•  1257
    Aristotle on Self-Sufficiency, External Goods, and Contemplation
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 102 (1): 1-28. 2020.
    Aristotle tells us that contemplation is the most self-sufficient form of virtuous activity: we can contemplate alone, and with minimal resources, while moral virtues like courage require other individuals to be courageous towards, or courageous with. This is hard to square with the rest of his discussion of self-sufficiency in the Ethics: Aristotle doesn't generally seek to minimize the number of resources necessary for a flourishing human life, and seems happy to grant that such a life will be…Read more
  •  1238
    Aristotle on Induction and First Principles
    Philosophers' Imprint 16 1-20. 2016.
    Aristotle's cognitive ideal is a form of understanding that requires a sophisticated grasp of scientific first principles. At the end of the Analytics, Aristotle tells us that we learn these principles by induction. But on the whole, commentators have found this an implausible claim: induction seems far too basic a process to yield the sort of knowledge Aristotle's account requires. In this paper I argue that this criticism is misguided. I defend a broader reading of Aristotelian induction, on w…Read more
  •  932
    Structuralism and Its Ontology
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 2 1-26. 2015.
    A prominent version of mathematical structuralism holds that mathematical objects are at bottom nothing but "positions in structures," purely relational entities without any sort of nature independent of the structure to which they belong. Such an ontology is often presented as a response to Benacerraf's "multiple reductions" problem, or motivated on hermeneutic grounds, as a faithful representation of the discourse and practice of mathematics. In this paper I argue that there are serious diffic…Read more
  •  164
    Aristotle on Intelligent Perception
    Philosophers' Imprint 22 (17): 1-22. 2022.
    Aristotle presents perception as a potentially intelligent form of cognition—a form of cognition that allows us to respond in discerning, knowing ways to a range of different situations, and develop certain theoretical insights relevant to some inquiry. But it’s not clear how we should understand the interaction between our rational and perceptual powers in these cases, or how widespread we should take their interaction to be. In this paper I argue against interpretations on which human percepti…Read more
  •  137
    Conviction, Priority, and Rationalism in Aristotle's Epistemology
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 58 (1): 1-27. 2020.
    In this paper I argue against rationalist readings of Aristotle's epistemology, on which our scientific understanding is justified on the basis of certain demonstrative first principles that are themselves justified only by some brute form of rational intuition. I then investigate the relationship between our intuition of principles and the broadly perceptual knowledge from which it derives. I argue that, for Aristotle, perceptual knowledge helps justify our intuition of principles, and also se…Read more
  •  103
    Aristotle on the Perception of Universals
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 27 (3): 446-467. 2019.
    Aristotle claims that "although we perceive particulars, perception is of universals; for instance of human being, not of Callias-the-human-being" (APo II.19 100a16-b1). I offer an interpretation of this claim and examine its significance in Aristotle's epistemology.
  •  48
    Aristotle's Empiricism
    Oxford University Press. 2021.
    Aristotle is famous for thinking that all our knowledge comes from perception. But it's not immediately clear what this view is meant to entail. It's not clear, for instance, what perception is supposed to contribute to the more advanced forms of knowledge that derive from it. Nor is it clear how we should understand the nature of its contribution—what it might mean to say that these more advanced forms of knowledge are "derived from" or "based on" what we perceive. Aristotle is often thought t…Read more