•  340
    Intellectual Virtues and Biased Understanding
    Journal of Philosophical Research 45 97-113. 2020.
    Biases affect much of our epistemic lives. Do they affect how we understand things? For Linda Zagzebski, we only understand something when we manifest intellectual virtues or skills. Relying on how widespread biases are, J. Adam Carter and Duncan Pritchard raise a skeptical objection to understanding so conceived. It runs as follows: most of us seem to understand many things. We genuinely understand only when we manifest intellectual virtues or skills, and are cognitively responsible for so doin…Read more
  •  59
    Wisdom and Reason
    Croatian Journal of Philosophy 18 (2): 367-374. 2018.
    On Ryan’s (2012) theory of wisdom as deep rationality, to believe or act wisely is to believe or act in a justified way, informed by a body of other justified beliefs about the good life. Ryan (2017) elaborates the view along evidentialist lines: one’s belief or act is justified when it is based on the best available evidence. The resulting package faces counterexamples. Transformative experiences are rational ‘leaps of faith’ (Paul 2014), so the agent’s decision to undergo one is not best suppo…Read more
  •  53
    Why Believe Infinite Sets Exist?
    Axiomathes 28 (4): 447-460. 2018.
    The axiom of infinity states that infinite sets exist. I will argue that this axiom lacks justification. I start by showing that the axiom is not self-evident, so it needs separate justification. Following Maddy’s :481–511, 1988) distinction, I argue that the axiom of infinity lacks both intrinsic and extrinsic justification. Crucial to my project is Skolem’s From Frege to Gödel: a source book in mathematical logic, 1879–1931, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, pp. 290–301, 1922) distinction b…Read more
  •  49
    Understanding, Problem-Solving, and Conscious Reflection
    Acta Analytica 34 (1): 71-81. 2019.
    According to Zagzebski, understanding something is justified by the exercise of cognitive skills and intellectual virtues the knower possesses. Zagzebski develops her view by suggesting that “understanding has internalist conditions for success”. Against this view, Grimm raises an objection: what justifies understanding is the reliability of the processes by which we come to understand, and we need not be aware of the outcome of all reliable processes. Understanding is no exception, so, given th…Read more
  •  48
    Mathematical understanding and “What if things had been different?” questions
    Balkan Journal of Philosophy 11 (2): 145-154. 2019.
    According to Grimm (2014), we only understand a phenomenon if we know what other phenomena it depends on, and we identify dependencies according to how we answer “What if things had been different?” questions. I argue that this view meets with mathematical counterexamples. For, in mathematics, things couldn't have been different. I consider three replies Grimm may make, and argue they do not succeed.
  •  45
    Alter elaborates and defends an ambitious argument advanced by Chalmers against physicalism. As Alter notes, the argument is valid. But I will argue that not all its premises are true. In particular, it is false that all physical truths are purely structural. In denying this, I focus not on the objects of pure physical theory but on the homely, macroscopic objects of our daily lives.
  •  40
    Are Propositions Facts?
    In Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.), Philosophical and Formal Approaches to Linguistic Analysis, Ontos. pp. 385-404. 2011.
    This paper explores whether Jeffrey King's theory of propositions is committed to an obscure metaphysics which identifies propositions with certain kinds of facts. §1 presents the problem to which King tries to provide a solution, the problem of the unity of the proposition. §2 presents King's doubtful identification of propositions with certain existentially generalized facts over languages, words, speakers, contexts, times and places. §3 sketches a host of objections to the identification made…Read more
  •  38
    Blaming Dirty Looks
    International Journal of Applied Philosophy 34 (1): 123-136. 2020.
    Casting dirty looks is morally wrong when it encourages gender stereotypes and objectifies the woman looked at. Oglers are to blame for the harm done. And, if an ogler were to merely imagine what he perceives, we would blame him less than for his stare. So, in many such cases, we must be at least partly be blaming the ogler for being in the very perceptual state he is then in—for his male gaze. This line of reasoning goes against ethical orthodoxy, which claims that perception is simply not the …Read more
  •  11
    The Visual Experience of Kinds
    Dissertation, Georgia State University. 2013.
    Do perceiving subjects represent kind properties in the content of their conscious visual experience when they see and recognize instances of those natural kinds? In Part 1 of my thesis I clarify this question, in Part 2 I answer it, and in Part 3 I raise a problem for previous answers. Part 1 conceives of conscious experience in an internalist way, and the unified conscious episode does not exclude having beliefs about what one sees. Following Siegel and Bayne, Part 2 formulates two arguments i…Read more