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258The 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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461Bi-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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331Promises 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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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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466On 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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310You 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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523Does 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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631Knowledge 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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Review of John Greco, Achieving Knowledge (review)Mind. forthcoming.A review of "Achieving Knowledge" by John Greco.
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640Foundationalism 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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392The 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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516A 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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506Reid 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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221An 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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322Prompting 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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289Assertion and Assurance: Some Empirical EvidencePhilosophy 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.
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197Liberal ThinkingAustralasian 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.
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418Unreliable KnowledgePhilosophy 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
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32Virtuous 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 ...
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34Critical Notice of Robert C Roberts and W. Jay Wood, Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative EpistemologyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (3): 793-797. 2011.A review of "Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology".
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210Knowledge and suberogatory assertionPhilosophical 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.
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351Epistemic SupervenienceIn 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.
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560The Express Knowledge Account of AssertionAustralasian 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
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400Compatibilism and Incompatibilism in Social CognitionCognitive 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
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616Reasons, Answers, and GoalsJournal 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
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320Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity, by John Greco (review)Mind 121 (481): 183-187. 2012.A review of "Achieving Knowledge" by John Greco.
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896On the regress argument for infinitismSynthese 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.
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26It’s What’s on the Inside that Counts... Or is It? Virtue and the Psychological Criteria of ModestyReview 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
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78Infinitism in EpistemologyInternet 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 […]
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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 |