•  10
    Daniel Waxman (2022a) argues that the thesis, recently advanced in Rosenkranz 2021, that one has propositional justification for φ, if and only if one is in no position to rule out that one is in a position to know φ, has clear counter examples. However, Waxman makes controversial assumptions about the notion of being in a position to know that I should and coherently can reject. On the alternative construal of the notion open to me, Waxman’s strategy to produce counterexamples founders. However…Read more
  •  32
    Problems for factive accounts of assertion
    Noûs 57 (1): 128-143. 2023.
    The knowledge account of assertion construes assertion as subject to constitutive norms. In its standard version, it combines a wide scope obligation not to assert p without knowing p, with narrow scope principles specifying conditions under which it is permissible to assert p, where the notions of obligation and permission are duals and behave uniformly for variable p. It is argued that, given natural assumptions about the logic of ‘ought’, the account proves incoherent. The argument generalize…Read more
  •  8
    Replies to Critics
    Disputatio 13 (63): 445-494. 2021.
    In what follows, we will reply to the critical comments one by one in the order that seemed most natural to us, given the topics covered. Apart from the references section towards the end, our replies are conceived as pieces each of which can be read independently from any of the others (but not, of course, independently from the comments it responds to). We hope to have done justice to the critical points made by our commentators and to have come up with viable answers to the various challenges…Read more
  •  15
    Justification as Ignorance offers an original account of epistemic justification as both non-factive and luminous, vindicating core internalist intuitions without construing justification as an internal condition knowable by reflection alone. Sven Rosenkranz conceives of justification, in its doxastic and propositional varieties, as a kind of epistemic possibility of knowing and of being in a position to know. His account contrasts with recent alternative views that characterize justification in…Read more
  •  15
    Replies to critics
    Asian Journal of Philosophy 1 (1): 1-6. 2022.
    Responding to the critical comments by the symposiasts Julien Dutant, Niccolò Rossi, Martin Smith, Daniel Waxman, and Yiwen Zhan, I further elaborate, refine, and defend the account of epistemic justification I advanced in my book Justification as Ignorance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). Central issues tackled here include logical omniscience and non-normal epistemic logics, the luminosity of epistemic justification, methods for telling what one is in no position to know, and the relat…Read more
  •  13
    Précis of Justification as Ignorance
    Asian Journal of Philosophy 1 (1): 1-6. 2022.
    In this précis, I give an overview of the theses advanced and defended in my book Justification as Ignorance.
  •  36
    Nihel Jhou (2021) takes issue with our argument to the conclusion that realism about tense implies realism about temporal passage (Correia and Rosenkranz 2020). Here we review his criticism and defend our conclusion by improving the original argument so as to do justice to the more demanding notion of temporal passage Jhou invokes.
  •  39
    European Functionalism
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (2). 2011.
    Functionalism about mental phenomena must account for their multiple realizability. According to standard doctrine, this can be achieved by allowing our folk theory's realization formula to be multiply satisfied by distinct physical properties. If at all, uniqueness can then be restored by suitable relativization to populations or worlds. Recent arguments suggest that this is a dead end. Here the attempt is made to devise a novel type of functionalism that accounts for multiple realizability but…Read more
  •  260
    The Structure of Justification
    Mind 127 (506): 629-629. 2018.
    The paper explores a structural account of propositional justification in terms of the notion of being in a position to know and negation. Combined with a non-normal logic for being in a position to know, the account allows for the derivation of plausible principles of justification. The account is neutral on whether justification is grounded in internally individuated mental states, and likewise on whether it is grounded in facts that are already accessible by introspection or reflection alone.…Read more
  •  16
    The anti-realist maintains that all thoughts that we may entertain are thoughts whose truth-values we can in principle come to recognise. The realist refuses to make any such claim about the limits of our thinking. The anti-realist purports to arrive at her position on the basis of considerations which relate to the manifestability of understanding, i.e. the idea that grasp of thoughts must be manifested in linguistic abilities. Thus she argues against the realist that this requirement cannot be…Read more
  •  112
    Radical Scepticism Without Epistemic Closure
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (3): 692-718. 2012.
    This paper contributes to the current debate about radical scepticism and the structure of warrant. After a presentation of the standard version of the radical sceptic’s challenge, both in its barest and its more refined form, three anti-sceptical responses, and their respective commitments, are being identified: the Dogmatist response, the Conservativist response and the Dretskean response. It is then argued that both the Dretskean and the Conservativist are right that the anti-sceptical hypoth…Read more
  •  25
    Pragmatism, semantics, and the unknowable
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (3). 2003.
    Pragmatism in semantics is hampered by its proponents' tendency to tie understanding too closely to our mastery of epistemic practice. Both Brandom's inferentialist semantics and the anti-realist semantics championed by Dummett and Tennant amply illustrate this tendency. As a consequence, neither theory can successfully handle cases of the innocuously unknowable in which two sentences, though mutually consistent, nonetheless cannot be known to be true together. On Brandom's account, such sentenc…Read more
  •  24
    Realism and understanding
    Erkenntnis 58 (3). 2003.
    Realists claim that, amongst the statements weunderstand, there are some which are true, yetwhose truth potentially transcends the limits ofwhat we can recognize. Dummett and othershave argued that this realist thesis is incompatiblewith an account of understanding in termsof recognitional capacities. But careful analysis revealsthat this contention is mistaken. Thealleged incompatibility presupposes the truth of ametaphysical principle which cannot bevindicated on the basis of an account of und…Read more
  •  53
    Priest and the Bishop
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (3). 2006.
