•  12
    Authorship and ChatGPT: a Conservative View
    Philosophy and Technology 37 (1): 1-26. 2024.
    Is ChatGPT an author? Given its capacity to generate something that reads like human-written text in response to prompts, it might seem natural to ascribe authorship to ChatGPT. However, we argue that ChatGPT is not an author. ChatGPT fails to meet the criteria of authorship because it lacks the ability to perform illocutionary speech acts such as promising or asserting, lacks the fitting mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention, and cannot take responsibility for the texts it produces…Read more
  •  74
    Closed-minded belief and Indoctrination
    American Philosophical Quarterly 59 (1): 61-80. 2022.
    What is indoctrination? This paper clarifies and defends a structural epistemic account of indoctrination according to which indoctrination is the inculcation of closed-minded belief caused by “epistemically insulating content.” This is content which contains a proviso that serious critical consideration of the relevant alternatives to one's belief is reprehensible, whether morally or epistemically. As such, it does not demand that indoctrination be a type of unethical instruction, ideological i…Read more
  •  284
    Extreme beliefs and Echo chambers
    In Rik Peels & John Horgan (eds.), Mapping the Terrain of Extreme Belief and Behavior, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
    Are extreme beliefs constitutive of echo chambers, or only typically caused by them? Or are many echo chambers unproblematic, amplifying relatively benign beliefs? This paper details the conceptual relations between echo chambers and extreme beliefs, showing how different conceptual choice-points in how we understand both echo chambers and extreme beliefs affects how we should evaluate, study, and engage with echo chambering groups. We also explore how our theories of extreme beliefs and echo ch…Read more
  •  279
    An Ethics of Philosophical Belief: The case for personal commitments
    In Sanford C. Goldberg & Mark Walker (eds.), Attitude in Philosophy, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
    What should we do when faced with powerful theoretical arguments that support a severe change in our personal beliefs and commitments? For example, what should new parents do when confronted by unanswered anti-natalist arguments, or two lovers vexed by social theory that apparently undermines love? On the one hand, it would be irrational to ignore theory just because it’s theory; good theory is evidence, after all. On the other hand, factoring in theory can be objectifying, or risks unraveling o…Read more
  •  114
    Rationally Maintaining a Worldview
    Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 11 (9): 1-14. 2020.
  •  126
    Recent Work on Skepticism in Epistemology
    American Philosophical Quarterly 60 (3): 257-273. 2023.
    This paper critically surveys 20 years of recent work on radical skepticism. It focuses on three key issues. First, it starts by exploring how philosophers have recently challenged our understanding of radical skeptical arguments. It then unpacks and critically evaluates some influential reactions to radical skepticism: structuralism, knowledge-first epistemology, epistemological disjunctivism, and hinge epistemology. Third, it explores some novel developments of pragmatism, like pragmatic skept…Read more
  •  15
    Knowledge of things and aesthetic testimony
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Many philosophers believe that aesthetic testimony can provide aesthetic knowledge. This leaves us with the question: why does getting aesthetic knowledge by experience – by seeing a painting up close, or witnessing a performance first-hand – nevertheless seem superior to aesthetic testimony? I argue that it is due to differences in their epistemic value; in the diversity of epistemic goods each one provides. Aesthetic experience, or the experience of art or other aesthetic objects, affords mult…Read more
  •  64
    What’s so bad about echo chambers?
    with Finlay Malcom
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Echo chambers have received widespread attention in recent years, but there is no agreement over whether they are always epistemically bad for us. Some argue they’re inherently epistemically bad, whilst others claim they can be epistemically good. This paper has three aims. First, to bring together recent studies in this debate, taxonomizing different ways of thinking about the epistemic status of echo chambers. Second, to consider and reject several accounts of what makes echo chambers epistemi…Read more
  •  27
    Normativity in studying conspiracy theory belief: Seven guidelines
    Philosophical Psychology 36 (6): 1125-1159. 2023.
    This paper aims to provide clear guidelines for researchers studying conspiracy theory belief. It examines the meta-linguistic question about how we should conceptualize 'conspiracy theory' and its relationship to the evaluative question of how we should evaluate beliefs in conspiracy theories, addressing normative issues surrounding the meaning, use, and conceptualization of ‘conspiracy theory’, as well as how these issues might impact how researchers study conspiracy theories or beliefs in the…Read more
  •  54
    Knowledge of things and aesthetic testimony
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Many philosophers believe that aesthetic testimony can provide aesthetic knowledge. This leaves us with the question: why does getting aesthetic knowledge by experience – by seeing a painting up close, or witnessing a performance first-hand – nevertheless seem superior to aesthetic testimony? I argue that it is due to differences in their epistemic value; in the diversity of epistemic goods each one provides. Aesthetic experience, or the experience of art or other aesthetic objects, affords mult…Read more
  •  20
    Closed-minded Belief and Indoctrination
    American Philosophical Quarterly 59 (1): 61-80. 2022.
