•  55
    Naturalism and the Intellectual Legitimacy of Philosophy
    Balkan Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    There is a worry about the intellectual legitimacy of philosophy. Although the sciences have a progressive history, with later theories largely building on earlier ones, and a tremendous amount of agreement within the scientific community about the approximate truth of current theory, philosophy is different. We do not see a progressive history of philosophical theorizing, and there is little agreement within the philosophical community about which theories are even roughly correct. This not …Read more
  •  7
    Is Philosophical Knowledge Possible?
    In Christoph Jäger & Winfried Löffler (eds.), Epistemology: Contexts, Values, Disagreement. Papers of the 34th International Ludwig Wittgenstein-Symposium in Kirchberg, 2011, The Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. pp. 285-304. 2007.
  •  6
    Review of Peter van Inwagen: An Essay on Free Will (review)
    Ethics 94 (4): 711-712. 1984.
  • Philosophy, science, and common sense
    In Jeroen de Ridder, Rik Peels & Rene van Woudenberg (eds.), Scientism: Prospects and Problems, Oxford University Press. 2018.
  •  218
    Where does moral knowledge come from? (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (2): 556-560. 2023.
  •  311
    Epistemic Justification and Reflection (review)
    Analysis 81 (4): 793-803. 2022.
    Smithies presents an account of justification that ties it to an idealized view of reflection. I argue that no such account can work. More than this, I argue that the kind of idealization which Smithies offers loses contact with the very phenomenon of reflection which he intends to illuminate. I also discuss how Smithies's view bears on the internalism/externalism controversy.
  •  223
    As George Boole saw it, the laws of logic are the laws of thought, and by this he meant, not that human thought is actually governed by the laws of logic, but, rather, that it should be. Boole’s view that the laws of logic have normative implications for how we ought to think is anything but an outlier. The idea that violating the laws of logic involves epistemic impropriety has seemed to many to be just obvious. It has seemed especially obvious to those who see propositional justification a…Read more
  •  154
    Against Strawsonian Epistemology
    In Nathan Ballantyne & David A. Dunning (eds.), Reason, Bias, and Inquiry: The Crossroads of Epistemology and Psychology, Oxford University Press. 2022.
    A number of philosophers have found inspiration for a distinctive approach to a wide range of epistemological issues in P. F. Strawson’s classic essay, “Freedom and Resentment.” These Strawsonian epistemologists, as I call them, argue that the epistemology of testimony, self-knowledge, promising, and resolving is fundamentally different in kind from the epistemology of perception or inference. We should not see properly formed belief on these topics as evidence-based, for such an objective per…Read more
  •  39
    Scientific Epistemology: An Introduction
    Oxford University Press, Usa. 2021.
    "This book provides an introduction to a scientifically informed approach to epistemological questions. Theories of knowledge are often motivated by the need to respond to skepticism. The skeptic presents an argument which seems to show that knowledge is impossible, and a theory of knowledge is called upon to show, contrary to the skeptic, how knowledge is indeed possible. Traditional epistemologies, however, do not draw on the sciences in providing their response to skepticism. The approach tak…Read more
  •  26
    Contemporary Theories of Knowledge
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (1): 167-171. 1988.
  •  8
    Perception, Learning and the Self (review)
    Philosophical Review 94 (3): 408-411. 1985.
  • How to Refer to Artifacts
    In Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence (eds.), Creations of the Mind: Theories of Artifacts and Their Representaion, Oxford University Press. pp. 138-149. 2007.
  • The Metaphysics of Irreducibility
    with Derek Pereboom
    In John Heil (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology, Oxford University Press. 2003.
  •  31
    Epistemic Agency
    In Miguel Ángel Fernández Vargas (ed.), Performance Epistemology: Foundations and Applications, Oxford University Press Uk. 2016.
    Over the years, the notion of epistemic agency has played a larger and larger role in Ernest Sosa’s epistemology. In his most recent work, epistemic agency plays an absolutely central role in explaining why it is that our beliefs are subject to normative evaluation. This chapter argues that there are problems with the accounts of epistemic agency which Sosa gives at every stage of his work. More than this, there are other resources within Sosa’s epistemology which can do all the work he calls on…Read more
  •  6
    Second Thoughts and the Epistemological Enterprise
    Cambridge University Press. 2019.