    According to metaphysical realism, there may be features of reality which we cannot conceive. If this thesis of cognitive closure is inconsistent, then, pace dialetheism, metaphysical realism proves incoherent. Recently, Graham Priest has revived Berkeley's idealist argument meant to show that cognitive closure is inconsistent. If cogent, this argument poses a threat to metaphysical realism. I argue that while Priest's reconstruction of Berkeley's argument may be seen to be paradoxical on one in…Read more
  •  71
    The current debate about peer disagreement has so far mainly focused on the question of whether peer disagreements provide genuine counterevidence to which we should respond by revising our credences. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the question by which process, if any, such revision should be brought about. The standard assumption is that we update our credences by conditionalizing on the evidence that peer disagreements provide. In this paper, we argue that non…Read more
  •  64
    Platitudes against paradox
    with Arash Sarkohi
    Erkenntnis 65 (3). 2006.
    We present a strategy to dissolve semantic paradoxes which proceeds from an explanation of why paradoxical sentences or their definitions are semantically defective. This explanation is compatible with the acceptability of impredicative definitions, self-referential sentences and semantically closed languages and leaves the status of the so-called truth-teller sentence unaffected. It is based on platitudes which encode innocuous constraints on successful definition and successful expression of p…Read more
  •  13
    Platitudes against Paradox
    with Arash Sarkohi
    Erkenntnis 65 (3): 319-341. 2007.
    We present a strategy to dissolve semantic paradoxes which proceeds from an explanation of why paradoxical sentences or their definitions are semantically defective. This explanation is compatible with the acceptability of impredicative definitions, self-referential sentences and semantically closed languages and leaves the status of the so-called truth-teller sentence unaffected. It is based on platitudes which encode innocuous constraints on successful definition and successful expression of p…Read more
  •  73
    Objective Content
    Erkenntnis 74 (2): 177-206. 2011.
    We conceive of many general terms we use as having satisfaction conditions that are objective in that the thought that something meets them neither entails nor is entailed by the thought that we are currently in a position in which we are ready, or warranted, to apply those terms to it. How do we manage to use a given term in such a way that it is thereby endowed, and conceived to be endowed, with satisfaction conditions that are objective in this sense? In the first half of the paper, I present…Read more
  •  14
    Metaethics, Agnosticism, and Logic
    Dialectica 60 (1): 47-61. 2006.
    In this paper, I present an argument for the revision of classical logic. The argument is based on the coherence of a metaethical position which is a species of agnosticism. According to this view, the debate between cognitivists and noncognitivists about moral discourse is unresolved. I argue that there is something at stake in this debate and so something one can coherently be agnostic about. The revisionary argument also draws on principles of epistemic closure. I make these principles explic…Read more
  •  67
    Metaethics, agnosticism, and logic
    Dialectica 60 (1). 2006.
    In this paper, I present an argument for the revision of classical logic. The argument is based on the coherence of a metaethical position which is a species of agnosticism. According to this view, the debate between cognitivists and noncognitivists about moral discourse is unresolved. I argue that there is something at stake in this debate and so something one can coherently be agnostic about. The revisionary argument also draws on principles of epistemic closure. I make these principles explic…Read more
  •  140
    This monograph is a detailed study, and systematic defence, of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT), first conceived by C.D. Broad. The book offers a coherent, logically perspicuous and ideologically lean formulation of GBT, defends it against the most notorious objections to be found in the extant philosophical literature, and shows how it can be derived from a more general theory, consistent with relativistic spacetime, on the pre-relativistic assumption of an absolute and total temporal ord…Read more
  •  14
    Knowability, Closure, and Anti‐Realism
    Dialectica 62 (1): 59-75. 2008.
    In light of the paradox of knowability anti‐realists ought to revise their wholesale equation of truth and knowability, lest they be committed to the absurd conclusion that there are no truths that will never be known. The task accordingly becomes to identify the problematic statements the knowability of whose truth would force that conclusion and to restrict the equation in appropriate ways to all but the problematic statements. This restriction strategy was first implemented by Tennant. Howeve…Read more
  •  35
  •  397
    Inexact Knowledge 2.0
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (8): 1-19. 2020.
    Many of our sources of knowledge only afford us knowledge that is inexact. When trying to see how tall something is, or to hear how far away something is, or to remember how long something lasted, we may come to know some facts about the approximate size, distance or duration of the thing in question but we don’t come to know exactly what its size, distance or duration is. In some such situations we also have some pointed knowledge of how inexact our knowledge is. That is, we can knowledgeably p…Read more
  •  57
    In a series of recent papers, Crispin Wright has developed and defended an epistemic account of borderline cases which he calls ‘Liberalism’. If Verdict Exclusion is the claim that no polar verdict on borderline cases is knowledgeable, then Liberalism implies the view that Verdict Exclusion is itself nothing we are in a position to know. It is a matter of ongoing discussion what more Liberalism implies. In any case, Wright argues that Liberalism affords the means to account for the intuition tha…Read more
  •  53
    Knowability, closure, and anti-realism
    Dialectica 62 (1). 2008.
    In light of the paradox of knowability anti‐realists ought to revise their wholesale equation of truth and knowability, lest they be committed to the absurd conclusion that there are no truths that will never be known. The task accordingly becomes to identify the problematic statements the knowability of whose truth would force that conclusion and to restrict the equation in appropriate ways to all but the problematic statements. This restriction strategy was first implemented by Tennant. Howeve…Read more
  •  126
    In Defence of Ockhamism
    Philosophia 40 (3): 617-631. 2012.
    Ockhamism implies that future contingents may be true, their historical contingency notwithstanding. It is thus opposed to both the Peircean view according to which all future contingents are false, and Supervaluationist Indeterminism according to which all future contingents are neither true nor false. The paper seeks to defend Ockhamism against two charges: the charge that it cannot meet the requirement that truths be grounded in reality, and the charge that it proves incompatible with objecti…Read more