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1Quasi-factive Belief and Knowledge-like StatesLexington Books. forthcoming.This book is addresses a topic that has received little or no attention in orthodox epistemology. Typical epistemological investigation focuses almost exclusively on knowledge, where knowing that something is the case importantly implies that what is believed is strictly true. This condition on knowledge is known as factivity and it is, to be sure, a bit of epistemological orthodoxy. So, if a belief is to qualify as knowledge according to the orthodox view it cannot be false. There is also a…Read more
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64What Place for the A Priori? (edited book)Open Court. 2011.The book gives a diverse and even-handed treatment of the topic without attempting to resolve the matter.
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268Taste, Gastronomic Expertise and ObjectivityIn Fritz Allhoff & David Monroe (eds.), Food & Philosophy: Eat, Think, and Be Merry, Blackwell. 2007.In this paper I argue that the best explanation of expertise about taste is that such alleged experts are simply more eloquent in describing the taste experiences that they have than are ordinary tasters.
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331Moorean Sentences and the Norm of AssertionLogos and Episteme 3 (4): 653-658. 2012.In this paper Timothy Williamson’s argument that the knowledge norm of assertion is the best explanation of the unassertability of Morrean sentences is challenged and an alternative account of the norm of assertion is defended.
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385Bealer on the autonomy of philosophical and scientific knowledgeMetaphilosophy 38 (1). 2007.In a series of influential articles, George Bealer argues for the autonomy of philosophical knowledge on the basis that philosophically known truths must be necessary truths. The main point of his argument is that the truths investigated by the sciences are contingent truths to be discovered a posteriori by observation, while the truths of philosophy are necessary truths to be discovered a priori by intuition. The project of assimilating philosophy to the sciences is supposed to be rendered ille…Read more
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572A Defeater of the Claim that Belief in God’s Existence is Properly BasicPhilo 7 (1): 57-70. 2004.Some contemporary theologically inclined epistemologists, the reformed epistemologists, have attempted to show that belief in God is rational by appealing directly to a special kind of experience. To strengthen the appeal to this particular, and admittedly peculiar, type of experience these venture to draw a parallel between such experiences and normal perceptual experiences in order to show that, by parity of reasoning, if beliefs formed on the basis of the later are taken to be justified and …Read more
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1216Lakatos’ Quasi-empiricism in the Philosophy of MathematicsPolish Journal of Philosophy 9 (2): 71-80. 2015.Imre Lakatos' views on the philosophy of mathematics are important and they have often been underappreciated. The most obvious lacuna in this respect is the lack of detailed discussion and analysis of his 1976a paper and its implications for the methodology of mathematics, particularly its implications with respect to argumentation and the matter of how truths are established in mathematics. The most important themes that run through his work on the philosophy of mathematics and which culminat…Read more
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305Three Problematic Theories of Conditional AcceptanceLogos and Episteme 2 (1): 117-125. 2011.In this paper it is argued that three of the most prominent theories of conditional acceptance face very serious problems. David Lewis' concept of imaging, the Ramsey test and Jonathan Bennett's recent hybrid view all face viscious regresses, or they either employ unanalyzed components or depend upon an implausibly strong version of doxastic voluntarism.
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1066Some epistemological concerns about dissociative identity disorder and diagnostic practices in psychologyPhilosophical Psychology 18 (1): 1-29. 2005.In this paper we argue that dissociative identity disorder (DID) is best interpreted as a causal model of a (possible) post-traumatic psychological process, as a mechanical model of an abnormal psychological condition. From this perspective we examine and criticize the evidential status of DID, and we demonstrate that there is really no good reason to believe that anyone has ever suffered from DID so understood. This is so because the proponents of DID violate basic methodological principles of …Read more
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308Doxastic Voluntarism, Epistemic Deontology and Belief-contravening CommitmentsAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 50 (1): 73-82. 2013.Defenders of doxastic voluntarism accept that we can voluntarily commit ourselves to propositions, including belief-contravening propositions. Thus, defenders of doxastic voluntarism allow that we can choose to believe propositions that are negatively implicated by our evidence. In this paper it is argued that the conjunction of epistemic deontology and doxastic voluntarism as it applies to ordinary cases of belief-contravening propositional commitments is incompatible with evidentialism. In …Read more
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567Bursting Bealer’s Bubble: How the Starting Points Argument Begs the Question of Foundationalism Against QuineCanadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (1): 87-106. 2004.In his 1993 article George Bealer offers three separate arguments that are directed against the internal coherence of empiricism, specifically against Quine’s version of empiricism. One of these arguments is the starting points argument (SPA) and it is supposed to show that Quinean empiricism is incoherent. We argue here that this argument is deeply flawed, and we demonstrate how a Quinean may successfully defend his views against Bealer’s SPA. Our defense of Quinean empiricism against the SP…Read more
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206Stanley and the Stakes HypothesisThe Reasoner 11 73-74. 2017.The main examples of pragmatic encroachment presented by Jason Stanley involve the idea that knowledge ascription occurs more readily in cases where stakes are low rather than high. This is the stakes hypothesis. In this paper an example is presented showing that in some cases knowledge ascription is more readily appropriate where stakes are high rather than low.
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451A Thoroughly Modern WagerLogos and Episteme 8 (2): 207-231. 2017.This paper presents a corrected version of Pascal's wager that makes it consonant with modern decision theory. The corrected wager shows that not committing to God's existence is the rational choice.
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391Theories of Violence and the Explanation of Ultra-violent BehaviorIn T. Levin (ed.), Violence: Mercurial Gestalt, . 2008.Theorists in various scientific disciplines offer radically different accounts of the origin of violent behavior in humans, but it is not clear how the study of violence is to be scientifically grounded. This problem is made more complicated because both what sorts of acts constitute violence and what needs to be appealed to in explaining violence differs according to social scientists, biologists, anthropologists and neurophysiologists, and this generates serious problems with respect to even …Read more