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19On the “content” and “relevance” of information-theoretic epistemologyBehavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (1): 79-81. 1983.
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50Moral Relativism, Cognitivism and Defeasible RulesSocial Philosophy and Policy 11 (1): 116-138. 1994.Naturalism rejects a sui generis and fundamental realm of the evaluative or normative. Thought and talk about the good and the right must hence be understood without appeal to any such evaluative or normative concepts or properties. In Sections I and II, we see noncognitivism step forward with its account of evaluative and normative language as fundamentally optative or prescriptive. Prescriptivism falls afoul of several problems. Prominent among them below is the “problem of prima facie reasons…Read more
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18Vincent A. Tomas 1916-1995Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 69 (5). 1996.
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11Essays on the Philosophy of George Berkeley (edited book)D. Reidel. 1986.A tercentenary conference of March, 1985, drew to Newport, Rhode Island, nearly all the most distinguished Berkeley scholars now active. The conference was organized by the International Berkeley Society, with the support of several institutions and many people. This volume represents a selection of the lead papers deliv ered at that conference, most now revised. The Cartesian marriage of Mind and Body has proved an uneasy union. Each side has claimed supremacy and usurped the rights of the othe…Read more
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Consciousness of the Self and the PresentIn James Tomberlin (ed.), Agent, Language and the Structure of the World, Hackett Publishing Company. pp. 131-47. 1983.
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12External realism and philosophy in transitionJournal of Social Philosophy 22 (1): 183-186. 1991.This paper was written for a panel session, in which I was asked to represent an analytic perspective. On reflection I found that there is no such thing, however, and that what best unifies the analytic traditions is not even a set of questions, much less a set of answers, but only agreement on certain standards of clarity and argumentation, and an interest in dialectic and debate. Certain issues have long dominated the analytic agenda, it is true, and I see no better way to represent an analyti…Read more
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77Situations against virtues : the situationist attack on virtue theoryIn Chrysostomos Mantzavinos (ed.), Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice, Cambridge University Press. pp. 274--290. 2009.
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189Metaphysics: An Anthology, 2nd Edition (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2011.Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this highly successful textbook continues to represent the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in metaphysics. In addition to updated material from the first edition, it presents entirely new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of material objects.
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19Chapter eight. Epistemic CircularityIn Knowing Full Well, Princeton University Press. pp. 140-158. 2010.
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42Testimony and coherenceIn A. Chakrabarti & B. K. Matilal (eds.), Knowing From Words, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 59--67. 1994.
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111Human knowledge, animal and reflectivePhilosophical Studies 106 (3). 2001.Stephen Grimm finds me inclined to bifurcate epistemic assessment into higher and lower orders while showing awareness of this only in recent writings. Two untoward consequences allegedly follow: (a) my rejection of Virtue Reliabilism, and (b) my knowledge-based account of the value attaching to our knowledge on the higher level. By contrast, Grimm considers Virtue Reliabilism a perfectly adequate account of knowledge, while the higher epistemic state he believes to be, rather, understanding, wh…Read more
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96Reflective knowledgeOxford University Press. 2009.The second part of the book presents an alternative beyond the historical positions of Part I, one that defends a virtue epistemology combined with epistemic ...
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15Minimal IntuitionIn Michael DePaul & William Ramsey (eds.), Rethinking Intuition, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 257-269. 1998.
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ConditionIn Audi Robert (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 149. 1995.
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99Surviving mattersNoûs 24 (2): 297-322. 1990.Life may turn sour and, in extremis, not worth living. On occasion it may be best, moreover, to lay down one's life for a greater cause. None of this is any news, debatable though it may remain, in general or case by case. Now comes the news that life does not matter in the way we had thought. No resurgence of existentialism, nor tidings from some ancient religion or some new cult, the news derives from the most sober and probing philosophical argument (the extraor- dinary Parfit, 1984, Part III…Read more
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60Proper Functionalism and Virtue Epistemology (review)In Jonathan L. Kvanvig (ed.), Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology, Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 253-270. 1996.Comprehensive and packed, Alvin Plantinga's two-volume treatise defies sum- mary. The first volume, Warrant: Current Views, is a meticulous critical survey of epistemology today. Many current approaches are presented and exhaustively discussed, and a negative verdict is passed on each in turn. This prepares the way for volume two, Warrant and Proper Function, where a positive view is advanced and developed in satisfying detail. The cumulative result is most impressive, and should command attenti…Read more
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74Fregean reference defendedPhilosophical Issues 6 91-99. 1995.What is involved in acquiring a russellian proposition (x, φ) as content of an attitude: what does it take for one to acquire such an attitude de re? How do we gain access to x itself so as to be able to have (x, φ) as content of our thought?
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127Reliabilism and Intellectual VirtueIn Guy Axtell (ed.), Knowledge, Belief, and Character: Readings in Virtue Epistemology, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 33-40. 2000.
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224Relevant alternatives, contextualism includedPhilosophical Studies 119 (1-2): 35-65. 2004.Since this paper is for a conference on “Contextualism in Epistemology and Beyond,” I have opted to sketch a retrospective of contextualism in epistemology, including highlights of the “relevant alternatives” approach, given how relevantism and contextualism have developed in tandem. We focus on externalist forms of contextualism, bypassing internalist forms such as Cohen 1988 and Lewis 1996, but much of our discussion will be applicable to contextualism generally. Internalist contextualism is h…Read more
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47Knowledge in context, skepticism in doubt: The virtue of our facultiesPhilosophical Perspectives 2 139-155. 1988.
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43Epistemology and primitive truthIn Michael Lynch (ed.), The Nature of Truth: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives, Mit Press. 2001.
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121Varieties of CausationGrazer Philosophische Studien 11 (1): 93-103. 1980.According to nomological accounts of causation causal connections among events or states must be mediated by contingent laws of nature. Three types of causal connection are cited and discussed in opposition to such nomological accounts: (a) material causation (as when a zygote is generated by the union of an ovum and a sperm); (b) consequentialist causation (as when an apple is chromatically colored as a result of being red); (c) inclusive causation (as when a board is on a stump in consequence …Read more
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201A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume IOxford University Press. 2007.Ernest Sosa presents a new approach to the problems of knowledge and scepticism. He argues for two levels of knowledge, the animal and the reflective, each viewed as a distinctive human accomplishment. Sosa's virtue epistemology illuminates different varieties of scepticism, the nature and status of intuitions, and epistemic normativity.