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414Excuse validation: a study in rule-breakingPhilosophical Studies 172 (3): 615-634. 2015.Can judging that an agent blamelessly broke a rule lead us to claim, paradoxically, that no rule was broken at all? Surprisingly, it can. Across seven experiments, we document and explain the phenomenon of excuse validation. We found when an agent blamelessly breaks a rule, it significantly distorts people’s description of the agent’s conduct. Roughly half of people deny that a rule was broken. The results suggest that people engage in excuse validation in order to avoid indirectly blaming other…Read more
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1038The ontology of epistemic reasonsNoûs 43 (3): 490-512. 2009.Epistemic reasons are mental states. They are not propositions or non-mental facts. The discussion proceeds as follows. Section 1 introduces the topic. Section 2 gives two concrete examples of how our topic directly affects the internalism/externalism debate in normative epistemology. Section 3 responds to an argument against the view that reasons are mental states. Section 4 presents two problems for the view that reasons are propositions. Section 5 presents two problems for the view that reaso…Read more
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541Pyrrhonian Skepticism Meets Speech-Act TheoryInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 2 (2): 83-98. 2012.This paper applies speech-act theory to craft a new response to Pyrrhonian skepticism and diagnose its appeal. Carefully distinguishing between different levels of language-use and noting their interrelations can help us identify a subtle mistake in a key Pyrrhonian argument
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261Review of Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood, Intellectual Virtues (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (3). 2011.A review of "Intellectual virtues: an essay in regulative epistemology" by Robert Roberts and Jay Wood.
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172Doomed to fail: the sad epistemological fateIn Miroslaw Szatkowski (ed.), Ontological proofs today, Ontos Verlag. pp. 413-422. 2012.For beings like us, no ontological argument can possibly succeed. They are doomed to fail. The point of an ontological argument is to enable nonempirical knowledge of its conclusion, namely, that God exists. But no ontological argument could possibly enable us to know its conclusion nonempirically, and so must fail in that sense
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502Practical and epistemic justification in alston’s "Perceiving God"Faith and Philosophy 25 (3). 2008.This paper clarifies and evaluates a premise of William Alston’s argument in Perceiving God. The premise in question: if it is practically rational to engage in a doxastic practice, then it is epistemically rational to suppose that said practice is reliable. I first provide the background needed to understand how this premise fits into Alston’s main argument. I then present Alston’s main argument, and proceed to clarify, criticize, modify, and ultimately reject Alston’s argument for the premise …Read more
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447A New Paradigm for Epistemology From Reliabilism to AbilismErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 3. 2016.Contemporary philosophers nearly unanimously endorse knowledge reliabilism, the view that knowledge must be reliably produced. Leading reliabilists have suggested that reliabilism draws support from patterns in ordinary judgments and intuitions about knowledge, luck, reliability, and counterfactuals. That is, they have suggested a proto-reliabilist hypothesis about “commonsense” or “folk” epistemology. This paper reports nine experimental studies (N = 1262) that test the proto-reliabilist hypoth…Read more
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407Knowledge, certainty, and assertionPhilosophical Psychology 29 (2): 293-299. 2016.Researchers have debated whether knowledge or certainty is a better candidate for the norm of assertion. Should you make an assertion only if you know it's true? Or should you make an assertion only if you're certain it's true? If either knowledge or certainty is a better candidate, then this will likely have detectable behavioral consequences. I report an experiment that tests for relevant behavioral consequences. The results support the view that assertability is more closely linked to knowled…Read more
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261Irksome assertionsPhilosophical Studies 166 (1): 123-128. 2013.The Knowledge Account of Assertion (KAA) says that knowledge is the norm of assertion: you may assert a proposition only if you know that it’s true. The primary support for KAA is an explanatory inference from a broad range of linguistic data. The more data that KAA well explains, the stronger the case for it, and the more difficult it is for the competition to keep pace. In this paper we critically assess a purported new linguistic datum, which, it has been argued, KAA well explains. We argue t…Read more
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24Critical Notice of Robert C Roberts and W. Jay Wood, Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (3): 793-797. 2011.
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380Understanding and the Norm of ExplanationPhilosophia 43 (4): 1171-1175. 2015.I propose and defend the hypothesis that understanding is the norm of explanation. On this proposal, an explanation should express understanding. I call this the understanding account of explanation. The understanding account is supported by social and introspective observations. It is also supported by the relationship between knowledge and understanding, on the one hand, and assertion and explanation, on the other.
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605The test of truth: An experimental investigation of the norm of assertionCognition 129 (2): 279-291. 2013.Assertion is fundamental to our lives as social and cognitive beings. Philosophers have recently built an impressive case that the norm of assertion is factive. That is, you should make an assertion only if it is true. Thus far the case for a factive norm of assertion been based on observational data. This paper adds experimental evidence in favor of a factive norm from six studies. In these studies, an assertion’s truth value dramatically affects whether people think it should be made. Whereas …Read more
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443Evidence of factive norms of belief and decisionSynthese 192 (12): 4009-4030. 2015.According to factive accounts of the norm of belief and decision-making, you should not believe or base decisions on a falsehood. Even when the evidence misleadingly suggests that a false proposition is true, you should not believe it or base decisions on it. Critics claim that factive accounts are counterintuitive and badly mischaracterize our ordinary practice of evaluating beliefs and decisions. This paper reports four experiments that rigorously test the critic’s accusations and the viabilit…Read more
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249The distinctive “should” of assertabilityPhilosophical Psychology 30 (4): 481-489. 2017.Recent work has assumed that the normativity associated with assertion differs from the normativity of morality, practical rationality, etiquette, and legality. That is, whether an assertion “should” be made is not merely a function of these other familiar sorts of normativity and is especially connected to truth. Some researchers have challenged this assumption of distinctive normativity. In this paper I report two experiments that test the assumption. Participants read a brief story, judged wh…Read more
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KnowledgeOxford Bibliographies Online. 2011.This article provides an annotated bibliography on the theory of knowledge.
