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1How Kant Thought He Could Reach HumeIn Camilla Serck-Hanssen & Beatrix Himmelmann (eds.), The Court of Reason: Proceedings of the 13th International Kant Congress, De Gruyter. pp. 717-726. 2021.
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274Hume and the Demands of Philosophy: Science, Skepticism, and Moderation by Nathan I. Sasser (review)Journal of Scottish Philosophy 21 (3). 2023.Nathan Sasser's ‘purely practical reading of Hume’s response to skepticism’ is so natural and compelling that it is almost surprising that his new monograph, Hume and the Demands of Philosophy, offers its first systematic defence. I praise the book's clarity and concision, and then raise concerns about omitted topics, especially concerning Hume's views on the practical value of sceptical philosophy.
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577Hume's Skeptical Philosophy and the Moderation of PridePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 108 (6). 2024.Hume describes skeptical philosophy as having a variety of desirable effects. It can counteract dogmatism, produce just reasoning, and promote social cohesion. When discussing how skepticism may achieve these effects, Hume typically appeals to its effects on pride. I explain how, for Hume, skeptical philosophy acts on pride and how acting on pride produces the desirable effects. Understanding these mechanisms, I argue, sheds light on how, why, when, and for whom skeptical philosophy can be usefu…Read more
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75Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition by Michael Bergmann (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2023.Michael Bergmann's Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition develops a response to radical skepticism inspired by commonsense philosophers, such as Reid and Moore. Bergmann argues against radical skepticism on the grounds of its conflicting with strongly-held "epistemic intuitions" about the "epistemic value or goodness” of our particular perceptual, recollective, introspective and a priori beliefs. I press concerns about whether Bergmann's "intuitionist particularist" response can diagnose th…Read more
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49The Dissatisfied Skeptic in Kant's Discipline of Pure ReasonJournal of Transcendental Philosophy 4 (2): 157-177. 2023.Why does Kant say that a “skeptical satisfaction of pure reason” is “impossible” (A758/B786)? I answer this question by giving a reading of “The Discipline of Pure Reason in Respect of Its Polemic Employment.” I explain that Kant must address skepticism in this context because his warning against developing counterarguments to dogmatic attacks encourages a comparison between the critical and the skeptical methods. I then argue that skepticism fails to “satisfy” [befriedigen] reason insofar as it…Read more
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1Kant's Offer to the Skeptical EmpiricistJournal of the History of Philosophy. forthcoming.There is little consensus about whether Kant intends his Critique of Pure Reason to change the mind of a skeptical empiricist such as Hume. I challenge a common assumption made by both sides of the debate. This is the thought that Kant can convince a skeptic only if he does not beg the question against her. Surprisingly, I argue, that is not how Kant sees things. On Kant’s view, skeptical empiricism is an inherently unstable and unsatisfying position, which skeptics cannot help wanting to escape…Read more
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11305Hume's Real RichesHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 39 (1). 2022.Hume describes his own “open, social, and cheerful humour” as “a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year.” Why does he value a cheerful character so highly? I argue that, for Hume, cheerfulness has two aspects—one manifests as mirth in social situations, and the other as steadfastness against life’s misfortunes. This second aspect is of special interest to Hume in that it safeguards the other virtues. And its connection with the first a…Read more
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352Hume's Scepticism: Pyrrhonian and Academic by Peter S. Fosl (review)Hume Studies 46 (1): 171-174. 2020.Peter Fosl's new monograph offers a bold reading of Hume as a "radical," "coherent," and "hybrid" skeptic, who draws influence from both the Pyrrhonian and Academic skeptical traditions. I press some concerns about whether Fosl's reading of Hume can accommodate his scientific ambitions.
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524How Kant Thought He Could Reach HumeIn Camilla Serck-Hanssen & Beatrix Himmelmann (eds.), The Court of Reason: Proceedings of the 13th International Kant Congress, De Gruyter. 2021.I argue that Kant thought his Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts could reach skeptical empiricists like Hume by providing an overlooked explanation of the mind's a priori relation to the objects of experience. And he thought empiricists may be motivated to listen to this explanation because of an instability and dissatisfaction inherent to empiricism.
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215The Humors in Hume's SkepticismErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 7. 2020.In the conclusion to the first book of the Treatise, Hume's skeptical reflections have plunged him into melancholy. He then proceeds through a complex series of stages, resulting in renewed interest in philosophy. Interpreters have struggled to explain the connection between the stages. I argue that Hume's repeated invocation of the four humors of ancient and medieval medicine explains the succession, and sheds a new light on the significance of skepticism. The humoral context not only reveals t…Read more
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114Discussion of Anil Gupta's “Outline of an Account of Experience”Analytic Philosophy 59 (1): 75-88. 2018.
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435Does perceptual psychology rule out disjunctivism in the theory of perception?Synthese 198 (8): 7025-7047. 2019.Disjunctivist views in the theory of perception hold that genuine perceptions differ in some relevant kind from misperceptions, such as illusions and hallucinations. In recent papers, Tyler Burge has argued that such views conflict with the basic tenets of perceptual psychology. According to him, perceptual psychology is committed to the view that genuine perceptions and misperceptions produced by the same proximal stimuli must be or involve perceptual states of the same kind. This, he argues, c…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
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Epistemology |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Skepticism |
Hume: Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Kant: Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Perception |
PhilPapers Editorships
Hume: Epistemology |