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332“Bamboozled by Our Own Words”: Semantic Blindness and Some Arguments Against ContextualismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (2). 2006.The best grounds for accepting contextualism concerning knowledge attributions are to be found in how knowledge-attributing (and knowledge-denying) sentences are used in ordinary, nonphilosophical talk: What ordinary speakers will count as “knowledge” in some non-philosophical contexts they will deny is such in others. Contextualists typically appeal to pairs of cases that forcefully display the variability in the epistemic standards that govern ordinary usage: A “low standards” case (henceforth…Read more
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56Ought We to Follow Our Evidence?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (3): 697-706. 2000.My focus will be on Richard Feldman’s claim that what we epistemically ought to believe is what fits our evidence. I will propose some potential counter-examples to test this evidentialist thesis. My main intention in presenting the “counter-examples” is to better understand Feldman’s evidentialism, and evidentialism in general. How are we to understand what our evidence is, how it works, and how are we to understand the phrase “epistemically ought to believe” such that evidentialism might make …Read more
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46Assertion, Knowledge, and ContextPhilosophical Review 111 (2): 167-203. 2002.This paper brings together two positions that for the most part have been developed and defended independently of one another: contextualism about knowledge attributions and the knowledge account of assertion.
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198I should be clear at the outset about what I'll mean -- and won't mean -- by "universalism." As I'll use it, "universalism" refers to the position that eventually all human beings will be saved and will enjoy everlasting life with Christ. This is compatible with the view that God will punish many people after death, and many universalists accept that there will be divine retribution, although some may not. What universalism does commit one to is that such punishment won't last forever. Universal…Read more
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50Direct warrant realismIn Andrew Dole & Andrew Chignell (eds.), God and the Ethics of Belief: New Essays in Philosophy of Religion, Cambridge University Press. 2005.Direct Realism often emerges as a solution to a certain type of problem. Hume and, especially, Berkeley, wielding some of the most powerful arguments of 18th Century philosophy, forcefully attacked the notion that there could be good inferences from the occurrence of one’s sensations to the existence of external, mind-independent bodies. Given the success of these attacks, and also given the assumption, made by Berkeley and arguably by Hume as well, that our knowledge of and rational belief in t…Read more
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185The Conditionals of DeliberationMind 119 (473): 1-42. 2010.Practical deliberation often involves conditional judgements about what will (likely) happen if certain alternatives are pursued. It is widely assumed that the conditionals useful in deliberation are counterfactual or subjunctive conditionals. Against this, I argue that the conditionals of deliberation are indicatives. Key to the argument is an account of the relation between 'straightforward' future-directed conditionals like ' If the house is not painted, it will soon look quite shabby' and * …Read more
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55Contextualism and Knowledge AttributionsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (4): 913-929. 1992.
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155Simple 'might's, indicative possibilities and the open futurePhilosophical Quarterly 48 (190): 67-82. 1998.are ambiguous. In the mouth of someone who cannot remember whether it was Michael, or rather someone else, who was top scorer, can express the epistemic possibility that Michael led the league in scoring. But from someone who knows that Michael did not even play last season, but is wondering what would have happened if he had, means something quite different. Now where it has this quite different meaning, may still turn out to be the expression of some epistemic possibility. Perhaps where does not…Read more
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128This is the text for a presentation I gave at the Eastern Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association in Washington, D.C. on December 28, 1998. It was written very quickly, and I haven't had time to go back and fix it up, but I probably won't have time to fix it up any time soon, and several people have requested copies, so I don't see any harm in making it available. Please remember that it is a draft, and don't quote it without permission.
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134Relevant Alternatives and the Content of Knowledge AttributionsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (1): 193-197. 1996.In “Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions,” I argue that advocates of the “Relevant Alternatives” theory of knowledge fall into certain mistakes result if they tie the content of a knowledge attribution, on a given occasion of use, too tightly to what the range of relevant alternatives is on that occasion, and I sketch an alternative approach to the issues involved that avoids such mistakes. In “The Shifting Content of Knowledge Attributions,” Anthony Brueckner charges that my own account of …Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Religion |