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129False AuthoritiesActa Analytica 1-19. forthcoming.An epistemic agent A is a false epistemic authority for others iff they falsely believe A to be in a position to help them accomplish their epistemic ends. A major divide exists between what I call "epistemic quacks", who falsely believe themselves to be relevantly competent, and "epistemic charlatans", i.e., false authorities who believe or even know that they are incompetent. Both types of false authority do not cover what Lackey (2021) calls "predatory experts": experts who systematically mis…Read more
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1358Religious experience and the probability of theism: comments on SwinburneReligious Studies 53 (3): 353-370. 2017.I discuss Richard Swinburne’s account of religious experience in his probabilistic case for theism. I argue, pace Swinburne, that even if cosmological considerations render theism not too improbable, religious experience does not render it more probable than not.
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Der Wert des WissensIn Martin Grajner & Guido Melchior (eds.), Handbuch Erkenntnistheorie, Metzler. pp. 102-109. 2019.Die traditionelle Erkenntnistheorie beschäftigte sich vor allem mit drei großen Fragen. (i) Was ist Wissen? (ii) Ist Wissen möglich und in welchen Bereichen und in welchem Umfang können wir es, wenn überhaupt, erwerben? (iii) Was sind die Quellen des Wissens, und spielen womöglich einige von ihnen (etwa Wahrnehmung oder Introspektion) eine besondere Rolle für die Fundierung epistemischer Systeme? Neben der Einbeziehung sozialer Wissensquellen in die Behandlung von Frage (iii) ist in den letzten …Read more
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Epistemology: Contexts, Values and Disagreement. Proceedings of the 34. International Wittgenstein Symposium. (edited book)Druckwerker. 2012.
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11Scientia Media and Freedom to Do OtherwiseIn Christian Kanzian, Winfried Löffler & Josef Quitterer (eds.), The Ways Things Are: Studies in Ontology, Ontos. pp. 241-262. 2011.
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567The social fabric of understanding: equilibrium, authority, and epistemic empathySynthese 199 (1-2): 1185-1205. 2020.We discuss the social-epistemic aspects of Catherine Elgin’s theory of reflective equilibrium and understanding and argue that it yields an argument for the view that a crucial social-epistemic function of epistemic authorities is to foster understanding in their communities. We explore the competences that enable epistemic authorities to fulfil this role and argue that among them is an epistemic virtue we call “epistemic empathy”.
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234Falsche AutoritätenIn Rico Hauswald & Pedro Schmechtig (eds.), Wissensproduktion und Wissenstransfer unter erschwerten Bedingungen. Der Einfluss der Corona-Krise auf die Erzeugung und Vermittlung von Wissen im öffentlichen Diskurs, Alber. pp. 219-243. 2022.
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711Epistemic AuthorityIn Jennifer Lackey & Aidan McGlynn (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Social Epistemology, Oxford University Press. 2024.This handbook article gives a critical overview of recent discussions of epistemic authority. It favors an account that brings into balance the dictates of rational deference with the ideals of intellectual self-governance. A plausible starting point is the conjecture that neither should rational deference to authorities collapse into total epistemic submission, nor the ideal of mature intellectual self-governance be conflated with (illusions of) epistemic autarky.
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423Molina und das Problem des theologischen DeterminismusIn Louis de Molina, Göttlicher Plan und menschliche Freiheit, lat.-deutsch,, Felix Meiner Verlag. pp. 13-178. 2018.Der Download enthält die penultimative Fassung (noch unter dem vorläufigen Titel "Molina über Vorsehung und Freiheit"). Diese ausführliche Einleitung zu dem Band "Luis de Molina: Göttlicher Plan und menschliche Freiheit", hg. und übersetzt von C. Jäger, H. Kraml und G. Leibold, Hamburg: Meiner 2018, rekonstruiert auf 165 S. Molinas berühmte Theorie der Willensfreiheit und die Frage ihrer Vereinbarkeit mit göttlichem Vorherwissen und göttlicher Vorsehung. Sie zeichnet wesentliche Stationen de…Read more
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29Symposium zu: Geert Keil: Willensfreiheit : Determinismus und verantwortung: Was Kann Das konsequenzargument?Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 57 (1). 2009.
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36Fischer’s Fate with FatalismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9 (4): 25-38. 2017.John Martin Fischer’s core project in Our Fate is to develop and defend Pike-style arguments for theological incompatibilism, i. e., for the view that divine omniscience is incompatible with human free will. Against Ockhamist attacks on such arguments, Fischer maintains that divine forebeliefs constitute so-called hard facts about the times at which they occur, or at least facts with hard ‘kernel elements’. I reconstruct Fischer’s argument and outline its structural analogies with an argument fo…Read more
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924Molinism and Theological CompatibilismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5 (1): 71-92. 2013.In a series of recent papers John Martin Fischer argues that the Molinist solution to the problem of reconciling divine omniscience with human freedom does not offer such a solution at all. Instead, he maintains, Molina simply presupposes theological compatibilism. However, Fischer construes the problem in terms of sempiternalist omniscience, whereas classical Molinism adopts atemporalism. I argue that, moreover, an atemporalist reformulation of Fischer’s argument designed to show that Molinis…Read more
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809I discuss two accounts of rational religious faith that have recently been proposed by Peter Rohs and Volker Gerhardt, respectively, and critically explore the relations between (i) faith and knowledge and (ii) faith and hope. I argue that, if faith essentially involves some form of eschatological hope, then a theory of rational faith will have to include an analysis of rational hope.
