•  287
    Integrating Abduction and Inference to the Best Explanation
    European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 14 (2): 1-18. 2022.
    Tomis Kapitan’s work on Peirce’s conception of abduction was instrumental for our coming to see how Peircean abduction both relates to and is importantly different from inference to the best explanation (IBE). However, he ultimately concluded that Peirce’s conception of abduction was a muddle. Despite the deeply problematic nature of Peirce’s theory of abduction in these respects, Kapitan’s work on Peircean abduction offers insight into the nature of abductive inquiry that is importantly relevan…Read more
  •  289
    Further Reflections on Quasi-factivism: A Reply to Baumann
    Logos and Episteme 13 (2): 207-215. 2022.
    This paper is a response to Baumann's comments on "Can Knowledge Really be Non-fative?" In this paper Baumann's suggestions for how those who deny the factivty of knowledge might deal with the argument from inconsistency and explosion are addressed.
  •  215
    The Paradox of Epistemic Obligation Avoided
    The Reasoner 16 49-50. 2022.
    This short paper offers a skeptical solution to Åqvist's paradox of epistemic obligation. The solution is based on the contention that in SDL/KDT logics the externalist features of knowledge, about which we cannot have obligations, are obscured.
  •  238
    An Argument for the Safety Condition on Knowledge
    Logos and Episteme 8 (4): 517-520. 2017.
    This paper introduces a new argument for the safety condition on knowledge. It is based on the contention that the rejection of safety entails the rejection of the factivity condition on knowledge. But, since we should maintain factivity, we should endorse safery.
  •  304
    Safety and the Preface Paradox
    Logos and Episteme 9 (2): 215-219. 2018.
    In the preface paradox the posited author is supposed to know both that every sentence in a book is true and that not every sentence in that book is true. But, this result is paradoxically contradictory. The paradoxicality exhibited in such cases arises chiefly out of the recognition that large-scale and difficult tasks like verifying the truth of large sets of sentences typically involve errors even given our best efforts to be epistemically diligent. This paper introduces an argument design…Read more
  •  277
    This paper addresses the recent rise of the use of alternative medicine in Western countries. It offers a novel explanation of that phenomenon in terms of cognitive and economic factors related to the free-market and patient-centric approach to medicine that is currently in place in those countries, in contrast to some alternative explanations of this phenomenon. Moreover, the paper addresses this troubling trend in terms of the serious harms associated with the use of alternative medical moda…Read more
  •  1
    Bayesian confirmation theories that incorporate idealizations
    Philosophy of Science 68 (1): 36-52. 2001.
    Following Nancy Cartwright and others, I suggest that most theories incorporate, or depend on, one or more idealizing assumptions. I then argue that such theories ought to be regimented as counterfactuals, the antecedents of which are simplifying assumptions. If this account of the logical form of theories is granted, then a serious problem arises for Bayesians concerning the prior probabilities of theories that have counterfactual form. If no such probabilities can be assigned, then posterior p…Read more
  •  16
    Correction to: Epistemic Luck and Knowledge
    Acta Analytica 37 (1): 7-8. 2022.
  •  329
    This paper introduces two new paradoxes for standard deontic logic (SDL). They are importantly related to, but distinct from Ross' paradox. These two new paradoxes for SDL are the simple weakening paradox and the complex weakening paradox. Both of these paradoxes arise in virtue of the underlaying logic of SDL and are consequences of the fact that SDL incorporates the principle known as weakening. These two paradoxes then show that SDL has counter-intuitive implications related to disjunctive…Read more
  •  304
    Safety, Evidence, and Epistemic Luck
    Acta Analytica 37 (1): 121-134. 2022.
    This paper critically explores Timothy Williamson’s view of evidence, and it does so in light of the problem of epistemic luck. Williamson’s view of evidence is, of course, a crucially important aspect of his novel and influential “knowledge-first” epistemological project. Notoriously, one crucial thesis of this project is that one’s evidence is equivalent to what one knows. This has come to be known as the E = K thesis. This paper specifically addresses Williamson’s knowledge-first epistemology…Read more
  •  316
    Epistemic Luck and Knowledge
    Acta Analytica 37 (1): 1-6. 2022.
    This is an editorial introduction to a special issue of Acta Analytica on epistemic luck.
  •  502
    Van Fraassen’s (1989) infamous best of a bad lot objection is widely taken to be the most serious problem that afflicts theories of inference to the best explanation (IBE), for it alleges to show that we should not accept the conclusion of any case of such reasoning as it actually proceeds. Moreover, this is supposed to be the case irrespective of the details of the particular criteria used to select best explanations. The best of a bad lot objection is predicated on, and really only requires,…Read more
  •  475
    Can Knowledge Really be Non-factive?
    Logos and Episteme: An International Journal of Epistemology 12 (2): 215-226. 2021.
    This paper contains a critical examination of the prospects for analyses of knowledge that weaken the factivity condition such that knowledge implies approximate truth.
