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1830Das 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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1336Religious 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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982Kunst, Kontext und ErkenntnisIn Christoph Jäger & Georg Meggle (eds.), Kunst und Erkenntnis, Mentis. pp. 9-39. 2005.
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897Molinism 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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785I 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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747Looking into meta-emotionsSynthese 192 (3): 787-811. 2015.There are many psychic mechanisms by which people engage with their selves. We argue that an important yet hitherto neglected one is self-appraisal via meta-emotions. We discuss the intentional structure of meta-emotions and explore the phenomenology of a variety of examples. We then present a pilot study providing preliminary evidence that some facial displays may indicate the presence of meta-emotions. We conclude by arguing that meta-emotions have an important role to play in higher-order the…Read more
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709Warrant, defeaters, and the epistemic basis of religious beliefIn Michael G. Parker and Thomas M. Schmidt (ed.), Scientific explanation and religious belief, Mohr Siebeck. pp. 81-98. 2005.I critically examine two features of Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology. (i) If basic theistic beliefs are threatened by defeaters (of various kinds) and thus must be defended by higher-order defeaters in order to remain rational and warranted, are they still “properly basic”? (ii) Does Plantinga’s overall account offer an argument that basic theistic beliefs actually are warranted? I answer both questions in the negative.
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651Wittgenstein über Gewissheit und religiösen GlaubenIn Florian Uhl and Artur R. Boelderl (ed.), Die Sprachen der Religion, . pp. 221-256. 2003.
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645Epistemic 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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547The 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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498Prolegomena zu einer philosophischen Theorie der Meta-EmotionenIn Barbara Merker (ed.), Leben mit Gefühlen, Mentis. pp. 113-137. 2009.
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485Affective ignoranceErkenntnis 71 (1). 2009.According to one of the most influential views in the philosophy of self-knowledge each person enjoys some special cognitive access to his or her own current mental states and episodes. This view faces two fundamental tasks. First, it must elucidate the general conceptual structure of apparent asymmetries between beliefs about one’s own mind and beliefs about other minds. Second, it must demarcate the mental territory for which first-person-special-access claims can plausibly be maintained. Trad…Read more
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479Reliability and Future True Belief: Reply to Olsson and JönssonTheoria 77 (3): 223-237. 2011.In “Process Reliabilism and the Value Problem” I argue that Erik Olsson and Alvin Goldman's conditional probability solution to the value problem in epistemology is unsuccessful and that it makes significant internalist concessions. In “Kinds of Learning and the Likelihood of Future True Beliefs” Olsson and Martin Jönsson try to show that my argument does “not in the end reduce the plausibility” of Olsson and Goldman's account. Here I argue that, while Olsson and Jönsson clarify and amend the co…Read more
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459Is Coherentism Coherent?Analysis 67 (4). 2007.In ‘A reductio of coherentism’ (Analysis 67, 2007) Tom Stoneham offers a novel argument against epistemological coherentism. ‘On the face of it’, he writes, ‘the argument gives a conclusive reductio ad absurdum of any coherence theory of justification. But that cannot be right, can it?’ (p. 254). It could be right, but it isn’t. I argue that coherentists need not accept the central premises of Stoneham’s argument and that, even if these premises were acceptable and true, Stoneham’s reductio woul…Read more
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437Epistemic Authority, Preemptive Reasons, and UnderstandingEpisteme 13 (2): 167-185. 2016.One of the key tenets of Linda Zagzebski’s book " Epistemic Authority" is the Preemption Thesis. It says that, when an agent learns that an epistemic authority believes that p, the rational response for her is to adopt that belief and to replace all of her previous reasons relevant to whether p by the reason that the authority believes that p. I argue that such a “Hobbesian approach” to epistemic authority yields problematic results. This becomes especially virulent when we apply Preemption to c…Read more
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404Religious experience and epistemic justification: Alston on the reliability of mystical perceptionIn Carlos Ulises Moulines and Karl-Georg Niebergall (ed.), Argument und Analyse, Mentis. pp. 403-423. 2002.I discuss Alston's theory of religious experience and maintain that his argument to the effect that it is rational to suppose that the 'mystical doxastic practice' is epistemically reliable does not stand up to scrutiny. While Alston's transitions from practical to epistemic rationality don't work here, his arguments may be taken to show that, under certain conditions, it is not epistemically irresponsible to trust one's religious experiences.
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401Molina 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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399Fischer'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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296Contextualism 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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271Contextualist approaches to epistemology: Problems and prospectsErkenntnis 61 (2-3). 2004.In this paper we survey some main arguments for and against epistemological contextualism. We distinguish and discuss various kinds of contextualism, such as attributer contextualism (the most influential version of which is semantic, conversational, or radical contextualism); indexicalism; proto-contextualism; Wittgensteinian contextualism; subject, inferential, or issue contextualism; epistemic contextualism; and virtue contextualism. Starting with a sketch of Dretske's Relevant Alternatives T…Read more
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259Skepticism, 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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216Falsche 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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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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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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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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124Determinismus und Verantwortung: Was kann das Konsequenzargument?Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 57 (1): 119-131. 2009.In his recent book Willensfreiheit Geert Keil defends a version of libertarianism. Yet he criticizes a flagship argument for incompatibilism. Van Inwagen's consequence argument, Keil thinks, relies on an irrelevant premise when it claims that agents have no choice about the remote past. I argue that Keil's charge rests on a misunderstanding. I then sketch why discussions of the consequence argument should focus on the question whether or not a certain version of rule Beta is valid
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118False 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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94Kunst und Erkenntnis (Art and Knowledge) (edited book)mentis. 2005.Dient Kunst der Erkenntnis? Vermittelt sie Einsichten oder Wissen? Und wenn ja: auf welche Weise? Sind ästhetische Urteile wahr oder falsch? Beruht unsere Wertschätzung von Kunst auf ihren kognitiven Funktionen? Zu diesen Fragen, die zu den klassischen Themen der Kunstphilosophie gehören, beziehen zehn Philosophen aus dem deutschen Sprachraum in Originalbeiträgen Position. Der Band dokumentiert den gegenwärtigen Stand der Kontroversen zwischen kognitivistischen und nichtkognitivistischen Theorie…Read more
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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