    This volume collects ten previously published papers, together with two papers which are new to this volume. At least since Descartes, epistemologists have often worried about total skepticism: their epistemological theorizing is designed to offer a reply to the radical skeptic, showing how knowledge of the physical world is possible. The essays in this volume have a different focus. Skeptical worries are presented, and, in some cases, responded to, but the source of the worries is quite diff…Read more
  •  196
    The metaphysics of irreducibility
    Philosophical Studies 63 (August): 125-45. 1991.
    During the 'sixties and 'seventies, Hilary Putnam, Jerry Fodor, and Richard Boyd, among others, developed a type of materialism that eschews reductionist claims.1 In this view, explana- tions, natural kinds, and properties in psychology do not reduce to counterparts in more basic sciences, such as neurophysiology or physics. Nevertheless, all token psychological entities-- states, processes, and faculties--are wholly constituted of physical entities, ultimately out of entities over which microph…Read more
  •  14
    The Metaphysical Status of Knowledge
    Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 43 (1): 77-92. 2008.
  •  14
    Beliefs, Kinds and Rules: A Comment on Kornblith's Knowledge and Its Place in Nature
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2): 411-419. 2005.
  •  18
    Knowledge and Its Place in Nature
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2): 403-410. 2002.
  •  9
    The Impurity of Reason
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 81 (1): 67-89. 2000.
    Laurence BonJour has defended the view that we have an a priori intellectual capacity to understand the nature of proper reason. This view is critically examined in detail and a naturalistic alternative is proposed and defended according to which our understanding of proper reasoning requires a posteriori support.
  •  221
    Hilary Kornblith, Knowledge and Its Place in Nature (review)
    Philosophical Review 115 (2): 246-251. 2006.
  •  24
    Naturalizing Epistemology
    Philosophy of Science 55 (1): 152-153. 1988.
  •  96
    Précis of Virtues of the Mind
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (1): 169-177. 2000.
  • Knowledge Without Foundations: A Causal Theory
    Dissertation, Cornell University. 1980.
    In Chapter Four, it is argued that coherence is evidence of truth. A sketch of a theory of approximate truth is developed in terms of the theory of reference outlined in Chapter Three, and this notion is put to work in showing that there is reason to believe that most of our beliefs are at least approximately true. It is then argued that coherence with approximately true beliefs, and thus the beliefs we have, is evidence of truth. ;In Chapter Three, the connection between the theory of knowledge…Read more
  •  152
    Introspection and misdirection
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 67 (4). 1989.
    Internalist theories of justification put introspection to work in service of the task of error detection. Introspecting to determine whether our beliefs are well-supported by reasons is supposed to reveal where it is that our beliefs fail to measure up to appropriate standards. Internalists do not, however, offer any empirical evidence that introspection can constructively play this role. This chapter examines relevant evidence from social psychology about the way in which introspection actu…Read more
  •  63
    Some social features of cognition
    Synthese 73 (1). 1987.
    This paper describes and assesses a number of dispositions which are instrumental in allowing us to take on the opinions of others unselfconsciously. It is argued that these dispositions are in fact reliable in the environments in which they tend to come into play. In addition, it is argued that agents are, by their own lights, justified in the beliefs they arrive at as a result of these processes. Finally, these processes are argued to provide a basis for rejecting the claim that fixation of be…Read more
  •  512
    Epistemic normativity
    Synthese 94 (3). 1993.
    This paper examines the source and content of epistemic norms. In virtue of what is it that epistemic norms have their normative force? A semantic approach to this question, due to Alvin Goldman, is examined and found unacceptable. Instead, accounts seeking to ground epistemic norms in our desires are argued to be most promising. All of these accounts make epistemic norms a variety of hypothetical imperative. It is argued that such an account may be offered, grounding our epistemic norms in desi…Read more
  •  53
    Replies to Alvin Goldman, Martin Kusch and William Talbott (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2). 2005.
  •  2
    Books reviews
    Mind 101 (401): 188-191. 1992.
  •  147
    Naturalistic Epistemology and Its Critics
    Philosophical Topics 23 (1): 237-255. 1995.