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260Skepticism, Information, and Closure: Dretske’s Theory of KnowledgeErkenntnis 61 (2-3). 2004.According to Fred Dretske's externalist theory of knowledge a subject knows that p if and only if she believes that p and this belief is caused or causally sustained by the information that p. Another famous feature of Dretske's epistemology is his denial that knowledge is closed under known entailment. I argue that, given Dretske's construal of information, he is in fact committed to the view that both information and knowledge are closed under known entailment. Hence, if it is true that, as Dr…Read more
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1Molina on foreknowledge and transfer of necessitiesIn Christian Tapp and Edmund Runggaldier (ed.), God, eternity, and time, Ashgate. pp. 81-96. 2011.
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67Contextualisms in Epistemology (edited book)Springer. 2005.Contextualism has become one of the leading paradigms in contemporary epistemology. According to this view, there is no context-independent standard of knowledge, and as a result, all knowledge ascriptions are context-sensitive. Contextualists contend that their account of this analysis allows us to resolve some major epistemological problems such as skeptical paradoxes and the lottery paradox, and that it helps us explain various other linguistic data about knowledge ascriptions. The apparent e…Read more
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50Why to believe weakly in weak knowledge: Goldman on knowledge as mere true beliefGrazer Philosophische Studien 79 (1): 19-40. 2009.In a series of influential papers and in his groundbreaking book Knowledge in a Social World Alvin Goldman argues that sometimes “know” just means “believe truly” (Goldman 1999; 2001; 2002b; Goldman & Olsson 2009). I argue that Goldman's (and Olsson's) case for “weak knowledge”, as well as a similar argument put forth by John Hawthorne, are unsuccessful. However, I also believe that Goldman does put his finger on an interesting and important phenomenon. He alerts us to the fact that sometimes we…Read more
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408Fischer's Fate With FatalismEuropean Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 9 (4): 25-38. 2017.John Martin Fischer’s core project in Our Fate (2016) is to develop and defend Pike-style arguments for theological incompatibilism, i. e., for the view that divine omniscience is incompatible with human free will. Against Ockhamist attacks on such arguments, Fischer maintains that divine forebeliefs constitute so-called hard facts about the times at which they occur, or at least facts with hard ‘kernel elements’. I reconstruct Fischer’s argument and outline its structural analogies with an argu…Read more
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62Reformierte ErkenntnistheorieZeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 55 (4). 2001.Wann ist es rational, etwas zu glauben? Wann ist ein Glaube gerechtfertigt, vernünftig, intellektuell akzeptabel? Was gilt es zu beachten, um ein Netz von Überzeugungen aus möglichst vielen wahren und möglichst wenig falschen Annahmen zu flechten? Um diese Fragen geht es in Theorien epistemischer Rechtfertigung. Ein Ansatz, der auf diesem Gebiet in jüngerer Zeit viel von sich Reden gemacht hat, ist die von Philosophen wie William Alston, Nicholas Wolterstorff, allen voran jedoch von Alvin Planti…Read more
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132Epistemic deontology, doxastic voluntarism, and the principle of alternate possibilitiesIn Winfried Löffler and Paul Weingartner (ed.), Knowledge and Belief, Öbv. pp. 217-227. 2004.
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298Contextualism and the knowledge norm of assertionAnalysis 72 (3): 491-498. 2012.Keith DeRose has argued that ‘the knowledge account of assertion – according to which what one is in a position to assert is what one knows – ... provides a ... powerful positive argument in favor of contextualism’ (2009: 80). The truth is that it yields a powerful argument against contextualism, at least against its most popular, anti-sceptical versions. The following argument shows that, if we conjoin (such versions of) epistemic contextualism with an appropriate meta-linguistic formulation of…Read more
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43The value problem in epistemology is to explain why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. Or so it is commonly construed. Various solutions to the quandary have been proposed, but so far none has gained wide acceptance. Perhaps, then, we should abandon the idea that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. This is what we shall argue, but with one important qualification: Knowledge is not generally more valuable than mere true belief. Certain epistemic contexts, however, are…Read more
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Scientia media and Freedom to Do OtherwiseIn Josef Quitterer Winfried Löffler Christian Kanzian (ed.), The Ways Things Are - Studies in Ontology Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag, 2011, Ontos. 2011.
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153Process Reliabilism and the Value ProblemTheoria 77 (3): 201-213. 2011.Alvin Goldman and Erik Olsson have recently proposed a novel solution to the value problem in epistemology, i.e., to the question of how to account for the apparent surplus value of knowledge over mere true belief. Their “conditional probability solution” maintains that even simple process reliabilism can account for the added value of knowledge, since forming true beliefs in a reliable way raises the objective probability that the subject will have more true belief of a similar kind in the futu…Read more
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1837Das KonsequenzargumentIn Rolf W. Puster (ed.), Klassische Argumentationen der Philosophie, . pp. 275-296. 2013.The paper reconstructs causal and theological versions of the consequence argument against the compatibility of free will and determinism and discusses the most influential objections to them.
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161Reliabilism and the extra value of knowledgePhilosophical Studies 157 (1): 93-105. 2012.Goldman and Olsson ( 2009 ) have responded to the common charge that reliabilist theories of knowledge are incapable of accounting for the value knowledge has beyond mere true belief. We examine their “conditional probability solution” in detail, and show that it does not succeed. The conditional probability relation is too weak to support instrumental value, and the specific relation they describe is inessential to the value of knowledge. At best, they have described conditions in which knowled…Read more
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997Kunst, Kontext und ErkenntnisIn Christoph Jäger & Georg Meggle (eds.), Kunst und Erkenntnis, Mentis. pp. 9-39. 2005.