•  21
    Renewing the Senses: A Study of the Philosophy and Theology of the Spiritual Life
    Philosophical Quarterly 64 (255): 356-358. 2014.
    Review of Mark Wynn's book, Renewing the Senses: A Study of the Philosophy and Theology of the Spiritual Life
  •  349
    Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare: A Philosophical Analysis
    with Havi Carel
    Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 17 (4): 529-540. 2014.
    In this paper we argue that ill persons are particularly vulnerable to epistemic injustice in the sense articulated by Fricker. Ill persons are vulnerable to testimonial injustice through the presumptive attribution of characteristics like cognitive unreliability and emotional instability that downgrade the credibility of their testimonies. Ill persons are also vulnerable to hermeneutical injustice because many aspects of the experience of illness are difficult to understand and communicate and …Read more
  •  184
    In this paper, I explore the relationship of virtue, argumentation, and philosophical conduct by considering the role of the specific virtue of intellectual humility in the practice of philosophical argumentation. I have three aims: first, to sketch an account of this virtue; second, to argue that it can be cultivated by engaging in argumentation with others; and third, to problematize this claim by drawing upon recent data from social psychology. My claim is that philosophical argumentation can…Read more
  •  858
    Epistemic Injustice and Illness
    with Havi Carel
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 34 (2): 172-190. 2016.
    This article analyses the phenomenon of epistemic injustice within contemporary healthcare. We begin by detailing the persistent complaints patients make about their testimonial frustration and hermeneutical marginalization, and the negative impact this has on their care. We offer an epistemic analysis of this problem using Miranda Fricker's account of epistemic injustice. We detail two types of epistemic injustice, testimonial and hermeneutical, and identify the negative stereotypes and structu…Read more
  •  225
    Confidence, Humility, and Hubris in Nineteenth Century Philosophies
    In Herman Paul & Jeroen van Dongen (eds.), Epistemic Virtues in the Sciences and the Humanities, Springer Verlag. pp. 11-25. 2017.
    Most historians explains changes in conceptions of the epistemic virtues and vices in terms of social and historical developments. I argue that such approaches, valuable as they are, neglect the fact that certain changes also reflect changes in metaphysical sensibilities. Certain epistemic virtues and vices are defined relative to an estimate of our epistemic situation that is, in turn, defined by a broader vision or picture of the nature of reality. I defend this claim by charting changing conc…Read more
  •  99
    Introduction: Reappraising Paul Feyerabend
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 57 1-8. 2016.
    This volume is devoted to a reappraisal of the philosophy of Paul Feyerabend. It has four aims. The first is to reassess his already well-known work from the 1960s and 1970s in light of contemporary developments in the history and philosophy of science. The second is to explore themes in his neglected later work, including recently published and previously unavailable writings. The third is to assess the contributions that Feyerabend can make to contemporary debate, on topics such as perspectivi…Read more
  •  416
    Receptivity to Mystery: Cultivation, Loss, and Scientism
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (3): 51-68. 2012.
    The cultivation of receptivity to the mystery of reality is a central feature of many religious and philosophical traditions, both Western and Asian. This paper considers two contemporary accounts of receptivity to mystery – those of David E. Cooper and John Cottingham – and considers them in light of the problem of loss of receptivity. I argue that a person may lose their receptivity to mystery by embracing what I call a scientistic stance, and the paper concludes by offering two possible respo…Read more
  •  5
    The Contingency of Science and the Future of Philosophy
    Essays in Philosophy 12 (2): 313-329. 2011.
    Contemporary metaphilosophical debates on the future of philosophy invariably include references to the natural sciences. This is wholly understandable given the cognitive and cultural authority of the sciences and their contributions to philosophical thought and practice. However such appeals to the sciences should be moderated by reflections on contingency of sciences. Using the work of contemporary historians and philosophers of science, I argue that an awareness of the radical contingency of…Read more
  •  76
    Historical Contingency and the Impact of Scientific Imperialism
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (3). 2013.
    In a recent article in this journal, Steve Clarke and Adrian Walsh propose a normative basis for John Dupré’s criticisms of scientific imperialism, namely, that scientific imperialism can cause a discipline to fail to progress in ways that it otherwise would have. This proposal is based on two presuppositions: one, that scientific disciplines have developmental teleologies, and two, that these teleologies are optimal. I argue that we should reject both of these presuppositions and so conclude th…Read more
  •  100
    This paper explores the influence of the fifth-century Christian Neoplatonist Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Denys) on the twentieth-century philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. I argue that the later Feyerabend took from Denys a metaphysical claim—the ‘doctrine of ineffability’—intended to support epistemic pluralism. The paper has five parts. Part one introduces Denys and Feyerabend’s common epistemological concern to deny the possibility of human knowledge of ultimate reality. Part two e…Read more
  •  651
    Exemplars, Ethics, and Illness Narratives
    Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 38 (4): 323-334. 2017.
    Many people report that reading first-person narratives of the experience of illness can be morally instructive or educative. But although they are ubiquitous and typically sincere, the precise nature of such educative experiences is puzzling—for those narratives typically lack the features that modern philosophers regard as constitutive of moral reason. I argue that such puzzlement should disappear, and the morally educative power of illness narratives explained, if one distinguishes two differ…Read more
  •  1
    Against Method (review)
    British Journal for the History of Science 44 (2): 311-312. 2011.
