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13Testimonial Knowledge and the Flow of InformationIn David K. Henderson & John Greco (eds.), Epistemic Evaluation: Purposeful Epistemology, Oxford University Press Uk. 2015.This chapter reviews a number of related problems in the epistemology of testimony, and suggests some dilemmas for any theory of knowledge that tries to solve them. Here a common theme emerges: It can seem that any theory must make testimonial knowledge either too hard or too easy, and that therefore no adequate account of testimonial knowledge is possible. The chapter then puts forward a proposal for making progress. Specifically, an important function of the concept of knowledge is to govern t…Read more
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3Intellectual Virtues and Their Place in PhilosophyIn Christoph Jäger & Winfried Löffler (eds.), Epistemology: Contexts, Values, Disagreement. Papers of the 34th International Ludwig Wittgenstein-Symposium in Kirchberg, 2011, The Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. pp. 117-130. 2007.
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Introduction: What is Epistemology?In John Greco & Ernest Sosa (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Blackwell. 2017.The purpose of this volume is to provide a relatively complete guide to the current state of epistemology. To this end, each essay addresses some important issue in the theory of knowledge. Each provides some historical background or other contextual information so as to orient the reader to the problem at hand and to its current state of development. After this, each author provides an extended defense of his or her own position on the relevant topic. In this way the essays go well beyond simpl…Read more
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9Religious Belief and Evidence from TestimonyIn Dariusz Łukasiewicz & Roger Pouivet (eds.), The Right to Believe: Perspectives in Religious Epistemology, De Gruyter. pp. 27-46. 2011.
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59What Is Social Epistemic Dependence?Philosophical Topics 49 (2): 113-132. 2021.A central theme in social epistemology is that there are important and underappreciated phenomena involving social epistemic dependence—that is, epistemic dependence on other persons and on features of the broader social environment. Epistemologies that are inconsistent with this kind of dependence are labeled “individualist” and epistemologies that accommodate it are labeled “anti-individualist.” But how should the relevant notion of social epistemic dependence be understood? One important crit…Read more
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5Epist emologyIn Constantin V. Boundas (ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Philosophies, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 172-185. 2007.
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41Externalism and the Myth of the GivenTopoi 42 (1): 73-82. 2023.Section 1 of the paper reviews a family of “no good inference” arguments for skepticism about the external world, and a straightforward externalist reply. Section 2 reviews skeptical regress arguments, and another straightforward reply. Section 3 considers three objections to foundationalism that are inspired by Sellars’ critique of “the given” in “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind,” and argues that none of these is effective against the kind of “externalist foundationalism” defended in Sect…Read more
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A (different) virtue epistemologyIn Jeremy Fantl, Matthew McGrath & Ernest Sosa (eds.), Contemporary epistemology: an anthology, Wiley. 2019.
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Luck and skepticismIn Ian M. Church & Robert J. Hartman (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy and Psychology of Luck, Routledge. 2019.
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Knowledge-producing abilitiesIn Christoph Kelp & John Greco (eds.), Virtue Theoretic Epistemology: New Methods and Approaches, Cambridge University Press. 2020.
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42Skepticism, virtue and transmission in the theory of knowledge: an anti-reductionist and anti-individualist accountSynthese 200 (5): 1-15. 2022.This contribution to the topical collection presents an overview of my previous work in epistemology. Specifically, I review arguments for the claim that important skeptical arguments in the history of philosophy motivate externalism in epistemology. In effect, only externalist epistemologies can be anti-skeptical epistemologies. I also review motivations for adopting a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity. Such an account, I argue, has considerable explanatory power regarding the n…Read more
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22Does anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony imply interest relativism about knowledge attributions?Veritas – Revista de Filosofia da Pucrs 66 (1). 2021.Anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony is the thesis that testimonial knowledge is not reducible to knowledge of some other familiar kind, such as inductive knowledge. Interest relativism about knowledge attributions is the thesis that the standards for knowledge attributions are relative to practical contexts. This paper argues that anti-reductionism implies interest relativism. The notion of “implies” here is a fairly strong one: anti-reductionism, together with plausible assumptio…Read more
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14Post-Gettier EpistemologyVeritas – Revista de Filosofia da Pucrs 60 (3): 421-437. 2015.In this paper, it is argued that the differences between Gettier-era epistemology and post-Gettier epistemology can be largely traced to differences in methodology. We will give a “rational reconstruction” of how we did things then, what we do now, and what considerations moved us to do things differently. In summary form, during the Gettier era the methodology of epistemology was roughly what Chisholm called “particularism” and Rawls called “the method of reflective equilibrium.” Various develo…Read more
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122Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism (edited book)Routledge. 2013."Powers and Capacities in Philosophy" is designed to stake out an emerging, discipline-spanning neo-Aristotelian framework grounded in realism about causal powers. The volume brings together for the first time original essays by leading philosophers working on powers in relation to metaphysics, philosophy of natural and social science, philosophy of mind and action, epistemology, ethics and social and political philosophy. In each area, the concern is to show how a commitment to real causal powe…Read more
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31The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2023.The first handbook on the topic of religious epistemology introduces and discusses topics fundamental to the epistemology of religious belief.
