•  1555
    Reconsidering Closure, Underdetermination, and Infallibilism
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 80 (1): 221-234. 2010.
    Anthony Brueckner argues for a strong connection between the closure and the underdetermination argument for scepticism. Moreover, he claims that both arguments rest on infallibilism: In order to motivate the premises of the arguments, the sceptic has to refer to an infallibility principle. If this were true, fallibilists would be right in not taking the problems posed by these sceptical arguments seriously. As many epistemologists are sympathetic to fallibilism, this would be a very interesting…Read more
  •  1039
    Reliabilism, bootstrapping, and epistemic circularity
    Synthese 190 (18): 4361-4372. 2013.
    Pretheoretically we hold that we cannot gain justification or knowledge through an epistemically circular reasoning process. Epistemically circular reasoning occurs when a subject forms the belief that p on the basis of an argument A, where at least one of the premises of A already presupposes the truth of p. It has often been argued that process reliabilism does not rule out that this kind of reasoning leads to justification or knowledge. For some philosophers, this is a reason to reject reliab…Read more
  •  899
    "I like how it looks but it is not beautiful" -- Sensory appeal beyond beauty
    with Claudia Muth and Claus-Christian Carbon
    Poetics 79. 2020.
    Statements such as “X is beautiful but I don’t like how it looks” or “I like how X looks but it is not beautiful” sound contradictory. How contradictory they sound might however depend on the object X and on the aesthetic adjective being used (“beautiful”, “elegant”, “dynamic”, etc.). In our study, the first sentence was estimated to be more contradictory than the latter: If we describe something as beautiful, we often intend to evaluate its appearance, whereas it is less counterintuitive to app…Read more
  •  873
    Consequentialist positions in philosophy spell out normative notions by recourse to final aims. Hedonistic versions of ETHICAL consequentialism spell out what is MORALLY right/justified via recourse to the aim of increasing pleasure and decreasing pain. Veritistic versions of EPISTEMIC consequentialism spell out what is EPISTEMICALLY right/justified via recourse to the aim of increasing the number of true beliefs and decreasing the number of false ones. Even though these theories are in many res…Read more
  •  792
    Evidentielle Einzigkeit in klassischer und formaler Erkenntnistheorie
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 71 (2): 183-222. 2017.
    Die These der evidentiellen Einzigkeit besagt, dass es im Lichte von Gesamt-Evidenz E genau eine doxastische Einstellung – Für-Wahr-Halten, Für-Falsch-Halten, Enthaltung – gibt, die von Subjekten in Bezug auf eine beliebige Proposition rationalerweise eingenommen werden kann. Auf den ersten Blick ist diese These sehr plausibel. Der vorliegende Aufsatz diskutiert zunächst die Relevanz des Prin- zips sowohl in klassischen (nicht-formalen) sowie in formalen erkenntnistheoretischen Forschungstraditi…Read more
  •  722
    Antiskeptische Trittbrettfahrer des semantischen Externalismus
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 65 (4): 100-122. 2011.
    Die philosophische Skepsis bezweifelt argumentativ, dass Menschen über Wissen verfügen. Eine interessante und viel beachtete Reaktion auf diese Skepsis basiert auf dem semantischen Externalismus. Obwohl die antiskeptische Strategie des Externalismus im Laufe der Jahre entscheident verbessert wurde, krankt sie in den Augen vieler Philosophen immer noch an einer stark beschränkten Reichweite: Sie ist nur hinsichtlich ganz bestimmter Varianten skeptischer Argumentation erfolgreich – durch geschickt…Read more
  •  695
    This paper discusses a structural analogy between Kant’s theory of regulative ideas, as he develops it in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, and Crispin Wright’s theory of epistemic entitlements. First, I argue that certain exegetical difficulties with respect to the Appendix rest on serious systematic problems, which – given other assumptions of the Critique of Pure Reason – Kant is unable to solve. Second, I argue that because of the identified structural analogy between Kant’s and …Read more
  •  607
    Pictorial Art and Epistemic Aims
    In Harald Klinke (ed.), Art Theory as Visual Epistemology, Cambridge Scholars Press. pp. 11-28. 2014.
    The question whether art is of any epistemic value is an old question in the philosophy of art. Whereas many contemporary artists, art-critics, and art-historians answer this question affirmatively, many contemporary philosophers remain skeptical. If art is of epistemic significance, they maintain, then it has to contribute to our quest of achieving our most basic epistemic aim, namely knowledge.Unfortunately, recent and widely accepted analyses of knowledge make it very hard to see how art migh…Read more
  •  581
    This paper focuses on a combination of the antiskeptical strategies offered by semantic externalism and the inference to the best explanation. I argue that the most difficult problems of the two strategies can be solved, if the strategies are combined: The strategy offered by semantic externalism is successful against standard skeptical brain-in-a-vat arguments. But the strategy is ineffective, if the skeptical argument is referring to the recent-envatment scenario. However, by focusing on the s…Read more
  •  580
    Perceptual justification and assertively representing the world
    Philosophical Studies 172 (8): 2239-2259. 2015.
    This paper argues that there is a problem for the justificatory significance of perceptions that has been overlooked thus far. Assuming that perceptual experiences are propositional attitudes and that only propositional attitudes which assertively represent the world can function as justifiers, the problem consists in specifying what it means for a propositional attitude to assertively represent the world without losing the justificatory significance of perceptions—a challenge that is harder to …Read more
  •  558
    A Linguistic Specification of Aesthetic Judgments
    British Journal of Aesthetics 59 (4): 373-391. 2019.