  •  35
    A Phenomenological Challenge to 'Enlightened Secularism'
    Religious Studies 49 (3): 377-398. 2013.
    This article challenges Philip Kitcher’s recent proposals for an ‘enlightened secularism’. I use William James’s theory of the emotions and his related discussion of ‘temperaments’ to argue that religious and naturalistic commitments are grounded in tacit, inarticulate ways that one finds oneself in a world. This indicates that, in many cases, religiosity and naturalism are grounded not in rational and evidential considerations, but in a tacit and implicit sense of reality which is disclosed thr…Read more
  •  459
    It is very well known that from the late-1960s onwards Feyerabend began to radically challenge some deeply-held ideas about the history and methodology of the sciences. It is equally well known that, from around the same period, he also began to radically challenge wider claims about the value and place of the sciences within modern societies, for instance by calling for the separation of science and the state and by questioning the idea that the sciences served to liberate and ameliorate human …Read more
  •  1
    Oswald Spengler
    In Gregory Claey (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Modern Political Thought, Cq Press. 2013.
    I provide an account of the political and philosophical thought of Oswald Spengler.
  •  7
    Mary Midgley is one of the most important moral philosophers working today. Over the last thirty years, her writings have informed debates concerning animals, the environment and evolutionary theory. The invited essays in this volume offer critical reflections upon Midgley’s work and further developments of her ideas. The contributors include many of the leading commentators on her work, including distinguished figures from the disciplines of philosophy, biology, and ethology. The range of topic…Read more
  •  20
    Emotion, religious practice, and cosmopolitan secularism
    Religious Studies (2): 1-18. 2013.
    Philip Kitcher has recently proposed a form of which he suggests could enable the members of a future secular society to continue to access and benefit from the moral and existential resources of the world's religions. I criticize this proposal by appeal to contemporary work on the role of emotion and practice in religious commitment. Using the work of John Cottingham and Mark Wynn, two objections are offered to the cosmopolitan secularists' claim that the moral resources of a religion could be …Read more
  •  19
  •  106
    Can Illness Be Edifying?
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 55 (5): 496-520. 2012.
    Abstract Havi Carel has recently argued that one can be ill and happy. An ill person can ?positively respond? to illness by cultivating ?adaptability? and ?creativity?. I propose that Carel's claim can be augmented by connecting it with virtue ethics. The positive responses which Carel describes are best understood as the cultivation of virtues, and this adds a significant moral aspect to coping with illness. I then defend this claim against two sets of objections and conclude that interpreting …Read more
  •  142
    Epistemic Injustice in Psychiatry
    with Paul Crichton and Havi Carel
    Psychiatry Bulletin 41. 2017.
    Epistemic injustice is a harm done to a person in their capacity as an epistemic subject by undermining her capacity to engage in epistemic practices such as giving knowledge to others or making sense of one’s experiences. It has been argued that those who suffer from medical conditions are more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than the healthy. This paper claims that people with mental disorders are even more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than those with somatic illnesses. Two kinds of con…Read more
  •  404
    Reawakening to Wonder: Wittgenstein, Feyerabend, and Scientism
    In Jonathan Beale & Ian James Kidd (eds.), Wittgenstein and Scientism, Routledge. pp. 101-115. 2018.
    My aim in this chapter is to reconstruct Feyerabend’s anti-scientism by comparing it with the similar critiques of one of his main philosophical influences – Ludwig Wittgenstein. I argue that they share a common conception of scientism that gathers around a concern that it erodes a sense of wonder or mystery required for a full appreciation of human existence – a sense that Feyerabend, like Wittgenstein, characterised in terms of the ‘mystical’.
  •  6
  •  41
    Humane philosophy and the question of progress
    Ratio 25 (3): 277-290. 2012.
    According to some recent critics, philosophy has not progressed over the course of its history because it has not exhibited any substantial increase in the stock of human wisdom. I reject this pessimistic conclusion by arguing that such criticisms employ a conception of progress drawn from the sciences which is inapplicable to a humanistic discipline such as philosophy. Philosophy should not be understood as the accumulation of epistemic goods in a manner analogous to the natural sciences. I arg…Read more
  •  46
    Humility and history
    Think 13 (38): 59-68. 2014.
    I argue that amongst its many benefits, the history of philosophy is an excellent resource for the cultivation of certain intellectual virtues, most notably gratitude, humility, and justice. Acquaintance with the history of philosophy can, therefore, be edifying, in the sense of being conducive to the cultivation and exercise of virtues. These virtues can be cultivated in many ways, but the history of philosophy offers unique means for securing them, and some familiar pedagogical and intellectua…Read more
  •  980
    I offer an account of the virtue of intellectual humility, construed as a pair of dispositions enabling proper management of one's intellectual confidence. I then show its integral role in a range of familiar educational practices and concerns, and finally describe how certain entrenched educational attitudes and conceptions marginalise or militate against the cultivation and exercise of this virtue.
  •  23
    Doing Away With Scientism
    Philosophy Now 102 30-31. 2014.
    Scientism has none of the virtues of science or philosophy, so let's do away with it.