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1174Wittgenstein’s On Certainty and RelativismIn Harald A. Wiltsche & Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl (eds.), Analytic and Continental Philosophy: Methods and Perspectives. Proceedings of the 37th International Wittgenstein Symposium, De Gruyter. pp. 29-46. 2016.
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812The genealogical method in epistemologySynthese 197 (3): 1057-1076. 2020.In 1990 Edward Craig published a book called Knowledge and the State of Nature in which he introduced and defended a genealogical approach to epistemology. In recent years Craig’s book has attracted a lot of attention, and his distinctive approach has been put to a wide range of uses including anti-realist metaepistemology, contextualism, relativism, anti-luck virtue epistemology, epistemic injustice, value of knowledge, pragmatism and virtue epistemology. While the number of objections to Craig…Read more
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805Wittgenstein on Mathematics and CertaintiesInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 6 (2-3): 120-142. 2016._ Source: _Volume 6, Issue 2-3, pp 120 - 142 This paper aims to contribute to the debate over epistemic versus non-epistemic readings of the ‘hinges’ in Wittgenstein’s _On Certainty_. I follow Marie McGinn’s and Daniele Moyal-Sharrock’s lead in developing an analogy between mathematical sentences and certainties, and using the former as a model for the latter. However, I disagree with McGinn’s and Moyal-Sharrock’s interpretations concerning Wittgenstein’s views of both relata. I argue that mathe…Read more
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728Scientific pluralism and the Chemical RevolutionStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 49 69-79. 2015.In a number of papers and in his recent book, Is Water H₂O? Evidence, Realism, Pluralism (2012), Hasok Chang has argued that the correct interpretation of the Chemical Revolution provides a strong case for the view that progress in science is served by maintaining several incommensurable “systems of practice” in the same discipline, and concerning the same region of nature. This paper is a critical discussion of Chang's reading of the Chemical Revolution. It seeks to establish, first, that Chang…Read more
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690Relativism in Feyerabend's later writingsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 57 106-113. 2016.
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688From Völkerpsychologie to the Sociology of KnowledgeHopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 9 (2): 250-274. 2019.This article focuses on two developments in nineteenth-century (philosophy of) social science: Moritz Lazarus’s and Heymann Steinthal’s Völkerpsychologie and Georg Simmel’s early sociology of knowledge. The article defends the following theses. First, Lazarus and Steinthal wavered between a “strong” and a “weak” program for Völkerpsychologie. Ingredients for the strong program included methodological neutrality and symmetry; causal explanation of beliefs based on causal laws; a focus on groups, …Read more
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657Epistemic relativism, scepticism, pluralismSynthese 194 (12): 4687-4703. 2017.There are a number of debates that are relevant to questions concerning objectivity in science. One of the eldest, and still one of the most intensely fought, is the debate over epistemic relativism. —All forms of epistemic relativism commit themselves to the view that it is impossible to show in a neutral, non-question-begging, way that one “epistemic system”, that is, one interconnected set of epistemic standards, is epistemically superior to others. I shall call this view “No-metajustificatio…Read more
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590Epistemic Relativism and PluralismIn Coliva Annalisa & Pedersen Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding (eds.), Epistemic Pluralism, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 203-227. 2017.
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573Epistemological Anarchism Meets Epistemic VoluntarismIn Karim Bschir & Jamie Shaw (eds.), Interpreting Feyerabend: Critical Essays, Cambridge University Press. 2021.
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532Introduction: A Primer on RelativismIn The Routledge Handbook on Relativism, Routledge. forthcoming.
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518The Genealogy of Relativism and AbsolutismIn Christos Kyriacou & Robin McKenna (eds.), Metaepistemology: Realism & Antirealism, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 217-239. 2018.This paper applies Edward Craig’s and Bernard Williams’ ‘genealogical’ method to the debate between relativism and its opponents in epistemology and in the philosophy of language. We explain how the central function of knowledge attributions -- to ‘flag good informants’ -- explains the intuitions behind five different positions (two forms of relativism, absolutism, contextualism, and invariantism). We also investigate the question whether genealogy is neutral in the controversy over relativism. …Read more
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515The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Relativism (edited book)Routledge. 2019.Relativism can be found in all philosophical traditions and subfields of philosophy. It is also a central idea in the social sciences, the humanities, religion and politics. This is the first volume to map relativistic motifs in all areas of philosophy, synchronically and diachronically. It thereby provides essential intellectual tools for thinking about contemporary issues like cultural diversity, the plurality of the sciences, or the scope of moral values. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy …Read more
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513Simmel and Mannheim on the Sociology of Philosophy, Historicism and RelativismIn Martin Kusch, Katherina Kinzel, Johannes Steizinger & Niels Jacob Wildschut (eds.), The Emergence of Relativism: German Thought from the Enlightenment to National Socialism, Routledge. pp. 165-180. 2019.
