-
65On dedicationsAnalysis 71 (4): 620-627. 2011.What is it to dedicate a thing or event to some person or thing? In the spirit of—and using the same techniques as—J.L. Austin, we advance an analysis of the practice of dedications. We propose that dedicating is an intentional activity involving reverence and honour. We identify the different ways a dedication can go awry and highlight the values that explain why dedications have merit (e.g. they can involve an honorable, evident self-subordination of the donator to the recipient and also bring…Read more
-
42Philosophy of Language: The Classics Explained, by Colin McGinn (review)Teaching Philosophy 38 (4): 463-469. 2015.
-
12
-
13On Keeping Logic in the MajorTeaching Philosophy 34 (2): 133-142. 2011.A course in symbolic logic belongs as a requirement in the undergraduate philosophy major. In this paper, which started life as a letter to my departmental colleagues, I consider and respond to several reasons one might have for excluding Logic from the core requirements. I then give several arguments in favor of keeping Logic. The central—and most important—argument is that the lack of a proper background in logic makes it very difficult to approach many relatively straightforward philosophical…Read more
-
368Moral Testimony: One of These Things Is Just Like the OthersAnalytic Philosophy 55 (1): 54-74. 2014.What, if anything, is wrong with acquiring moral beliefs on the basis of testimony? Most philosophers think that there is something wrong with it, and most point to a special problem that moral testimony is supposed to create for moral agency. Being a good moral agent involves more than bringing about the right outcomes. It also involves acting with "moral understanding" and one cannot have moral understanding of what one is doing via moral testimony. And so, adherents to this view claim, relyin…Read more
-
119Conciliation and Self-incriminationErkenntnis 79 (5): 1099-1134. 2014.Conciliationism is a view—well, a family of views—in the epistemology of disagreement. The idea, simply put, is that, in a wide range of cases where you find yourself in disagreement with another reasoner about the truth of some proposition, you are rationally obliged to adjust your credence in the direction of hers. Conciliationism enjoys a fair bit of prima facie plausibility. Most versions of it, however, suffer from a common (and rather obvious) problem: self-incrimination. Although there is…Read more
-
612On the (In)Significance of Moral Disagreement for Moral Knowledge 1Oxford Studies in Metaethics 8. 2009.This chapter considers an epistemological argument from disagreement which concludes that many of most people’s moral beliefs do not amount to knowledge. Various ways of understanding the argument are considered and it is argued that each relies on an epistemic principle that is under-motivated, overgeneralizes, and is indeed self-incriminating. These problems, it is suggested, infect many conciliationist theses in the epistemology of disagreement. Knowledge, it is argued, can withstand not only…Read more
-
237Disagreement, evidence, and agnosticismSynthese 187 (2): 753-783. 2012.In this paper, I respond to recent attempts by philosophers to deny the existence of something that is both real and significant: reasonable disagreements between epistemic peers. In their arguments against the possibility of such disagreements, skeptical philosophers typically invoke one or more of the following: indifference reasoning , equal weight principles , and uniqueness theses . I take up each of these in turn, finding ample reason to resist them. The arguments for indifference reasonin…Read more
-
81When Should Philosophers Be Silent?Philosophy 87 (2): 163-187. 2012.Are there general precepts governing when philosophers should not conduct inquiry on a given topic? When, if ever, should a philosopher just be silent? In this paper we look at a number of practical, epistemic, and moral arguments for philosophical silence. Some are quite general, and suggest that it is best never to engage in philosophical inquiry, while others are more domain - or context - specific. We argue that these arguments fail to establish their conclusions. We do, however, try to iden…Read more
-
39Honor For Us: A Philosophical Analysis, Interpretation and Defense, by William Lad Sessions (review)Faith and Philosophy 31 (1): 117-122. 2014.
-
77On Keeping Logic in the MajorTeaching Philosophy 33 (2): 133-142. 2010.A course in symbolic logic belongs as a requirement in the undergraduate philosophy major. In this paper, which started life as a letter to my departmental colleagues, I consider and respond to several reasons one might have for excluding Logic from the core requirements. I then give several arguments in favor of keeping Logic. The central—and most important—argument is that the lack of a proper background in logic makes it very difficult to approach many relatively straightforward philosophical…Read more
Northfield, Minnesota, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Meta-Ethics |