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317Promises to Keep: Speech Acts and the Value of Reflective KnowledgeLogos and Episteme 2 (4): 583-590. 2011.This paper offers a new account of reflective knowledge’s value, building on recent work on the epistemic norms of speech acts. Reflective knowledge is valuable because it licenses us to make guarantees and promises.
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429Bi-Level Virtue EpistemologyIn Virtuous Thoughts: The Philosophy of Ernest Sosa, Springer. pp. 147--164. 2013.A critical explanation of Ernest Sosa's bi-level virtue epistemology.
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437On the general argument against internalismSynthese 170 (1). 2009.I respond to John Greco’s argument that all forms of internalism in epistemology are either false or uninteresting. The paper divides into two sections. First, I explain precisely what internalists and externalists in epistemology disagree over. This puts us in a position to assess whether Greco’s argument succeeds. Second, I present Greco’s argument and offer two objections.
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18Ad Infinitum: New Essays on Epistemological Infinitism (edited book)Oxford University Press UK. 2014.Infinitism is an ancient view in epistemology about the structure of knowledge and epistemic justification, according to which there are no foundational reasons for belief. The view has never been popular, and is often associated with skepticism, but after languishing for centuries it has recently begun a resurgence. Ad Infinitum presents new work on the topic by leading epistemologists. They shed new light on infinitism's distinctive strengths and weaknesses, and address questions, new and old,…Read more
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608Knowledge attributions in iterated fake barn casesAnalysis 77 (1): 104-115. 2017.In a single-iteration fake barn case, the agent correctly identifies an object of interest on the first try, despite the presence of nearby lookalikes that could have mislead her. In a multiple-iteration fake barn case, the agent first encounters several fakes, misidentifies each of them, and then encounters and correctly identifies a genuine item of interest. Prior work has established that people tend to attribute knowledge in single-iteration fake barn cases, but multiple-iteration cases have…Read more
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299You can't get away with murder that easily: A response to Timothy MulganInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 13 (4). 2005.I respond to an objection against satisficing consequentialism, due to Tim Mulgan.
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503Does Perceiving Entail Knowing?Theoria 76 (3): 197-206. 2010.This article accomplishes two closely connected things. First, it refutes an influential view about the relationship between perception and knowledge. In particular, it demonstrates that perceiving does not entail knowing. Second, it leverages that refutation to demonstrate that knowledge is not the most general factive propositional attitude.
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620Foundationalism for Modest InfinitistsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 40 (2): 275-283. 2010.Infinitists argue that their view outshines foundationalism because infinitism can, whereas foundationalism cannot, explain two of epistemic justification’s crucial features: it comes in degrees and it can be complete. I present four different ways that foundationalists could make sense of those two features of justification, thereby undermining the case for infinitism.
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369The point of assertion is to transmit knowledgeAnalysis 76 (2): 130-136. 2016.Recent work in philosophy and cognitive science shows that knowledge is the norm of our social practice of assertion, in the sense that an assertion should express knowledge. But why should an assertion express knowledge? I hypothesize that an assertion should express knowledge because the point of assertion is to transmit knowledge. I present evidence supporting this hypothesis.
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Review of John Greco, Achieving Knowledge (review)Mind. forthcoming.A review of "Achieving Knowledge" by John Greco.
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496Reid on the priority of natural languageCanadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (S1): 214-223. 2011.Thomas Reid distinguished between natural and artificial language and argued that natural language has a very specific sort of priority over artificial language. This paper critically interprets Reid's discussion, extracts a Reidian explanatory argument for the priority of natural language, and places Reid's thought in the broad tradition of Cartesian linguistics.
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498A conspicuous art: putting Gettier to the testPhilosophers' Imprint 13. 2013.Professional philosophers say it’s obvious that a Gettier subject does not know. But experimental philosophers and psychologists have argued that laypeople and non-Westerners view Gettier subjects very differently, based on experiments where laypeople tend to ascribe knowledge to Gettier subjects. I argue that when effectively probed, laypeople and non-Westerners unambiguously agree that Gettier subjects do not know.
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301Prompting challengesAnalysis 70 (3): 456-462. 2010.I consider a serious objection to the knowledge account of assertion and develop a response. In the process I introduce important new data on prompting assertion, which all theorists working in the area should take note of.
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208An Open and Shut Case: Epistemic Closure in the Manifest ImagePhilosophers' Imprint 15. 2015.The epistemic closure principle says that knowledge is closed under known entailment. The closure principle is deeply implicated in numerous core debates in contemporary epistemology. Closure’s opponents claim that there are good theoretical reasons to abandon it. Closure’s proponents claim that it is a defining feature of ordinary thought and talk and, thus, abandoning it is radically revisionary. But evidence for these claims about ordinary practice has thus far been anecdotal. In this paper, …Read more
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University of WaterlooDepartment of PhilosophyCanada Research Chair In Philosophy and Cognitive Science
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Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Areas of Specialization
3 more
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Moral Psychology |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Experimental Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Other Academic Areas |