•  2
    Kunnen goed geïnformeerde burgers wel betrokken burgers zijn?
    Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 116 (1): 74-93. 2024.
    Can well-informed citizens be engaged citizens? The storming of the Capitol exposes a tension between different kinds of virtues in public life, at least if we can disregard – for the sake of argument – the morally and politically unacceptable excessive violence that accompanied it. If we think about the event as an example of a powerful protest based on deep convictions, it points to a tension between two kinds of civic virtues. A healthy political climate requires participation: engaged and mo…Read more
  •  73
    Social Virtue Epistemology (edited book)
    Routledge. 2022.
    Explores the place of intellectual virtues and vices in a social world. Chapters are divided into four sections: Foundational Issues; Individual Virtues; Collective Virtues; and Methods and Measurements.
  •  15
    Editors’ Note
    with Gerrit Glas and Mathanja Berger
    Philosophia Reformata 83 (1): 1. 2018.
  •  1
    Editorial
    with Gerrit Glas and Mathanja Berger
    Philosophia Reformata 83 (2): 147-148. 2018.
  •  12
    Value pluralism in research integrity
    with Lex Bouter, Tamarinde Haven, and Rik Peels
    Research Integrity and Peer Review 4 (1). 2019.
    Both scientists and society at large have rightfully become increasingly concerned about research integrity in recent decades. In response, codes of conduct for research have been developed and elaborated. We show that these codes contain substantial pluralism. First, there is metaphysical pluralism in that codes include values, norms, and virtues. Second, there is axiological pluralism, because there are different categories of values, norms, and virtues: epistemic, moral, professional, social,…Read more
  •  20
    The Unassertability of Contextualism
    Quaestiones Disputatae 8 (2): 68-86. 2018.
  •  1
    European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.
  •  17
    Online Illusions of Understanding
    Social Epistemology. forthcoming.
    ABSTRACT Understanding is a demanding epistemic state. It involves not just knowledge that things are thus and so, but grasping the reasons why and seeing how things hang together. Understanding, then, typically requires inquiry. Many of our inquiries are conducted online nowadays, with the help of search engines, forums, and social media platforms. In this paper, I explore the idea that online inquiry easily leads to what I will call online illusions of understanding. Both the structure of onli…Read more
  •  1
    This work provides an overview of attempts to assess the current condition of the concept of creation order within reformational philosophy compared to other perspectives. Focusing on the natural and life sciences, and theology, this first volume of two examines the arguments for and against the beauty, coherence and order shown in the natural world being related to the will or nature of a Creator. It examines the decay of a Deist universe, and the idea of the pre-givenness of norms, laws and st…Read more
  • Kinds of knowledge, limits of science
    In Jeroen de Ridder, Rik Peels & Rene van Woudenberg (eds.), Scientism: Prospects and Problems, Oxford University Press. 2018.
  •  20
    Common sense philosophy holds that widely and deeply held beliefs are justified in the absence of defeaters. While this tradition has always had its philosophical detractors who have defended various forms of skepticism or have sought to develop rival epistemological views, recent advances in several scientific disciplines claim to have debunked the reliability of the faculties that produce our common sense beliefs. At the same time, however, it seems reasonable that we cannot do without common …Read more
  • Is Fake News Old News?
    with Catarina Dutilh Novaes
    In Sven Bernecker, Amy K. Flowerree & Thomas Grundmann (eds.), The Epistemology of Fake News, Oxford University Press. 2021.
  •  4
    Online and Offline Battles : Usage of Different Political Conflict Frames
    with Emma van der Goot, Sanne Kruikemeier, and Rens Vliegenthart
    Conflict framing is key in political communication. Politicians use conflict framing in their online messages (e.g., criticizing other politicians) and journalists in their political coverage (e.g., reporting on political tensions). Conflicts can take a variety of forms and can provoke different reactions. However, the literature still lacks a systematic and theoretically-grounded conceptual framework that accounts for the multi-dimensionality of political conflict frames. Based on literature fr…Read more
  •  5
    Old Assyrian Legal Practices: Law and Dispute in the Ancient Near East. By Thomas Klitgaard Hertel. PIHANS, vol. 123. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2013. Pp. xlii + 479. €84.80.
  •  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
  •  10
    Online and Offline Battles : Usage of Different Political Conflict Frames
    with Emma Goot, Sanne Kruikemeier, and Rens Vliegenthart
    International Journal of Press/Politics 29 (1): 26-46. forthcoming.
    Conflict framing is key in political communication. Politicians use conflict framing in their online messages (e.g., criticizing other politicians) and journalists in their political coverage (e.g., reporting on political tensions). Conflicts can take a variety of forms and can provoke different reactions. However, the literature still lacks a systematic and theoretically-grounded conceptual framework that accounts for the multi-dimensionality of political conflict frames. Based on literature fr…Read more
  •  38
    Group belief reconceived
    Synthese 200 (2): 1-21. 2022.
