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228How to resolve the pyrrhonian problematic: A lesson from Descartes (review)Philosophical Studies 85 (2-3): 229-249. 1997.A main epistemic problematic, found already in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, presents a threefold choice on how a belief may be justified: either through infinitely regressive reasoning, or through circular reasoning, or through reasoning resting ultimately on some foundation. Aristotle himself apparently takes the foundationalist option when he argues that rational intuition is a foundational source of scientific knowledge. The five modes of Agrippa, which pertain to knowledge generally, aga…Read more
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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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122Varieties 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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67Propositional knowledgePhilosophical Studies 20 (3). 1969.The received definition of knowledge (as true, evident belief) has recently been questioned by Edmund Gettier with an example whose principle is as follows. A proposition, p, is both evident to and accepted by someone S, who sees that its truth entails (would entail) (that either p is true or q is true). This last is thereby made evident to him, and he accepts it, but it happens to be true only because q is true, since p is in fact false. Hence, inasmuch as he has no evidence for the proposition…Read more
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10Metaphysics: an anthology (edited book)Blackwell. 1999.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. One of the most comprehensive and authoritative metaphysics anthologies available - now updated and expanded Offers the most important contemporary works on the central i…Read more
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16Berkeley's master strokeIn John Foster & Howard Robinson (eds.), Essays on Berkeley: a tercentennial celebration, Oxford University Press. 1985.
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52The Relevance of Moore and WittgensteinIn Albert Casullo & Joshua C. Thurow (eds.), The a Priori in Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 186. 2013.
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105Epistemology, realism, and truth: The first philosophical perspectives lecturePhilosophical Perspectives 7 1-16. 1993.Truth centered epistemology puts truth at the center in more ways than one. For one thing, it makes truth a main cognitive goal of inquiry. For another, it explains other main epistemic concepts in terms of truth. Knowledge itself, for example, is explained as belief that meets certain other conditions, among them being true. And a belief is said to be rationally or epistemically justified or apt, which it must be in order to be knowledge, only if it derives from a truth-conducive faculty, an in…Read more
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106Responses to four criticsPhilosophical Studies 166 (3): 625-636. 2013.This alleged disagreement is only verbal, however, given my anti-intellectualist conception of a suitably broad category of ‘‘belief.’’ Although this broad conception figures large in my earlier writings, it figures not at all in the book under discussion, which helps explain H&H’s reaction. Here now is how I make the relevant distinctions and try to clarify what reflective knowledge amounts to, and how it comes in degrees
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2Knowledge: Instrumental and testimonialIn Jennifer Lackey & Ernest Sosa (eds.), The Epistemology of Testimony, Oxford University Press. pp. 116--123. 2006.
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990Intuitions: Their nature and epistemic efficacyGrazer Philosophische Studien 74 (1): 51-67. 2007.This paper presents an account of intuitions, and a defense of their epistemic efficacy in general, and more specifically in philosophy, followed by replies in response to various objections.
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5Are There Two Grades of Knowledge?Supplement to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 77 (1): 113-130. 2003.
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84The coherence of virtue and the virtue of coherenceSynthese 64 (1). 1985.Polyfacetic epistemology would answer the skeptic, provide how-to-think manuals, explain how we know, and more. To some it is the project of assuring oneself, of validating one's knowledge or supposed knowledge, turning it into real and assured knowledge, thus defeating the skeptic. To others it is a set of rules or instructions, a guide to the perplexed, a manual for conducting the intellect. To others yet it is a meta-discipline, but one whose purpose is not nearly so much guidance as understa…Read more
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104Nature unmirrored, epistemology naturalizedSynthese 55 (1). 1983.A. Knowledge and Justification: The nature of epistemic justification and its supervenience.B. Understanding and Validation: Two projects of epistemology, one to understand justification, the other to promote it.
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1164Dreams and philosophyProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 79 (2). 2005.That conception is orthodox in today’s common sense and also historically. Presupposed by Plato, Augustine, and Descartes, it underlies familiar skeptical paradoxes. Similar orthodoxy is also found in our developing science of sleep and dreaming.[2] Despite such confluence.
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22Rastreamento, competência e conhecimento/Tracking, competence and knowledgeManuscrito 30 (2): 423-458. 2007.Formas diferentes de externalismo epistemológico são discutidas. O conceito de rastreamento é analisado, e o papel do conceito de virtude epistêmica é investigado.In this paper different forms of epistemological externalism are discussed. The concept of tracking is analyzed, and the role of the concept of epistemic virtue is investi-gated
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3Philosophical Skepticism and Epistemic CircularityIn Keith DeRose & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), Skepticism: a contemporary reader, Oxford University Press. 1999.
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209Intuitions and meaning divergencePhilosophical Psychology 23 (4): 419-426. 2010.Survey results are in the first instance utterances, which require interpretation. Moreover, when the results seem to involve disagreement in intuitive responses to a thought experiment, the results are most directly responsive to the scenario as envisaged by the particular subject, where the text of the example can give rise to relevantly different scenarios, depending on how the scenario is shaped by the subjects involved, under the guidance of the text. All of this opens up a defense of intui…Read more
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27Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in EpistemologyPhilosophical Review 102 (3): 421. 1993.