  •  718
    The Availability Heuristic and Inference to the Best Explanation
    Logos and Episteme 10 (4): 409-432. 2019.
    This paper shows how the availability heuristic can be used to justify inference to the best explanation in such a way that van Fraassen's infamous "best of a bad lot" objection can be adroitly avoided. With this end in mind, a dynamic and contextual version of the erotetic model of explanation sufficient to ground this response is presented and defended.
  •  356
    Unification and the Myth of Purely Reductive Understanding
    Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 27 142-168. 2020.
    In this paper significant challenges are raised with respect to the view that explanation essentially involves unification. These objections are raised specifically with respect to the well-known versions of unificationism developed and defended by Michael Friedman and Philip Kitcher. The objections involve the explanatory regress argument and the concepts of reduction and scientific understanding. Essentially, the contention made here is that these versions of unificationism wrongly assume t…Read more
  •  487
    This paper introduces a model for evidence denial that explains this behavior as a manifestation of rationality and it is based on the contention that social values (measurable as utilities) often underwrite these sorts of responses. Moreover, it is contended that the value associated with group membership in particular can override epistemic reason when the expected utility of a belief or belief system is great. However, it is also true that it appears to be the case that it is still possible…Read more
  •  496
    Quine and the Incoherence of the Indispensability Argument
    Logos and Episteme 10 (2): 207-213. 2019.
    It is an under-appreciated fact that Quine's rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction, when coupled with some other plausible and related views, implies that there are serious difficulties in demarcating empirical theories from pure mathematical theories within the Quinean framework. This is a serious problem because there seems to be a principled difference between the two disciplines that cannot apparently be captured in the orthodox Quienan framework. For the purpose of simplicity le…Read more
  •  536
    Hans Reichenbach’s pragmatic treatment of the problem of induction in his later works on inductive inference was, and still is, of great interest. However, it has been dismissed as a pseudo-solution and it has been regarded as problematically obscure. This is, in large part, due to the difficulty in understanding exactly what Reichenbach’s solution is supposed to amount to, especially as it appears to offer no response to the inductive skeptic. For entirely different reasons, the significance of…Read more
  •  648
    Safety, the Preface Paradox and Possible Worlds Semantics
    Axiomathes 29 (4): 347-361. 2019.
    This paper contains an argument to the effect that possible worlds semantics renders semantic knowledge impossible, no matter what ontological interpretation is given to possible worlds. The essential contention made is that possible worlds semantic knowledge is unsafe and this is shown by a parallel with the preface paradox.
  •  526
    Rescuing the Assertability of Measurement Reports
    Acta Analytica 34 (1): 39-51. 2019.
    It is wholly uncontroversial that measurements-or, more properly, propositions that are measurement reports-are often paradigmatically good cases of propositions that serve the function of evidence. In normal cases it is also obvious that stating such a report is an utterly pedestrian case of successful assertion. So, for example, there is nothing controversial about the following claims: (1) that a proposition to the effect that a particular thermometer reads 104C when properly used to determ…Read more
  • From an Ontological Point of View (review)
    Philosophical Psychology 18 273-277. 2005.
  •  259
    Some Recent Existential Appeals to Mathematical Experience
    Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 10 (2). 2006.
    Some recent work by philosophers of mathematics has been aimed at showing that our knowledge of the existence of at least some mathematical objects and/or sets can be epistemically grounded by appealing to perceptual experience. The sensory capacity that they refer to in doing so is the ability to perceive numbers, mathematical properties and/or sets. The chief defense of this view as it applies to the perception of sets is found in Penelope Maddy’s Realism in Mathematics, but a number of other …Read more
  •  317
    Folk Judgments About Conditional Excluded Middle
    In Andrew Aberdein & Matthew Inglis (eds.), Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics, Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 251-276. 2019.
    In this chapter we consider three philosophical perspectives (including those of Stalnaker and Lewis) on the question of whether and how the principle of conditional excluded middle should figure in the logic and semantics of counterfactuals. We articulate and defend a third view that is patterned after belief revision theories offered in other areas of logic and philosophy. Unlike Lewis’ view, the belief revision perspective does not reject conditional excluded middle, and unlike Stalnaker’s, i…Read more
  • Idealization and Empirical Testing
    Dissertation, University of Miami. 2000.
    It has been argued that the presence of idealizations in physical theories implies that scientific realism is false. Furthermore, it has also been argued that because physical theories incorporate idealizations scientific theories must be accepted a priori, because the objects, processes, etc. quantified over in such expressions cannot be observed in the actual world. I argue against the former view by showing that scientific realism is compatible with the fact that all theoretical claims depend…Read more
  •  638
    Defusing the Miners Paradox
    Filosofiska Notiser 5 57-67. 2018.
    This paper presents a case for the claim that the infamous miners paradox is not a paradox. This contention is based on some important observations about the nature of ignorance with respect to both disjunctions and conditional obligations and their modal features. The gist of the argument is that given the uncertainty about the location of the miners in the story and the nature of obligations, the apparent obligation to block either mine shaft is cancelled.