•  215
    The method(s) of cases
    Philosophical Psychology 34 (1): 102-124. 2021.
    Experimental philosophy has focused attention on the role that intuitive responses to philosophical cases play in philosophical argumentation. The method of appealing to such cases has been dubbed the “method of cases,” and, in recent work, Edouard Machery has both defended its prevalence and uniformity in philosophical practice, and criticized its epistemic value. In this paper, I argue that there is no single method of cases, but rather a set of methods of cases. To defend this claim, I distin…Read more
  •  26
    Review of Mercier and Sperber’s The Enigma of Reason (review)
    Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 31 (3): 33-44. 2016.
    In The Enigma of Reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber (2017) defend the proposal that reason is a specialized module which produces intuitions about reasons. Reason serves two functions: for individuals to justify their own judgments and actions to themselves and others, and to persuade others. In this review, I briefly summarize the central claims of the book, critically examine Mercier and Sperber’s arguments that reason is not a general faculty underlying our inferential abilities, and explor…Read more
  •  34
    Steering into the Skid: On the Norms of Critical Thinking
    Informal Logic 37 (2): 114-128. 2017.
    Cognitive bias presents as a pressing challenge to critical thinking education. While many have focused on how to eliminate or mitigate cognitive bias, others have argued that these biases are better understood as result from adaptive reasoning heuristics which are, in the right conditions, rational modes of reasoning about the world. This approach presents a new challenge to critical thinking education: if these heuristics are rational under the right conditions, does teaching critical thinking…Read more
  •  213
    On the stakes of experimental philosophy
    Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 36 (3): 45-60. 2017.
    Prominent critics and champions of Experimental Philosophy (X-Phi) alike have tied its philosophical significance to the philosophical significance of intuition. In this essay, I develop an interpretation of X-Phi which does not require an intuition-driven understanding of traditional philosophy, and the arguments challenged by results in X-Phi. X-Phi's role on this account is primarily dialectical. Its aim is to test the universality of claims which are merely assumed to be true, exploring t…Read more
  •  147
    Critical Thinking and Cognitive Bias
    Informal Logic 35 (2): 183-203. 2015.
    Teaching critical thinking skill is a central pedagogical aim in many courses. These skills, it is hoped, will be both portable and durable. Yet, both of these virtues are challenged by pervasive and potent cognitive biases, such as motivated reasoning, false consensus bias and hindsight bias. In this paper, I argue that a focus on the development of metacognitive skill shows promise as a means to inculcate debiasing habits in students. Such habits will help students become more critical reasone…Read more
  •  1098
    Interpreting intuition: Experimental philosophy of language
    Philosophical Psychology 28 (2): 260-278. 2015.
    The role of intuition in Kripke's arguments for the causal-historical theory of reference has been a topic of recent debate, particularly in light of empirical work on these intuitions. In this paper, I develop three interpretations of the role intuition might play in Kripke's arguments. The first aim of this exercise is to help clarify the options available to interpreters of Kripke, and the consequences for the experimental investigation of Kripkean intuitions. The second aim is to show that u…Read more
  •  2611
    Linguistic Intuitions
    Philosophy Compass 8 (8): 714-730. 2013.
    Linguists often advert to what are sometimes called linguistic intuitions. These intuitions and the uses to which they are put give rise to a variety of philosophically interesting questions: What are linguistic intuitions – for example, what kind of attitude or mental state is involved? Why do they have evidential force and how might this force be underwritten by their causal etiology? What light might their causal etiology shed on questions of cognitive architecture – for example, as a case st…Read more
  •  1652
    Linguistic intuition and calibration
    Linguistics and Philosophy 35 (5): 443-460. 2012.
    Linguists, particularly in the generative tradition, commonly rely upon intuitions about sentences as a key source of evidence for their theories. While widespread, this methodology has also been controversial. In this paper, I develop a positive account of linguistic intuition, and defend its role in linguistic inquiry. Intuitions qualify as evidence as form of linguistic behavior, which, since it is partially caused by linguistic competence (the object of investigation), can be used to study t…Read more
  •  85
    Thinking about Critical Thinking
    Teaching Philosophy 36 (4): 337-351. 2013.
    In this paper I develop a theoretical framework for instruction in Critical Thinking courses which integrates informal logic with both psycho­logical work on error tendencies in human reasoning and the intellectual virtues. I argue that matters of cogency, which concern the content of one’s arguments, should be distinguished from matters of reasoning, which concern the actual inferences people draw. Informal logic and the intellectual virtues supply the normative standards for each of these dime…Read more