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493Scientific Realism and Social EpistemologyIn Juha Saatsi (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism, Routledge. pp. 261-275. 2018.
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454Disagreement, Certainties, RelativismTopoi 40 (5): 1097-1105. 2018.This paper seeks to widen the dialogue between the “epistemology of peer disagreement” and the epistemology informed by Wittgenstein’s last notebooks, later edited as On Certainty. The paper defends the following theses: not all certainties are groundless; many of them are beliefs; and they do not have a common essence. An epistemic peer need not share all of my certainties. Which response to a disagreement over a certainty is called for, depends on the type of certainty in question. Sometimes a…Read more
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432Georg Simmel and PragmatismEuropean Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 11 (1). 2019.This paper offers some brief reflections on pragmatist themes in Georg Simmel’s philosophy. §1 presents a number of assessments – by Simmel’s contemporaries, by later interpreters, and by Simmel himself – concerning his proximity to pragmatism. §2 offers a reconstruction of Simmel’s 1885-paper “The Relationship between the Theory of Selection and Epistemology,” focusing in particular on what the argument owed to von Helmholtz. It was this paper first and foremost that suggested to many that Simm…Read more
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413The World of Chronic PainIn Kevin Aho (ed.), Existential Medicine: Essays on Health and Illness, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 61-80. 2018.
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404Wittgenstein as a Commentator on the Psychology and Anthropology of ColourIn Frederik Gierlinger & Štefan Joško Riegelnik (eds.), Wittgenstein on Colour, De Gruyter. pp. 93-108. 2014.
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369Relativism in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge RevisitedIn Natalie Alana Ashton, Robin McKenna, Katharina Anna Sodoma & Martin Kusch (eds.), Social Epistemology and Epistemic Relativism, Routledge. 2020.
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309When Paul Met Ludwig: Wittgensteinian Comments on Boghossian’s AntirelativismIn Katharina Neges, Josef Mitterer, Sebastian Kletzl & Christian Kanzian (eds.), Realism - Relativism - Constructivism: Proceedings of the 38th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, De Gruyter. pp. 203-214. 2017.
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307Hacking’s historical epistemology: a critique of styles of reasoningStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41 (2): 158-173. 2010.The paper begins with a detailed reconstruction of the development of Ian Hacking’s theory of scientific ‘styles of reasoning’, paying particular attention to Alistair Crombie’s influence, and suggesting that Hacking’s theory deserves to come under the title ‘historical epistemology’. Subsequently, the paper seeks to establish three critical theses. First, Hacking’s reliance on Crombie leads him to adopt an outdated historiographical position; second, Hacking is unsuccessful in his attempt to di…Read more
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278The Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge RevisitedIn Marcel van Ackeren (ed.), Philosophy and the Historical Perspective, Oxford University Press. pp. 200-213. 2018.
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213Fodor V. Kripke: Semantic dispositionalism, idealization, and ceteris paribus clausesAnalysis 65 (2): 156-63. 2005.
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208Knowledge by agreement: the programme of communitarian epistemologyOxford University Press. 2002.Martin Kusch puts forth two controversial ideas: that knowledge is a social status and that knowledge is primarily the possession of groups rather than individuals. He defends the radical implications of his views: that knowledge is political, and that it varies with communities. This bold approach to epistemology is a challenge to philosophy and the wider academic world
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201Social Epistemology: 5 QuestionsIn Duncan Pritchard & Vincent Hendricks (eds.), Social Epistemology: 5 Questions, Automatic Press. pp. 99-110. 2014.
Heiligenstadt, Vienna, Austria
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
History of Western Philosophy |