
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54Prospects for skeptical foundationalismMetaphilosophy 38 (5): 578-590. 2007.Properly understood, foundationalism as a meta‐epistemic theory is consistent with skepticism. This article outlines five possible points of overlap between the two views, and shows that arguments against foundationalism posited on its inability to refute skepticism are improperly framed.
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76Argument in mixed company: Mom's Maxim vs. mill's principle: Aikin and Talisse argument in mixed companyThink 10 (27): 31-43. 2011.It is impolite to discuss matters of religion or politics in mixed company. So goes the popular adage which all of us were supposed to have learned as children from our mothers. Let's call it Mom's Maxim. We tend to accept Mom's Maxim. But is it philosophically sound? In this short essay, we raise some objections to Mom's Maxim and make a case for an alternative which we call Mill's Principle.
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196Who is Afraid of Epistemology’s Regress Problem?Philosophical Studies 126 (2): 191-217. 2005.What follows is a taxonomy of arguments that regresses of inferential justification are vicious. They fall out into four general classes: conceptual arguments from incompleteness, conceptual arguments from arbitrariness, ought-implies-can arguments from human quantitative incapacities, and ought-implies can arguments from human qualitative incapacities. They fail with a developed theory of "infinitism" consistent with valuational pluralism and modest epistemic foundationalism.
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80Environmental ethics and the expanding problem of evilThink 13 (36): 33-39. 2014.The problem of evil is that morally gratuitous suffering and destruction is evidence against a benevolent and potent god. Often cases of this evil are restricted to human suffering, but if the moral universe is expanded in the fashion associated with environmental ethics, the scope of morally significant suffering and destruction grows. Consequently, the wider the scope of the moral universe, the problem of evil becomes harder for theists to solve
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64St. Anselm's Ontological Argument as Expressive: A Wittgensteinian ReconstructionPhilosophical Investigations 37 (2): 130-151. 2013.We offer a reading of Anselm's Ontological Argument inspired by Wittgenstein which focuses on the fact that the “argument” occurs in a prayer addressed to God, making it a strange argument since as a prayer it seems to presuppose its conclusion. We reconstruct the argument as expressive. Within the religious perspective, the issues are to be focused on the right object not to present an argument for the existence of God. While this sort of reading lets us understand much about the argument, it a…Read more
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206This essay is an introductory overview of the considerations in favor of epistemic infinitism, the view that the demands of justification are that one must have non-terminating series of reasons for one's beliefs if they are to be knowledge.
Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
American Pragmatism |
Informal Logic |