• Arizona State University
    Philosophy - School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies
    Associate Professor of Philosophy, Cognition, and Culture
University of Arizona
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2011
Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
  •  15584
    Epistemic Trespassing
    Mind 128 (510): 367-395. 2019.
    Epistemic trespassers judge matters outside their field of expertise. Trespassing is ubiquitous in this age of interdisciplinary research and recognizing this will require us to be more intellectually modest.
  •  1647
    Recent work on intellectual humility: A philosopher’s perspective
    Journal of Positive Psychology 17. forthcoming.
    Intellectual humility is commonly thought to be a mindset, disposition, or personality trait that guides our reactions to evidence as we seek to pursue the truth and avoid error. Over the last decade, psychologists, philosophers, and other researchers have begun to explore intellectual humility, using analytical and empirical tools to understand its nature, implications, and value. This review describes central questions explored by researchers and highlights opportunities for multidisciplinary …Read more
  •  1359
    Hanlon’s Razor
    with Peter H. Ditto
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 45 309-331. 2021.
    “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”—so says Hanlon’s Razor. This principle is designed to curb the human tendency toward explaining other people’s behavior by moralizing it. We ask whether Hanlon’s Razor is good or bad advice. After offering a nuanced interpretation of the principle, we critically evaluate two strategies purporting to show it is good advice. Our discussion highlights important, unsettled questions about an idea that has the potential to in…Read more
  •  898
    “Do Your Own Research”
    with Jared B. Celniker and David Dunning
    Social Epistemology. forthcoming.
    This article evaluates an emerging element in popular debate and inquiry: DYOR. (Haven’t heard of the acronym? Then Do Your Own Research.) The slogan is flexible and versatile. It is used frequently on social media platforms about topics from medical science to financial investing to conspiracy theories. Using conceptual and empirical resources drawn from philosophy and psychology, we examine key questions about the slogan’s operation in human cognition and epistemic culture.
  •  773
    David Foster Wallace on the Good Life
    In Steven M. Cahn & Maureen Eckert (eds.), Freedom and the Self: Essays on the Philosophy of David Foster Wallace, Columbia University Press. pp. 133-168. 2015.
    This chapter presents David Foster Wallace's views about three positions regarding the good life—ironism, hedonism, and narrative theories. Ironism involves distancing oneself from everything one says or does, and putting on Wallace's so-called “mask of ennui.” Wallace said that the notion appeals to ironists because it insulates them from criticism. However, he reiterated that ironists can be criticized for failing to value anything. Hedonism states that a good life consists in pleasure. Wallac…Read more
  •  670
    Sosa’s dream
    with Ian Evans
    Philosophical Studies 148 (2): 249-252. 2010.
  •  628
    Uniqueness, Evidence, and Rationality
    Philosophers' Imprint 11. 2011.
    Two theses figure centrally in work on the epistemology of disagreement: Equal Weight (‘EW’) and Uniqueness (‘U’). According to EW, you should give precisely as much weight to the attitude of a disagreeing epistemic peer as you give to your own attitude. U has it that, for any given proposition and total body of evidence, some doxastic attitude is the one the evidence makes rational (justifies) toward that proposition. Although EW has received considerable discussion, the case for U has not been…Read more
  •  592
    The fog of debate
    Social Philosophy and Policy 38 (2): 91-110. 2021.
    The fog of war—poor intelligence about the enemy—can frustrate even a well-prepared military force. Something similar can happen in intellectual debate. What I call the *fog of debate* is a useful metaphor for grappling with failures and dysfunctions of argumentative persuasion that stem from poor information about our opponents. It is distressingly easy to make mistakes about our opponents’ thinking, as well as to fail to comprehend their understanding of and reactions to our arguments. After d…Read more
  •  382
  •  354
    Moral Intuitionism Defeated?
    American Philosophical Quarterly 50 (4): 411-422. 2013.
    Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has developed and progressively refined an argument against moral intuitionism—the view on which some moral beliefs enjoy non-inferential justification. He has stated his argument in a few different forms, but the basic idea is straightforward. To start with, Sinnott-Armstrong highlights facts relevant to the truth of moral beliefs: such beliefs are sometimes biased, influenced by various irrelevant factors, and often subject to disagreement. Given these facts, Sinnott-A…Read more
  •  352
    Conciliationism and Uniqueness
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (4): 657-670. 2012.
    Two theses are central to recent work on the epistemology of disagreement: Conciliationism:?In a revealed peer disagreement over P, each thinker should give at least some weight to her peer's attitude. Uniqueness:?For any given proposition and total body of evidence, the evidence fully justifies exactly one level of confidence in the proposition. 1This paper is the product of full and equal collaboration between its authors. Does Conciliationism commit one to Uniqueness? Thomas Kelly 2010 has ar…Read more
  •  329
    Knockdown Arguments
    Erkenntnis 79 (S3): 525-543. 2014.
    David Lewis and Peter van Inwagen have claimed that there are no “knockdown” arguments in philosophy. Their claim appears to be at odds with common philosophical practice: philosophers often write as though their conclusions are established or proven and that the considerations offered for these conclusions are decisive. In this paper, I examine some questions raised by Lewis’s and van Inwagen’s contention. What are knockdown arguments? Are there any in philosophy? If not, why not? These questio…Read more
  •  322
    Tragic Flaws
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 8 (1): 20-40. 2022.
    In many tragic plays, the protagonist is brought down by a disaster that is a consequence of the protagonist's own error, his or her hamartia, the tragic flaw. Tragic flaws are disconcerting to the audience because they are not known or fully recognized by the protagonist—at least not until it is too late. In this essay, I take tragic flaws to be unreliable belief-forming dispositions that are unrecognized by us in some sense. I describe some different types of flaws and consider what we might d…Read more
  •  297
    Counterfactual Philosophers
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (2): 368-387. 2014.
    I argue that reflection on philosophers who could have been working among us but aren’t can lead us to give up our philosophical beliefs.
  •  290
    Does luck have a place in epistemology?
    Synthese 191 (7): 1391-1407. 2014.
    Some epistemologists hold that exploration and elaboration of the nature of luck will allow us to better understand knowledge. I argue this is a mistake
  •  270
    Anti-luck Epistemology, Pragmatic Encroachment, and True Belief
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (4): 485-503. 2011.
    Two common theses in contemporary epistemology are that ‘knowledge excludes luck’ and that knowledge depends on ‘purely epistemic’ factors. In this essay, I shall argue as follows: given some plausible assumptions, ‘anti-luck epistemology,’ which is committed to the fi rst thesis, implies the falsity of the second thesis. That is, I will argue that anti-luck epistemology leads to what has been called ‘pragmatic encroachment’ on knowledge. Anti-luck epistemologists hoping to resist encroachment m…Read more
  •  258
    Disagreement (review)
    with Nathan L. King
    Mind 121 (483): 808-812. 2012.
  •  213
    Luck and interests
    Synthese 185 (3): 319-334. 2012.
    Recent work on the nature of luck widely endorses the thesis that an event is good or bad luck for an individual only if it is significant for that individual. In this paper, I explore this thesis, showing that it raises questions about interests, well-being, and the philosophical uses of luck. In Sect. 1, I examine several accounts of significance, due to Pritchard (2005), Coffman (2007), and Rescher (1995). Then in Sect. 2 I consider what some theorists want to ‘do’ with luck, taking important…Read more
  •  208
    Augustine on testimony
    with Peter King
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39 (2). 2009.
    Philosophical work on testimony has flourished in recent years. Testimony roughly involves a source affirming or stating something in an attempt to transfer information to one or more persons. It is often said that the topic of testimony has been neglected throughout most of the history of philosophy, aside from contributions by David Hume (1711–1776) and Thomas Reid (1710–1796).1 True as this may be, Hume and Reid aren’t the only ones who deserve a tip of the hat for recognizing the importance …Read more
  •  205
    Verbal Disagreements and Philosophical Scepticism
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (4): 752-765. 2016.