    An influential account or group belief analyzes it as a form of joint commitment by group members. In spite of its popularity, the account faces daunting objections. I consider and reply to two of them. The first, due to Jennifer Lackey, is that the joint commitment account fails as an account of group belief since it cannot distinguish group beliefs from group lies and bullshit. The second is that the joint commitment account fails because it makes group belief voluntary, whereas genuine belief…Read more
  •  23
    How to trust a scientist
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 93 11-20. 2022.
  •  2
    Scientism: Prospects and Problems (edited book)
    with Rik Peels and Rene van Woudenberg
    Oxford University Press. 2018.
    Can only science deliver genuine knowledge about the world and ourselves? Is science our only guide to what exists? Scientism answers both questions with yes. Scientism is increasingly influential in popular scientific literature and intellectual life in general, but philosophers have hitherto largely ignored it. This collection is one of the first to develop and assess scientism as a serious philosophical position. It features twelve new essays by both proponents and critics of scientism. Befor…Read more
  •  1563
    The Point of Political Belief
    In Michael Hannon & Jeroen de Ridder (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology, Routledge. 2021.
    An intuitive and widely accepted view is that (a) beliefs aim at truth, (b) many citizens have stable and meaningful political beliefs, and (c) citizens choose to support political candidates or parties on the basis of their political beliefs. We argue that all three claims are false. First, we argue that political beliefs often differ from ordinary world-modelling beliefs because they do not aim at truth. Second, we draw on empirical evidence from political science and psychology to argue that …Read more
  •  102
    This handbook provides an overview of key ideas, questions, and puzzles in political epistemology. It is divided into seven sections: (1) Politics and Truth: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives; (2) Political Disagreement and Polarization; (3) Fake News, Propaganda, Misinformation; (4) Ignorance and Irrationality in Politics; (5) Epistemic Virtues and Vices in Politics; (6) Democracy and Epistemology; (7) Trust, Expertise, and Doubt.
  •  100
    Science and Scientism in Popular Science Writing
    Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3 (12). 2014.
    If one is to believe recent popular scientific accounts of developments in physics, biology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, most of the perennial philosophical questions have been wrested from the hands of philosophers by now, only to be resolved (or sometimes dissolved) by contemporary science. To mention but a few examples of issues that science has now allegedly dealt with: the origin and destiny of the universe, the origin of human life, the soul, free will, morality, and religion. My …Read more
  •  48
    Against Quasi-Fideism
    Faith and Philosophy 36 (2): 223-243. 2019.
    Duncan Pritchard has recently ventured to carve out a novel position in the epistemology of religious belief called quasi-fideism. Its core is an application of ideas from Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology to religious belief. Among its many advertised benefits are that it can do justice to two seemingly conflicting ideas about religious belief, to wit: that it is, at least at some level, a matter of ungrounded faith, but also that it can be epistemically rationally grounded. In this paper, I a…Read more
  •  26
    Against Quasi-Fideism
    Faith and Philosophy 36 (2): 223-243. 2019.
    Duncan Pritchard has recently ventured to carve out a novel position in the epistemology of religious belief called quasi-fideism. Its core is an application of ideas from Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology to religious belief. Among its many advertised benefits are that it can do justice to two seemingly conflicting ideas about religious belief, to wit: (a) that it is, at least at some level, a matter of ungrounded faith, but also (b) that it can be epistemically rationally grounded. In this pa…Read more
  •  24
    Philosophers of science have by and large neglected technology. In this book, I have tried to do something about this lacuna by analyzing a few aspects of technical artifacts from a philosophical angle. The project was part of the research program "The Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts" based at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Technical artifacts are both plain physical objects and objects that have been purposefully made for a purpose; which is to say they have a physical st…Read more
  •  1882
    Religious exclusivism unlimited: JEROEN DE RIDDER
    Religious Studies 47 (4): 449-463. 2011.
    Like David Silver before them, Erik Baldwin and Michael Thune argue that the facts of religious pluralism present an insurmountable challenge to the rationality of basic exclusive religious belief as construed by Reformed Epistemology. I will show that their argument is unsuccessful. First, their claim that the facts of religious pluralism make it necessary for the religious exclusivist to support her exclusive beliefs with significant reasons is one that the reformed epistemologist has the reso…Read more
  •  787
    Mechanistic artefact explanation
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (1): 81-96. 2006.
    One thing about technical artefacts that needs to be explained is how their physical make-up, or structure, enables them to fulfil the behaviour associated with their function, or, more colloquially, how they work. In this paper I develop an account of such explanations based on the familiar notion of mechanistic explanation. To accomplish this, I outline two explanatory strategies that provide two different types of insight into an artefact’s functioning, and show how human action inevitably pl…Read more
  •  5
    Introduction to Special Issue
    Philosophia Reformata 79 (1): 3-7. 2014.
    Discussions about the relationship between science and religion have never been absent from the public arena, but they seem to have made something of a comeback in the past decade or two. It is hard to say what accounts for such large-scale developments in society. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it has become increasingly clear that the secularization thesis, i.e., the claim that the modernization and rationalization of societies goes hand in hand with the gradual disappearanc…Read more