•  2
    Epistemological Naturalisms
    In Kelly James Clark (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism, Wiley. 2016.
    Epistemological naturalism has often been taken to be inimical to a priori knowledge, armchair knowledge, and epistemic normativity. This chapter argues that the relationship between epistemological naturalism and these other commitments is in fact considerably subtler than it is widely assumed to be. The chapter begins with a brief classificatory sketch of different kinds of naturalism, then focuses on forms of naturalism that have been especially significant in epistemology. Finally, one form …Read more
  •  174
    Knowledge and Explanation
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 36 (2): 137-164. 2006.
    Craig casts doubt upon the project of trying to give the traditional sort of necessary and sufficient conditions for A knows that p. He interprets the inadequacy of existing analyses of knowledge as evidence that our concept of knowledge is complex and diffuse, and concludes that we should aim to understand it by thinking about the rôle the concept plays in our lives, rather than by trying to find necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of knowledge ascriptions.There is surely somethin…Read more
  •  44
  •  58
    Critical notice of spandrels of truth by J.c. Beall
    Philosophical Books 51 (4): 245-254. 2010.
  • Naturalistic challenges to the a priori
    In Albert Casullo & Joshua C. Thurow (eds.), The a Priori in Philosophy, Oxford University Press Uk. 2013.
  •  57
    The Truth Fairy and the Indirect Epistemic Consequentialist
    In Peter Graham & Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen (eds.), Epistemic Entitlement, Oxford University Press. pp. 344-360. 2020.
    Friends of Wright-entitlement cannot appeal to direct epistemic consequentialism (believe or accept what maximizes expected epistemic value) in order to account for the epistemic rationality of accepting Wright-entitled propositions. The tenability of direct consequentialism is undermined by the “Truth Fairy”: a powerful being who offers you great epistemic reward (in terms of true beliefs) if you accept a proposition p for which you have evidence neither for nor against. However, this chapter a…Read more
  •  25
    Intuition, ‘Intuition’, Concepts and the A Priori
    In Booth Anthony Robert & P. Rowbottom Darrell (eds.), Intuitions, Oxford University Press. 2014.
    This chapter attempts to put structure on some of the different philosophical uses of ‘intuition’. It argues that ‘intuition’-hood is associated with four bundles of symptoms: a commonsensicality bundle; an a prioricity and immediacy bundle, and a metaphilosophical bundle. Tentatively suggesting that the word ‘intuition’ as used by philosophers is best regarded as ambiguous, the chapter offers a much simpler view concerning the meaning of ‘intuition’ in philosophy. With some of the attacks on ‘i…Read more
  •  97
    Metaphysical Vagueness Without Vague Objects
    with Al Abasnezhad
    Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 7 (4): 278-283. 2018.
    Elizabeth Barnes and Robert Williams have developed a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy, via which they defend the theoretical legitimacy of vague objects. In this paper, we argue that while the Barnes–Williams theory supplies a viable account of genuine metaphysical vagueness, it cannot underwrite an account of genuinely vague objects. First we clarify the distinction between these two key theses. Then we argue that the Barnes–Williams theory of metaphysical vagueness not only fails to deliv…Read more
  •  99
    Liar-like paradox and object language features
    American Philosophical Quarterly 45 (1). 2008.
    We argue that it would seem to be a mistake to blame Liar-like paradox on certain features of the object language, since the effect can be created with very minimal object languages that contain none of the usual suspects (truth-like predicates, reference to their own truth-bearers, negation, etc.).
  •  40
    'Addicted'? To 'Love'?
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 24 (1): 93-96. 2017.
    Earp et al. offer a very interesting summary of, and ethical commentary on, recent multidisciplinary research suggesting that at least some cases of what we call ‘romantic love’ involve phenomena that physically and/or psychologically resemble cases of what we call ‘addiction.’ They draw a conceptual distinction between what they call ‘narrow’ and ‘broad’ concepts of addiction. On the narrow conception, only extreme, harmful, or abnormal cases of love would count as addiction. On the broad conce…Read more
  •  208
    What Is Love? An Incomplete Map of the Metaphysics
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (2): 349--364. 2015.
    ABSTRACT:The paper begins by surveying a range of possible views on the metaphysics of romantic love, organizing them as responses to a single question. It then outlines a position, constructionist functionalism, according to which romantic love is characterized by a functional role that is at least partly constituted by social matters, although this role may be realized by states that are not socially constructed.
