•  75
    Questions surrounding deep disagreement have gained significant attention in recent years. One of the central debates is metaphysical, focusing on the features that make a disagreement deep. Proposals for what makes disagreements deep include theories about hinge propositions and first epistemic principles. In this paper, I criticize this metaphysical discussion by arguing that it is methodologically flawed. Deep disagreement is a technical or semi-technical term, but the metaphysical discussion…Read more
  •  63
    Bootstrapping and Persuasive Argumentation
    Argumentation 1-22. forthcoming.
    That bootstrapping and Moorean reasoning fail to instantiate persuasive argumentation is an often informally presented but not systematically developed view. In this paper, I will argue that this unpersuasiveness is not determined by principles of justification transmission but by two straightforward principles of rationality, understood as a concept of internal coherence. First, it is rational for S to believe the conclusion of an argument because of the argument, only if S believes sufficientl…Read more
  •  6
    Geleitwort
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 100 (1-2): 3-4. 2023.
  •  227
    In epistemology, the concept of knowledge is of distinctive interest. This fact is also reflected in the discussion of epistemic value, which focuses to a large extend on the value problem of knowledge. This discussion suggests that knowledge has an outstanding value among epistemic standings because its value exceeds the value of its constitutive parts. I will argue that the value of knowledge is not outstanding by presenting epistemic standings of checking, transferring knowledge, and proving …Read more
  •  266
    Rationally irresolvable disagreement
    Philosophical Studies 180 (4): 1277-1304. 2023.
    The discussion about deep disagreement has gained significant momentum in the last several years. This discussion often relies on the intuition that deep disagreement is, in some sense, rationally irresolvable. In this paper, I will provide a theory of rationally irresolvable disagreement. Such a theory is interesting in its own right, since it conflicts with the view that rational attitudes and procedures are paradigmatic tools for resolving disagreement. Moreover, I will suggest replacing disc…Read more
  •  192
    This paper replies to the comments made in Acta Analytica by Peter Baumann, Kelly Becker, Marian David, Nenad Miščević, Wes Siscoe, and Danilo Šuster on my Knowing and Checking: An Epistemological Investigation (Routledge 2019), hereinafter abbreviated as KC. These papers resulted from a workshop organized by the department of philosophy of the University of Maribor. I am very thankful to the organizers of the workshop and to the authors for their comments.
  •  183
    In this Précis, I provide an overview of my Monograph Knowing and Checking: An Epistemological Investigation (Melchior 2019), which is subject to a book symposium organized by the University of Maribor. This volume in Acta Analytica contains contributions by Peter Baumann, Kelly Becker, Marian David, Nenad Miščević, Robert Weston Siscoe, and Danilo Šuster along with my replies.
  •  253
    The orthodox view about sensitivity and induction has it that beliefs formed via induction are insensitive. Since inductive knowledge is highly plausible, this problem is usually regarded as a reductio argument against sensitivity accounts of knowledge. Some adherents of sensitivity defend sensitivity against this objection, for example by considering backtracking interpretations of counterfactuals. All these extant views about sensitivity and induction have to be revised, since the problem of s…Read more
  • Handbuch Erkenntnistheorie: Ein Abriss
    In Martin Grajner & Guido Melchior (eds.), Handbuch Erkenntnistheorie, Metzler. pp. 3-10. 2019.
  •  391
    Skeptical Arguments and Deep Disagreement
    Erkenntnis 88 (5): 1869-1893. 2023.
    This paper provides a reinterpretation of some of the most influential skeptical arguments, Agrippa’s trilemma, meta-regress arguments, and Cartesian external world skepticism. These skeptical arguments are reasonably regarded as unsound arguments about the extent of our knowledge. However, reinterpretations of these arguments tell us something significant about the preconditions and limits of persuasive argumentation. These results contribute to the ongoing debates about the nature and resolvab…Read more
  •  442
    A modal theory of discrimination
    Synthese 198 (11): 10661-10684. 2021.
    Discrimination is a central epistemic capacity but typically, theories of discrimination only use discrimination as a vehicle for analyzing knowledge. This paper aims at developing a self-contained theory of discrimination. Internalist theories of discrimination fail since there is no compelling correlation between discriminatory capacities and experiences. Moreover, statistical reliabilist theories are also flawed. Only a modal theory of discrimination is promising. Versions of sensitivity and …Read more
  •  74
    Sensitivity Principle in Epistemology
    Oxford Bibliographies Online. 2020.
    Sensitivity is a modal epistemic principle. Modal knowledge accounts are externalist in nature and claim that the knowledge yielding connection between a true belief and the truthmaker must be spelled out in modal terms. The sensitivity condition was introduced by Robert Nozick. He suggests that if S knows that p, then S’s belief that p tracks truth. Nozick argues that this truth-tracking relation can be captured by subjunctive conditionals. As a first approximation, he provides the following mo…Read more
  •  579
    Sensitivity, safety, and impossible worlds
    Philosophical Studies 178 (3): 713-729. 2020.
    Modal knowledge accounts that are based on standards possible-worlds semantics face well-known problems when it comes to knowledge of necessities. Beliefs in necessities are trivially sensitive and safe and, therefore, trivially constitute knowledge according to these accounts. In this paper, I will first argue that existing solutions to this necessity problem, which accept standard possible-worlds semantics, are unsatisfactory. In order to solve the necessity problem, I will utilize an unorthod…Read more
  •  261
    The persuasiveness puzzle about bootstrapping
    Ratio 33 (1): 27-36. 2020.
