•  285
    Assertion and Assurance: Some Empirical Evidence
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (1): 214-222. 2015.
    I report three experiments relevant to evaluating Krista Lawlor's theory of assurance, respond to her criticism of the knowledge account of assertion, and propose an alternative theory of assurance.
  •  190
    Liberal Thinking
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (3): 515-533. 2013.
    When you think about a particular object, what makes your thought about that object? Roderick Chisholm, Ernest Sosa and Michael McKinsey have defended 'latitudinarian', 'descriptivist', or what I call 'liberal' answers to that question. In this paper I carefully consider the motivation for these liberal views and show how it extends in unanticipated ways to motivate views that are considerably more liberal.
  •  412
    Unreliable Knowledge
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (3): 529-545. 2013.
    There is a virtual consensus in contemporary epistemology that knowledge must be reliably produced. Everyone, it seems, is a reliabilist about knowledge in that sense. I present and defend two arguments that unreliable knowledge is possible. My first argument proceeds from an observation about the nature of achievements, namely, that achievements can proceed from unreliable abilities. My second argument proceeds from an observation about the epistemic efficacy of explanatory inference, namely, t…Read more
  •  32
    Virtuous Thoughts: The Philosophy of Ernest Sosa (edited book)
    Springer. 2013.
    9 We should not expect any significant difference in the nature of the thoughts expressed by means of them. Now, in the case of anaphoric uses, what typically makes the individual salient is a descriptive characterization available from ...
  •  34
    A review of "Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology".
  •  551
    The Express Knowledge Account of Assertion
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (1): 37-45. 2011.
    Many philosophers favour the simple knowledge account of assertion, which says you may assert something only if you know it. The simple account is true but importantly incomplete. I defend a more informative thesis, namely, that you may assert something only if your assertion expresses knowledge. I call this 'the express knowledge account of assertion', which I argue better handles a wider range of cases while at the same time explaining the simple knowledge account's appeal. §1 introduces some …Read more
  •  207
    Knowledge and suberogatory assertion
    Philosophical Studies (3): 1-11. 2013.
    I accomplish two things in this paper. First I expose some important limitations of the contemporary literature on the norms of assertion and in the process illuminate a host of new directions and forms that an account of assertional norms might take. Second I leverage those insights to suggest a new account of the relationship between knowledge and assertion, which arguably outperforms the standard knowledge account.
  •  347
    Epistemic Supervenience
    In Jonathan Dancy, Ernest Sosa & Matthias Steup (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Epistemology, 2 ed, Blackwell. 2010.
    An encyclopedic article on epistemic supervenience in Blackwell companion to epistemology, 2 ed.
  •  607
    Reasons, Answers, and Goals
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (4): 491-499. 2012.
    I discuss two arguments against the view that reasons are propositions. I consider responses to each argument, including recent responses due to Mark Schroeder, and suggest further responses of my own. In each case, the discussion proceeds by comparing reasons to answers and goals
  •  392
    Compatibilism and Incompatibilism in Social Cognition
    Cognitive Science 41 (S3): 403-424. 2017.
    Compatibilism is the view that determinism is compatible with acting freely and being morally responsible. Incompatibilism is the opposite view. It is often claimed that compatibilism or incompatibilism is a natural part of ordinary social cognition. That is, it is often claimed that patterns in our everyday social judgments reveal an implicit commitment to either compatibilism or incompatibilism. This paper reports five experiments designed to identify such patterns. The results support a nuanc…Read more
  •  884
    On the regress argument for infinitism
    Synthese 166 (1). 2009.
    This paper critically evaluates the regress argument for infinitism. The dialectic is essentially this. Peter Klein argues that only an infinitist can, without being dogmatic, enhance the credibility of a questioned non-evident proposition. In response, I demonstrate that a foundationalist can do this equally well. Furthermore, I explain how foundationalism can provide for infinite chains of justification. I conclude that the regress argument for infinitism should not convince us.
  •  26
    It’s What’s on the Inside that Counts... Or is It? Virtue and the Psychological Criteria of Modesty
    with Sara Weaver and Mathieu Doucet
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 8 (3): 653-669. 2017.
    Philosophers who have written on modesty have largely agreed that it is a virtue, and that it therefore has an important psychological component. Mere modest behavior, it is often argued, is actually false modesty if it is generated by the wrong kind of mental state. The philosophical debate about modesty has largely focused on the question of which kind of mental state—cognitive, motivational, or evaluative—best captures the virtue of modesty. We therefore conducted a series of experiments to s…Read more
  •  78
    Infinitism in Epistemology
    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2013.
    Infinitism in Epistemology. This article provides an overview of infinitism in epistemology. Infinitism is a family of views in epistemology about the structure of knowledge and epistemic justification. It contrasts naturally with coherentism and foundationalism. All three views agree that knowledge or justification requires an appropriately structured chain of reasons. What form may such a […]
  •  319
    Knowledge and Skepticism (review)
    International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 1 (2): 155-157. 2011.
    A review of the collection "Knowledge and Skepticism" edited by Joseph Campbell, Michael O'Rourke, and Harry Silverstein.
  •  450
    The Radicalism of Truth‐insensitive Epistemology: Truth's Profound Effect on the Evaluation of Belief
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (2): 348-367. 2015.
    Many philosophers claim that interesting forms of epistemic evaluation are insensitive to truth in a very specific way. Suppose that two possible agents believe the same proposition based on the same evidence. Either both are justified or neither is; either both have good evidence for holding the belief or neither does. This does not change if, on this particular occasion, it turns out that only one of the two agents has a true belief. Epitomizing this line of thought are thought experiments abo…Read more
  •  503
    Skeptical Appeal: The Source‐Content Bias
    Cognitive Science 38 (5): 307-324. 2014.
    Radical skepticism is the view that we know nothing or at least next to nothing. Nearly no one actually believes that skepticism is true. Yet it has remained a serious topic of discussion for millennia and it looms large in popular culture. What explains its persistent and widespread appeal? How does the skeptic get us to doubt what we ordinarily take ourselves to know? I present evidence from two experiments that classic skeptical arguments gain potency from an interaction between two factors. …Read more
  •  373
    Infinitism, finitude and normativity
    Philosophical Studies 163 (3): 791-795. 2013.
    I evaluate two new objections to an infinitist account of epistemic justification, and conclude that they fail to raise any new problems for infinitism. The new objections are a refined version of the finite-mind objection, which says infinitism demands more than finite minds can muster, and the normativity objection, which says infinitism entails that we are epistemically blameless in holding all our beliefs. I show how resources deployed in response to the most popular objection to infinitism,…Read more