  •  166
    Modal Monogamy
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 2. 2015.
  •  273
    Serious Verbal Disputes: Ontology, Metaontology, and Analyticity
    Journal of Philosophy 111 (9-10): 454-469. 2014.
    This paper builds on some important recent work by Amie Thomasson, wherein she argues that recent disputes about the existence of ordinary objects have arisen due to eliminiativist metaphysicians’ misunderstandings. Some, she argues, are mistaken about how the language of quantification works, while others neglect the existence and significance of certain analytic entailments. Thomasson claims that once these misunderstandings are cleared away, it is trivially easy to answer existence questions …Read more
  •  218
    Boghossian and Epistemic Analyticity
    Croatian Journal of Philosophy 8 (1): 113-127. 2008.
    Boghossian claims that we can acquire a priori knowledge by means of a certain form of argument, our grasp of whose premises relies on the existence of implicit definitions. I discuss an objection to his ‘analytic theory of the a priori’. The worry is that in order to employ this kind of argument we must already know its conclusion. Boghossian has responded to this type of objection in recent work, but I argue that his responses are unconvincing. Along the way, I resist Ebert’s reasons for think…Read more
  •  20
    A Priori
    In Albert Casullo & Joshua C. Thurow (eds.), The a Priori in Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 274. 2013.
  •  92
  •  110
    Sleeping Beauty: A Wake-Up Call
    Philosophia Mathematica 13 (2): 194-201. 2005.
    This note concerns a puzzle about probability which has recently caught the attention of a number of philosophers. According to the current philosophical consensus, the solution to the puzzle reveals that one can acquire new information, sufficient to change one's credences in certain events, just by having a certain experience, even though one knew all along that one would have an experience which felt exactly like this. I argue that the philosophical consensus is mistaken
  •  221
    Realism and Independence
    American Philosophical Quarterly 42 (3). 2005.
    I argue that mind-independence realism should be characterised in terms of what I call 'essential', rather than 'modal', independence from our mental lives. I explore the connections between the two kinds of independence, and argue that characterizations in terms of essence respect more intuitions about what realism is, harmonize better with standard characterizations of anti-realism, and avert the threat of subversion from Blackburn's quasi-realist.
  •  160
    Epistemic Norms and Natural Facts
    American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (3). 2007.
    in American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (3), July 2007, pp. 259-72. Argues that epistemically normative claims are made true by the same facts as, but do not mean the same as, certain natural-sounding claims.
  •  487
    I attempt to give necessary and sufficient conditions for when an act of flirtation has taken place.
  •  151
    Knowledge of arithmetic
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56 (4): 727-747. 2005.
    The goal of the research programme I describe in this article is a realist epistemology for arithmetic which respects arithmetic's special epistemic status (the status usually described as a prioricity) yet accommodates naturalistic concerns by remaining fundamentally empiricist. I argue that the central claims which would allow us to develop such an epistemology are (i) that arithmetical truths are known through an examination of our arithmetical concepts; (ii) that (at least our basic) arithme…Read more
  •  148
    Concepts, experience and modal knowledge1
    Philosophical Perspectives 24 (1): 255-279. 2010.
    forthcoming in R. Cameron, B. Hale and A. Hoffmann (ed.s), The Logic, Epistemology and Metaphysics of Modality, Oxford University Press. Presents a concept-grounding account of modal knowledge.
  •  127
    Reflective Knowledge and Epistemic Circularity
    Philosophical Papers 40 (3): 305-325. 2011.
    Abstract This paper examines the kind of epistemic circularity which, according to Ernest Sosa, is unavoidably entailed whenever one has what he calls ?reflective? knowledge (that is, knowledge that p such that the knower reflectively endorses the reliability of the epistemic sources by which she came to her belief that p). I begin by describing the relevant kind of circularity and its role in Sosa's epistemology, en route presenting and resisting Sosa's arguments that this kind of circularity i…Read more
  •  62
    Truth in Virtue of Meaning, by Gillian Russell (review)
    Mind 119 (473): 232-238. 2010.
    (No abstract is available for this citation)
  •  127
    Carrie Jenkins presents a new account of arithmetical knowledge, which manages to respect three key intuitions: a priorism, mind-independence realism, and empiricism. Jenkins argues that arithmetic can be known through the examination of empirically grounded concepts, non-accidentally accurate representations of the mind-independent world.
  •  66
    Review: The Knowability Paradox (review)
    Mind 115 (460): 1141-1147. 2006.