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22Pritchard’s Case for VeritismEpistemology and Philosophy of Science 58 (4): 46-53. 2021.In his “In Defense of Veritism”, Duncan Pritchard reconsiders the case for epistemic value truth monism, or the thesis that truth is the sole fundamental epistemic good. I begin by clarifying Pritchard’s thesis, and then turn to an evaluation of Pritchard’s defense. By way of clarification, Pritchard understands “fundamental” value to be non-instrumental value. Accordingly, Pritchard’s veritism turns out to be the thesis that truth is the sole epistemic good with non-instrumental epistemic value…Read more
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4Reliabilist Virtue EpistemologyIn Nancy Snow (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Virtue, Oxford University Press. pp. 725-746. 2018.According to reliabilist virtue epistemology, or virtue reliabilism, knowledge is true belief that is produced by intellectual excellence (or virtue), where intellectual excellence is understood in terms of reliable, truth-directed cognitive dispositions. This essay explains why virtue reliabilism is a form of epistemological externalism, is a moderately naturalized epistemology, and is distinct from virtue responsibilism. We explain virtue reliabilism’s answers to various forms of skepticism, …Read more
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5Virtue epistemologyStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2017.This entry introduces many of the most important results of the contemporary Virtue epistemology (hereafter 'VE') research program. These include novel attempts to resolve longstanding disputes, solve perennial problems, grapple with novel challenges, and expand epistemology’s horizons. In the process, it reveals the diversity within VE. Beyond sharing the two unifying commitments mentioned above, its practitioners diverge over the nature of intellectual virtues, which questions to ask, and whic…Read more
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1Introduction to Virtue EpistemologyIn John Greco & John Turri (eds.), Virtue Epistemology: Contemporary Readings, Mit Press. 2012.Virtue epistemology is by now a broad and varied field. Also by now, there are various helpful overviews of the field available, some of which are included in this volume (see especially Battaly 2008 and Baehr 2008).1 This introduction will not provide another. Rather, we will begin with a brief characterization of what virtue epistemology is (Section 1), and then briefly describe some of the topics that are treated in this volume (Section 2). Some of these are topics that have occupied ep…Read more
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30The Transmission of KnowledgeCambridge University Press. 2020.How do we transmit or distribute knowledge, as distinct from generating or producing it? In this book John Greco examines the interpersonal relations and social structures which enable and inhibit the sharing of knowledge within and across epistemic communities. Drawing on resources from moral theory, the philosophy of language, action theory and the cognitive sciences, he considers the role of interpersonal trust in transmitting knowledge, and argues that sharing knowledge involves a kind of sh…Read more
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35Sense and Certainty, by Marie McGinn (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (3): 689-693. 1991.
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The Social Value of ReflectionIn Waldomiro J. Silva-Filho & Luca Tateo (eds.), Thinking About Oneself: The Place and Value of Reflection in Philosophy and Psychology, Springer Verlag. 2019.
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109Hinge epistemology and the prospects for a unified theory of knowledgeSynthese 198 (Suppl 15): 3593-3607. 2019.I defend two theses here. First, I argue that at least many of the commitments that Wittgenstein identifies as “hinge commitments” are plausibly what cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence call “procedural knowledge.” Procedural knowledge can be implemented in cognitive systems in a variety of ways, and these modes of implementation, I argue, predict several properties of Wittgensteinian hinge commitments, including their functional profile, as well as other of their characteristic fea…Read more
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138The transmission of knowledge and garbageSynthese 197 (7): 2867-2878. 2020.Almost everyone will grant that knowledge is often transmitted through testimony. Indeed, to deny this would be to accept a broad-ranging skepticism. Here is a problem: Knowledge seems to be transmitted right along side lots of garbage. That is, besides transmitting genuine knowledge, we manage to transmit lots of beliefs that are irrational, superstitious, self-deceiving, and flat out false. So how is that possible? How is it that the very same channels manage to transmit both knowledge and gar…Read more
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21Epistemologia Pós-GettierVeritas – Revista de Filosofia da Pucrs 60 (3): 421-437. 2015.Neste ensaio, argumenta-se que as diferenças entre a epistemologia da era Gettier e a epistemologia pós-Gettier podem ser amplamente reduzidas a diferenças em metodologia. Faremos uma “reconstrução racional” do modo como fazíamos as coisas então, do modo como fazemos agora e de quais considerações nos levaram a fazer as coisas de modo diferente. Em resumo, durante a era Gettier a metodologia da epistemologia era basicamente o que Chisholm chamou de “particularismo” e Rawls chamou de “o método do…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |