•  8
    Preempting Paradox
    Logos and Episteme 3 (4): 659-662. 2012.
    Charlie Pelling has recently argued that two leading accounts of the norm of assertion, the truth account and a version of the knowledge account, invite paradoxand so must be false. Pelling’s arguments assume that an isolated utterance of the sentence “This assertion is improper” counts as making an assertion. I argue that this assumption is questionable.
  •  166
    An infinitist account of doxastic justification
    Dialectica 63 (2): 209-218. 2009.
    Any satisfactory epistemology must account for the distinction between propositional and doxastic justification. Can infinitism account for it? Proposals to date have been unsatisfactory. This paper advances a new infinitist account of the distinction. The discussion proceeds as follows. Section 1 sets the stage. Section 2 presents Peter Klein's account. Section 3 raises a problem for Klein's account and suggests an improvement. Section 4 raises a further challenge. Sections 5 to 7 consider seve…Read more
  •  204
    Mythology of the Factive
    Logos and Episteme 2 (1): 141-150. 2011.
    It’s a cornerstone of epistemology that knowledge requires truth – that is, that knowledge is factive. Allan Hazlett boldly challenges orthodoxy by arguing thatthe ordinary concept of knowledge is not factive. On this basis Hazlett further argues that epistemologists shouldn’t concern themselves with the ordinary concept of knowledge, or knowledge ascriptions and related linguistic phenomena. I argue that either Hazlett is wrong about the ordinary concept of knowledge, or he’s right in a way tha…Read more
  •  310
    Vision, knowledge, and assertion
    Consciousness and Cognition 41 41-49. 2016.
    I report two experiments studying the relationship among explicit judgments about what people see, know, and should assert. When an object of interest was surrounded by visibly similar items, it diminished people’s willingness to judge that an agent sees, knows, and should tell others that it is present. This supports the claim, made by many philosophers, that inhabiting a misleading environment intuitively decreases our willingness to attribute perception and knowledge. However, contrary to str…Read more
  •  337
    Prior work on weakness of will has assumed that it is a thoroughly psychological phenomenon. At least, it has assumed that ordinary attributions of weakness of will are purely psychological attributions, keyed to the violation of practical commitments by the weak-willed agent. Debate has recently focused on which sort of practical commitment, intention or normative judgment, is more central to the ordinary concept of weakness of will. We report five experiments that significantly advance our und…Read more
  •  316
    Knowledge Attributions and Behavioral Predictions
    Cognitive Science 2253-2261. 2017.
    Recent work has shown that knowledge attributions affect how people think others should behave, more so than belief attributions do. This paper reports two experiments providing evidence that knowledge attributions also affect behavioral predictions more strongly than belief attributions do, and knowledge attributions facilitate faster behavioral predictions than belief attributions do. Thus, knowledge attributions play multiple critical roles in social cognition, guiding judgments about how peo…Read more
  •  1003
    The ontology of epistemic reasons
    Noûs 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
  •  525
    Pyrrhonian Skepticism Meets Speech-Act Theory
    International 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
  •  391
    Excuse validation: a study in rule-breaking
    Philosophical 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
  •  151
    Doomed to fail: the sad epistemological fate
    In 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
  •  248
    Review 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.
  •  423
    A New Paradigm for Epistemology From Reliabilism to Abilism
    Ergo: 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
  •  487
    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
  •  246
    Irksome assertions
    Philosophical 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
  •  376
    Knowledge, certainty, and assertion
    Philosophical 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
  •  358
    Understanding and the Norm of Explanation
    Philosophia 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.
  •  578
    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
  •  231
    The distinctive “should” of assertability
    Philosophical 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
  • Knowledge
    Oxford Bibliographies Online. 2011.
    This article provides an annotated bibliography on the theory of knowledge.
  •  424
    Evidence of factive norms of belief and decision
    Synthese 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
  •  392
  •  300
    Promises to Keep: Speech Acts and the Value of Reflective Knowledge
    Logos 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.
  •  14
    Ad 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
  •  423
    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.
  •  279
    You can't get away with murder that easily: A response to Timothy Mulgan
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 13 (4). 2005.
    I respond to an objection against satisficing consequentialism, due to Tim Mulgan.
  •  476
    Does 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.
  •  575
    Knowledge attributions in iterated fake barn cases
    Analysis 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
  •  346
    The point of assertion is to transmit knowledge
    Analysis 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.
  • Review of John Greco, Achieving Knowledge (review)
    Mind. forthcoming.
    A review of "Achieving Knowledge" by John Greco.