    What is indoctrination? This paper clarifies and defends a structural epistemic account of indoctrination according to which indoctrination is the inculcation of closed-minded belief caused by “epistemically insulating content.” This is content which contains a proviso that serious critical consideration of the relevant alternatives to one's belief is reprehensible whether morally or epistemically. As such, it does not demand that indoctrination be a type of unethical instruction, ideological in…Read more
  •  56
    Some disagreements concern our most fundamental beliefs, principles, values, or worldviews, such as those about the existence of God, society and politics, or the trustworthiness of science. These are ‘deep disagreements’. But what exactly are deep disagreements? This paper critically overviews theories of deep disagreement. It does three things. First, it explains the differences between deep and other kinds of disagreement, including peer, persistent, and widespread disagreement. Second, it cr…Read more
  •  52
    What is the epistemological significance of deep disagreement? Part I explored the nature of deep disagreement, while Part II considers its epistemological significance. It focuses on two core problems: the incommensurability and the rational resolvability problems. We critically survey key responses to these challenges, before raising worries for a variety of responses to them, including skeptical, relativist, and absolutist responses to the incommensurability problem, and to certain steadfast …Read more
  •  26
    What is the epistemological significance of deep disagreement? Part I explored the nature of deep disagreement, while Part II considers its epistemological significance. It focuses on two core problems: the incommensurability and the rational resolvability problems. We critically survey key responses to these challenges, before raising worries for a variety of responses to them, including skeptical, relativist, and absolutist responses to the incommensurability problem, and to certain steadfast …Read more
  •  56
    Some disagreements concern our most fundamental beliefs, principles, values, or worldviews, such as those about the existence of God, society and politics, or the trustworthiness of science. These are ‘deep disagreements’. But what exactly are deep disagreements? This paper critically overviews theories of deep disagreement. It does three things. First, it explains the differences between deep and other kinds of disagreement, including peer, persistent, and widespread disagreement. Second, it cr…Read more
  •  243
    Political Hinge Epistemology
    In Constantine Sandis & Danièle Moyal-Sharrock (eds.), Extending Hinge Epistemology, Anthem Press. pp. 127-148. 2022.
    Political epistemology is the intersection of political philosophy and epistemology. This paper develops a political 'hinge' epistemology. Political hinge epistemology draws on the idea that all belief systems have fundamental presuppositions which play a role in the determination of reasons for belief and other attitudes. It uses this core idea to understand and tackle political epistemological challenges, like political disagreement, polarization, political testimony, political belief, ideolog…Read more
  •  16
    Common sense and Ontological commitment
    In Rik Peels & René van Woudenberg (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Common-Sense Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 287-309. 2020.
    How ontologically committal is common sense? Is the common-sense philosopher beholden to a florid ontology in which all manner of objects, substances, and processes exist and are as they appear to be to common sense, or can she remain neutral on questions about the existence and nature of many things because common sense is largely non-committal? This chapter explores and tentatively evaluates three different approaches to answering these questions. The first applies standard accounts of ontolog…Read more
  •  38
    Moral hinges and steadfastness
    Metaphilosophy 52 (3-4): 379-401. 2021.
    Epistemic rationality seems to permit a more steadfast response to disagreements over our fundamental convictions than it does for our ordinary beliefs. Why is this? This essay explores three answers to this question: web-of-belief conservatism, moral encroachment, and hinge theories, and argues that hinge theories do a better job than the alternatives at vindicating the intuition that there is a rationally permissible asymmetry in our responses to disagreements over ordinary beliefs and fundame…Read more
  •  84
    The Special Value of Experience
    Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind 1 130-167. 2021.
    Why think that conscious experience of reality is any more epistemically valuable than testimony about it? I argue that conscious experience of reality is epistemically valuable because it provides cognitive contact with reality. Cognitive contact with reality is a goal of experiential inquiry which does not reduce to the goal of getting true beliefs or propositional knowledge. Such inquiry has awareness of the truth-makers of one’s true beliefs as its proper goal. As such, one reason why consci…Read more
  •  48
    Deep disagreement and hinge epistemology
    Synthese 197 (11): 4975-5007. 2020.