    This paper aims at resolving a puzzle about the persuasiveness of bootstrapping. On the one hand, bootstrapping is not a persuasive method of settling questions about the reliability of a source. On the other hand, our beliefs that our sense apparatus is reliable is based on other empirically formed beliefs, that is, they are acquired via a presumably complex bootstrapping process. I will argue that when we doubt the reliability of a source, bootstrapping is not a persuasive method for coming to…Read more
  • Probleme der Selbsterkenntnis
    Dissertation, University of Graz. 2009.
  • I argue that intercultural argumentation can only succeed if the same views about rational argumentation dominate in the two cultures. Hence, I will show that the possibilities of successful intercultural argumentation are limited. I will proceed in the following way: First, I will define arguments and argumentation situations. Second, I will investigate the general cases of persons, who in fact are rational in argumentation situations and persons, who believe to be rational. Third, I will illus…Read more
  • The canonical version of external world scepticism has the following structure: Premise1: If P knows that she is not a brain in a vat, then P does not have knowledge of the external world. Premise2: P does not know that she is not a brain in a vat. Conclusion: Therefore, P does not have knowledge of the external world. Some philosophers attack premise1 by denying the underlying closure principle. I will investigate possible argumentations for and against premise2. I will show that premise2 is…Read more
  • A privileged access to other minds
    In Volker A. Munz, Klaus Puhl & Joseph Wang (eds.), Language and World – Papers of the XXXII International Wittgenstein Symposium, Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. pp. 274-276. 2009.
    It is widely hold view that persons have privileged access to their own minds, although there are numerous different views, how it exactly looks like. One possible interpretation of this privilege of first-person-perspective is to regard reference to own mental states as privileged in comparison to reference to mental states of others. I will argue for the existence of an additional privilege of third-person-perspective: Other persons can refer to all mental states of a person in way the person…Read more
  •  337
    Sensitivity and safety are modal concepts of knowledge. A person’s belief that p is sensitive if and only if in the closest possible world where p is false S does not believe that p. A person’s belief that p is safe if and only if in most near-by possible worlds in which S continues to form her belief that p in the same way as in the actual world the belief continues to be true. Robert Nozick claims that sensitivity is a necessary condition for knowledge. Ernest Sosa, Timothy Williamson and Dunc…Read more
  •  191
    The skeptic argues that we cannot have any external world knowledge because we cannot know that we are not brains in a vat. The intuitive appeal of this skeptical argument is essentially based on the comprehensibility of the process of skeptical doubting, where we focus our attention on our experiences and experience-based beliefs and raise questions about the sources of these experiences. I propose that skeptical doubting is an instance of a mental attitude that contemporary psychology characte…Read more
  •  175
    (*This paper was awarded the Elisabeth and Werner Leinfellner Award 2017 for outstanding contributions.) This paper provides an explanation of the skeptical puzzle. I argue that we can take two distinct points of view towards representations, mental representations like perceptual experiences and artificial representations like symbols. When focusing on what the representation represents we take an attached point of view. When focusing on the representational character of the representation we t…Read more
  •  1348
    Handbuch Erkenntnistheorie (edited book)
    Metzler. 2019.
    Die Erkenntnistheorie zählt zu den wichtigsten Teildisziplinen der theoretischen Philosophie. Seit 2000 hat sich die Disziplin sehr stark entwickelt. In diesem Zeitraum wurden in der Forschungsliteratur viele neue Antworten auf klassische erkenntnistheoretischen Fragen hervorgebracht und auch gänzlich neue Fragen und Probleme behandelt. Das Handbuch liefert einen Überblick über die aktuelle Entwicklung der Disziplin.
  • Außenweltskeptizismus
    In Martin Grajner & Guido Melchior (eds.), Handbuch Erkenntnistheorie, Metzler. pp. 305-315. 2019.
  •  275
    This book is primarily about checking and only derivatively about knowing. Checking is a very common concept for describing a subject’s epistemic goals and actions. Surprisingly, there has been no philosophical attention paid to the notion of checking. In Part I, I develop a sensitivity account of checking. To be more explicit, I analyze the internalist and externalist components of the epistemic action of checking which include the intentions of the checking subject and the necessary externalis…Read more
  •  297
    Baseless Knowledge
    Croatian Journal of Philosophy 17 (50): 211-231. 2017.
    It is a commonly held view in contemporary epistemology that for having knowledge it is necessary to have an appropriately based belief, although numerous different views exist about when a belief’s base is appropriate. Broadly speaking, they all share the view that one can only have knowledge if the belief’s base is in some sense truth-related or tracking the truth. Baseless knowledge can then be defi ned as knowledge where the belief is acquired and sustained in a way that does not track the tr…Read more
  •  267
    Modal knowledge accounts like sensitivity or safety face a problem when it comes to knowing propositions that are necessarily true because the modal condition is always fulfilled no matter how random the belief forming method is. Pritchard models the anti-luck condition for knowledge in terms of the modal principle safety. Thus, his anti-luck epistemology faces the same problem when it comes to logical necessities. Any belief in a proposition that is necessarily true fulfills the anti-luck condi…Read more
  •  247
    In this paper, I defend the heterogeneity problem for sensitivity accounts of knowledge against an objection that has been recently proposed by Wallbridge in Philosophia. I argue in, 479–496, 2015) that sensitivity accounts of knowledge face a heterogeneity problem when it comes to higher-level knowledge about the truth of one’s own beliefs. Beliefs in weaker higher-level propositions are insensitive, but beliefs in stronger higher-level propositions are sensitive. The resulting picture that we …Read more