    ABSTRACTMany philosophers have suggested that disagreement is good grounds for scepticism. One response says that disagreement-motivated scepticism can be mitigated to some extent by the thesis that philosophical disputes are often verbal, not genuine. I consider the implications of this anti-sceptical strategy, arguing that it trades one kind of scepticism for others. I conclude with suggestions for further investigation of the epistemic significance of the nature of philosophical disagreement.
  •  172
    Debunking Biased Thinkers
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (1): 141--162. 2015.
    ABSTRACT: Most of what we believe comes to us from the word of others, but we do not always believe what we are told. We often reject thinkers' reports by attributing biases to them. We may call this debunking. In this essay, I consider how debunking might work and then examine whether, and how often, it can help to preserve rational belief in the face of disagreement
  •  168
    Acquaintance and assurance
    Philosophical Studies 161 (3): 421-431. 2012.
    I criticize Richard Fumerton’s fallibilist acquaintance theory of noninferential justification.
  •  147
    Schaffer's Demon
    with Ian Evans
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 94 (4): 552-559. 2013.
    Jonathan Schaffer (2010) has summoned a new sort of demon – which he calls the debasing demon – that apparently threatens all of our purported knowledge. We show that any debasing skeptical argument must attack the justification condition and can do so only if a plausible thesis about justification is false.
  •  126
    Knowing Our Limits
    Oxford University Press. 2019.
    Changing our minds isn't easy. Even when we recognize our views are disputed by intelligent and informed people, we rarely doubt our rightness. Why is this so? How can we become more open-minded, putting ourselves in a better position to tolerate conflict, advance collective inquiry, and learn from differing perspectives in a complex world? Nathan Ballantyne defends the indispensable role of epistemology in tackling these issues. For early modern philosophers, the point of reflecting on inquiry …Read more
  •  101
    Implicit racial bias and epistemic pessimism
    Philosophical Psychology 30 (1-2): 79-101. 2017.
    Implicit bias results from living in a society structured by race. Tamar Gendler has drawn attention to several epistemic costs of implicit bias and concludes that paying some costs is unavoidable. In this paper, we reconstruct Gendler’s argument and argue that the epistemic costs she highlights can be avoided. Though epistemic agents encode discriminatory information from the environment, not all encoded information is activated. Agents can construct local epistemic environments that do not act…Read more
  •  93
    Is Epistemic Permissivism Intuitive?
    American Philosophical Quarterly 55 (4): 365-378. 2018.
    In recent debates over permissivism and uniqueness—two theses concerning the relationship between evidence and epistemic rationality—some philosophers have claimed that permissivism has an intuitive advantage over uniqueness. I examine the cases alleged to intuitively motivate permissivism and suggest they do not provide prima facie support for permissivism. I conclude by explaining how my discussion bears on whether permissivism can defeat skeptical arguments based on recognized peer disagreeme…Read more
  •  36
    Reason, Bias, and Inquiry: The Crossroads of Epistemology and Psychology (edited book)
    with David A. Dunning
    Oxford University Press. 2022.
    Philosophers and psychologists routinely explore questions surrounding reasoning, inquiry, and bias, though typically in disciplinary isolation. What is the source of our intellectual errors? When can we trust information others tell us? This volume brings together researchers from across the two disciplines to present ideas and insights for addressing the challenges of knowing well in a complicated world in four parts: how to best describe the conceptual and empirical terrain of reason and bias…Read more
  •  34
    The Soritical Centipede
    Noûs 53 (2): 491-510. 2017.
    Two philosophical questions arise about rationality in centipede games that are logically prior to attempts to apply the formal tools of game theory to this topic. First, given that the players have common knowledge of mutual rationality and common knowledge that they are each motivated solely to maximize their own profits, is there a backwards-induction argument that employs only familiar non-technical concepts about rationality, leads to the conclusion that the first player is rationally oblig…Read more