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1972Religious exclusivism unlimited: JEROEN DE RIDDERReligious 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
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1642The Point of Political BeliefIn 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
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845Mechanistic artefact explanationStudies 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
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544The (Alleged) Inherent Normativity of Technological ExplanationsTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 10 (1): 79-94. 2006.Technical artifacts have the capacity to fulfill their function in virtue of their physicochemical make-up. An explanation that purports to explicate this relation between artifact function and structure can be called a technological explanation. It might be argued, and Peter Kroes has in fact done so, that there issomething peculiar about technological explanations in that they are intrinsically normative in some sense. Since the notion of artifact function is a normative one (if an artifact ha…Read more
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259Epistemology socialized: Adrian Haddock, Alan Millar, and Duncan Pritchard : Social epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, xviii+350pp, £45.00 HB (review)Metascience 21 (2): 477-481. 2011.Epistemology socialized Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-5 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9579-4 Authors Jeroen de Ridder, Faculty of Philosophy, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796
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250Epistemic dependence and collective scientific knowledgeSynthese 191 (1): 1-17. 2014.I argue that scientific knowledge is collective knowledge, in a sense to be specified and defended. I first consider some existing proposals for construing collective knowledge and argue that they are unsatisfactory, at least for scientific knowledge as we encounter it in actual scientific practice. Then I introduce an alternative conception of collective knowledge, on which knowledge is collective if there is a strong form of mutual epistemic dependence among scientists, which makes it so that …Read more
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111The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology (edited book)Routledge. 2021.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.
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110Science and Scientism in Popular Science WritingSocial 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
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108Why Only Externalists Can Be SteadfastErkenntnis 79 (S1): 185-199. 2014.What is the rational response to disagreement with an epistemic peer? Some say the steadfast response of holding on to your own belief can be rational; others argue that some degree of conciliation is always rationally required. I argue that only an epistemological externalist about rationality—someone who holds that the rationality of a belief is partly constituted by factors outside a subject’s cognitive perspective—can defend the steadfast view. Or at least that this is so in the kinds of ide…Read more
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102Unsafe AssertionsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (4): 1-5. 2012.John Turri has recently provided two problem cases for the knowledge account of assertion (KAA) to argue for the express knowledge account of assertion (EKAA). We defend KAA by explaining away the intuitions about the problem cases and by showing that our explanation is theoretically superior to EKAA
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87Referring To, Believing In, and Worshipping the Same God: A Reformed ViewFaith and Philosophy 31 (1): 46-67. 2014.We present a Reformed view on the relation between Christianity and non-Christian religions. We then explore what this view entails for the question whether Christians and non-Christian religious believers refer to, believe in, and worship the same God. We first analyze the concepts of worship, belief-in, and reference, as well as their interrelations. We then argue that adherents of the Abrahamic religions plausibly refer to the same God, whereas adherents of non-Abrahamic religions do not refe…Read more
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78Social 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.
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58Design Hypotheses Behave Like Skeptical HypothesesInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 7 (2): 69-90. 2017._ Source: _Volume 7, Issue 2, pp 69 - 90 It is often claimed that, as a result of scientific progress, we now _know_ that the natural world displays no design. Although we have no interest in defending design hypotheses, we will argue that establishing claims to the effect that we know the denials of design hypotheses is more difficult than it seems. We do so by issuing two skeptical challenges to design-deniers. The first challenge draws inspiration from radical skepticism and shows how design …Read more
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56Against Quasi-FideismFaith 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
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50Is there epistemic justification for secrecy in science?Episteme 10 (2): 101-116. 2013.Empirical evidence shows that secrecy in science has increased over the past decades, partly as a result of the commercialization of science. There is a good prima facie case against secrecy in science. It is part of the traditional ethos of science that it is a collective and open truth-seeking endeavor. In this paper, I will investigate whether secrecy in science can ever be epistemically justified. To answer this question, I first distinguish between different sorts of secrecy. Next, I propos…Read more
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48Design discourse and the cognitive science of designPhilosophia Reformata 79 (1): 37-53. 2014.Much of Alvin Plantinga’s Where the Conflict Really Lies will contain few surprises for those who have been following his work over the past decades. This —I hasten to add — is nothing against the book. The fact alone that his ideas on various topics, which have appeared scattered throughout the literature, are now actualized, applied to the debate about the conflict between science and religion, and organized into an overarching argument with a single focus makes this book worthwhile. Moreover,…Read more
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43Group belief reconceivedSynthese 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
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35Kan God een goede verklaring zijn? Over theïstische verklaringen in de wetenschapPhilosophia Reformata 73 (1): 44-60. 2008.Veel wetenschappers, filosofen en theologen zijn van mening dat God nooit opgevoerd mag worden als verklaring voor een verschijnsel. Eén argument dat ze hiervoor aandragen is dat het op de een of andere manier in de aard van wetenschap zit dat God er geen rol in kan spelen. In dit artikel ga ik in op een specifieke versie van dit argument. Ik vraag me af of de aard van wetenschappelijke verklaringen uitsluit dat God als verklaringsgrond wordt genoemd. Om die vraag te beantwoorden ga ik na of de …Read more
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33Against Quasi-FideismFaith 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
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30The (Alleged) Inherent Normativity of Technological ExplanationsTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 10 (1): 79-94. 2006.Technical artifacts have the capacity to fulfill their function in virtue of their physicochemical make-up. An explanation that purports to explicate this relation between artifact function and structure can be called a technological explanation. It might be argued, and Peter Kroes has in fact done so, that there issomething peculiar about technological explanations in that they are intrinsically normative in some sense. Since the notion of artifact function is a normative one an explanation of …Read more
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30Scientific Challenges to Common Sense Philosophy (edited book)Routledge. 2020.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
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30Bradley Monton, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design. Peterborough, ON & Buffalo, NY 2009: Broadview Press. 177 pages. ISBN 9781551118635 (review)Philosophia Reformata 75 (1): 85-88. 2010.
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28Philosophers 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
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28Scientism: The New Orthodoxy (review)International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 30 (1): 93-95. 2016.
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27Common sense and Ontological commitmentIn 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
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24Online Illusions of UnderstandingSocial 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
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24Marcel Sarot, De goddeloosheid van de wetenschap: Theologie, geloof en het gangbare wetenschapsideaal. Zoetermeer 2006: Meinema. 159 pagina’s. ISBN 9789021141336 (review)Philosophia Reformata 73 (1): 124-127. 2008.
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23Wetenschap en sciëntisme in de populaire wetenschapAlgemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 107 (3): 233-250. 2015.Science and Scientism in Popular Science Writing 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,…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
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Epistemology |
General Philosophy of Science |
Epistemology of Religion |
Reformed Epistemology |
Social Epistemology |
Collective Epistemology |
Testimony |
Disagreement |