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In Defense of Rationalism about Abductive InferenceIn Kevin McCain & Ted Poston (eds.), Best Explanations: New Essays on Inference to the Best Explanation, Oxford University Press. 2017.Laurence BonJour and more recently James Beebe have argued that the best way to defend the claim that abduction or inference to the best explanation is epistemically justified is the rationalist view that it is justified a priori. However, rationalism about abduction faces a number of challenges. This chapter focuses on one particular, highly influential objection, that there is no interpretation of probability available which is compatible with rationalism about abduction. The rationalist who w…Read more
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The Reliability of Memory: An Argument from the ArmchairEpisteme 18 (2): 142-159. 2021.The “problem of memory” in epistemology is concerned with whether and how we could have knowledge, or at least justification, for trusting our apparent memories. I defend an inductive solution—more precisely, an abductive solution—to the problem. A natural worry is that any such solution would be circular, for it would have to depend on memory. I argue that belief in the reliability of memory can be justified from the armchair, without relying on memory. The justification is, roughly, that my ha…Read more
Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Value Theory |
Ethics of Artificial Intelligence |