    This paper aims to delineate the class of aesthetic judgments linguistically. The main idea is that aesthetic judgments can be specified by a certain set of assertibility conditions, i.e., by norms that govern appropriate speech-acts. This idea is spelled out in detail and defended against various objections. The suggestion leads to an interesting account of aesthetic judgments that is theoretically fruitful: It provides the basis for a non-circular and satisfying characterization of the whole d…Read more
  •  422
    Sein und Kunst -- Zum epistemischen Wert der Kunst bei Heidegger
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 76 (4): 531-559. 2022.
    In this essay, Heidegger's theses on art, as he develops them in the text "On the Origin of the Work of Art," are reconstructed, interpreted, and critically evalua- ted. In doing so, we pursue a threefold goal. First, his theses on art are put in relation to the main theme of his philosophy: the question of being. Second, the different ways in which Heidegger takes art to be epistemically valuable are dif- ferentiated and reconstructed in detail. Third, Heidegger's theses are related to the cont…Read more
  •  333
    Aesthetic Judgments, Evaluative Content, and (Hybrid) Expressivism
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Aesthetic statements of the form ‘X is beautiful’ are evaluative; they indicate the speaker’s positive affective attitude regarding X. Why is this so? Is the evaluative content part of the truth conditions, or is it a pragmatic phenomenon (i.e. presupposition, implicature)? First, I argue that semantic approaches as well as these pragmatic ones cannot satisfactorily explain the evaluativity of aesthetic statements. Second, I offer a positive proposal based on a speech-act theoretical version of …Read more
  •  330
    In defence of science: Two ways to rehabilitate Reichenbach's vindication of induction
    The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. forthcoming.
    Confronted with the problem of induction, Hans Reichenbach accepts that we cannot justify that induction is reliable. He tries to solve the problem by proving a weaker proposition: that induction is an optimal method of prediction, because it is guaranteed not to be worse and may be better than any alternative. Regarding the most serious objection to his approach, Reichenbach himself hints at an answer without spelling it out. In this paper, I will argue that there are two workable strategies to…Read more
  •  258
    Der Urteilsbegriff und Wissen aus zweiter Hand in der Ästhetik
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 69 (4): 619-632. 2021.
    Although the concept of judgment has been replaced by the concept of belief in many philosophical subdisciplines, it has retained its central role in aesthetics. This paper discusses the following explanation for this: In contrast to the concept of belief, the concept of judgment presupposes conscious and first-personal engagement with the object about which the judgment is being made, and this conscious and first-personal engagement with the object in question plays a more important role in aes…Read more
  •  220
    Welchen Zweck verfolgen wir mit ästhetischen Urteilen, wie z.B. „Das ist schön“? Drücken wir damit nur unsere Begeisterung aus oder schreiben wir Gegenständen objektive, von uns unabhängige Eigenschaften zu? Können ästhetische Urteile wahr oder falsch sein, und falls ja, gilt der jeweilige Wahrheitswert dann allgemeingültig oder muss er in gewisser Hinsicht relativiert werden? Das Buch ist der Aufgabe gewidmet, Fragen dieser Art zu beantworten. Sprachphilosophische Fragen in Bezug auf ästhetisc…Read more
  •  189
    Elgin on Science, Art and Understanding
    Erkenntnis 88 (6): 2651-2671. 2021.
    Is art epistemically valuable? Catherine Z. Elgin answers this question in the affirmative. She argues for the epistemic value of art on the basis of her innovative epistemological theory, in which the focus is shifted from knowledge and truth to a non-factive account of understanding. After an exposition and critique of her view, as she develops it in her most recent book “True Enough” (MIT-Press, 2017), I will build on some of her ideas in order to strengthen her account.
  •  174
    Ästhetische Kriterien in der Theorieauswahl? Kommentar zu Olaf Müllers Zu schön, um falsch zu sein
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 76 (3): 442-446. 2022.
  •  152
    The Acquaintance Inference and Hybrid Expressivism
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Sentences containing predicates of personal taste (for example, ‘tasty’, ‘funny’) and aesthetic predicates (for example, ‘beautiful’) give rise to an acquaintance inference: They convey the information that speakers have first-hand experience with the object of predication and they can only be uttered appropriately if that is the case. This is surprisingly hard to explain. I will concentrate on aesthetic predicates, and firstly criticize previous attempts to explain the acquaintance phenomena. S…Read more
  •  151
    Conceptual infrastructure and conceptual engineering
    In Aaron Pinnix, Axel Volmar, Fernando Esposito & Nora Binder (eds.), Rethinking Infrastructure Across the Humanities, Transcript. pp. 75-86. 2023.
  •  8
    Die These der philosophischen Skepsis besagt, dass Menschen über keinerlei Wissen bzw. Rechtfertigung verfügen. So unplausibel diese These klingen mag, so überraschend ist es, dass sie gleich durch eine Vielzahl an Argumenten verteidigt werden kann. Die besten dieser Argumente lassen sich in gewisser Hinsicht als Paradoxa verstehen: Aus äußerst plausiblen Prämissen werden in logisch einwandfreier Weise Konklusionen abgeleitet, die sehr unplausibel – ja, geradezu absurd sind. Befriedigende Lös…Read more