    This paper explores the application of hinge epistemology to deep disagreement. Hinge epistemology holds that there is a class of commitments—hinge commitments—which play a fundamental role in the structure of belief and rational evaluation: they are the most basic general ‘presuppositions’ of our world views which make it possible for us to evaluate certain beliefs or doubts as rational. Deep disagreements seem to crucially involve disagreements over such fundamental commitments. In this paper,…Read more
  •  42
    Are There Heavyweight Perceptual Reasons?
    International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 1-26. forthcoming.
    Genia Schönbaumsfeld has recently argued for the view that our ordinary perceptual reasons provide support for heavyweight metaphysical and epistemological views, such as that there is a mind-independent physical world. Call this the Heavyweight Reasons Thesis. In this paper, I argue that we should reject the Heavyweight Reasons Thesis. I also argue that the rejection of the Heavyweight Reasons Thesis is compatible with the Factive Perceptual Reasons Thesis, the thesis that our perceptual reason…Read more
  •  42
    We are ignorant knowers. This paper proposes an information theoretic explanation of that fact. The explanation is a conjunction of three claims. First, that even in those dimensions where we are capable of picking up information, there is information that we don’t pick up. Second, that there can be dimensions of information for which we lack the capacity to pick up any information whatsoever. Third, that we don’t know whether the faculties and cognitive capacities we are endowed with process al…Read more
  •  1378
    We revisit an important exchange on the problem of radical skepticism between Richard Rorty and Michael Williams. In his contribution to this exchange, Rorty defended the kind of transcendental approach to radical skepticism that is offered by Donald Davidson, in contrast to Williams’s Wittgenstein-inspired view. It is argued that the key to evaluating this debate is to understand the particular conception of the radical skeptical problem that is offered in influential work by Barry Stroud, a …Read more
  •  71
    The Puzzle of Philosophical Testimony
    European Journal of Philosophy 28 (1): 142-163. 2020.
    An epistemologist tells you that knowledge is more than justified true belief. You trust them and thus come to believe this on the basis of their testimony. Did you thereby come to know that this view is correct? Intuitively, there is something intellectually wrong with forming philosophical beliefs on the basis of testimony, and yet it's hard to see why philosophy should be significantly epistemically different from other areas of inquiry in a way that would fully prohibit belief by testimony. …Read more
  •  52
    The Puzzle of Philosophical Testimony
    European Journal of Philosophy 28 (1): 142-163. 2019.
    An epistemologist tells you that knowledge is more than justified true belief. You trust them and thus come to believe this on the basis of their testimony. Did you thereby come to know that this view is correct? Intuitively, there is something intellectually wrong with forming philosophical beliefs on the basis of testimony, and yet it's hard to see why philosophy should be significantly epistemically different from other areas of inquiry in a way that would fully prohibit belief by testimony. …Read more
  •  185
    What is Deep Disagreement?
    Topoi 40 (5): 983-998. 2018.
    What is the nature of deep disagreement? In this paper, I consider two similar albeit seemingly rival answers to this question: the Wittgensteinian theory, according to which deep disagreements are disagreements over hinge propositions, and the fundamental epistemic principle theory, according to which deep disagreements are disagreements over fundamental epistemic principles. I assess these theories against a set of desiderata for a satisfactory theory of deep disagreement, and argue that while…Read more
  •  210
    This paper explores the application of hinge epistemology to deep disagreement. Hinge epistemology holds that there is a class of commitments—hinge commitments—which play a fundamental role in the structure of belief and rational evaluation: they are the most basic general ‘presuppositions’ of our world views which make it possible for us to evaluate certain beliefs or doubts as rational. Deep disagreements seem to crucially involve disagreements over such fundamental commitments. In this paper,…Read more
  •  39
    Wittgenstein and Deep Disagreement
    The Philosophers' Magazine 79 50-55. 2017.
    According to the Wittgensteinian view of deep disagreement, deep disagreements are disagreements over hinge commitments, that is, the basic presuppositions of our world views. This article discusses, for a general audience, the extent to which the Wittgensteinian view supports the idea that deep disagreement are rationally irresolvable, and explores whether this yields a moral challenge.
  •  131
    Revisionism, Scepticism, and the Non-Belief Theory of Hinge Commitments
    International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 8 (2): 96-130. 2018.
    In his recent work, Duncan Pritchard defends a novel Wittgensteinian response to the problem of radical scepticism. The response makes essential use of a form of non-epistemicism about the nature of hinge commitments. According to non-epistemicism, hinge commitments cannot be known or grounded in rational considerations, such as reasons and evidence. On Pritchard’s version of non-epistemicism, hinge commitments express propositions but cannot be believed. This is the non-belief theory of hinge c…Read more