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Molinism: Explaining our Freedom AwayMind 131 (522): 459-485. 2022.Molinists hold that there are contingently true counterfactuals about what agents would do if put in specific circumstances, that God knows these prior to creation, and that God uses this knowledge in choosing how to create. In this essay we critique Molinism, arguing that if these theses were true, agents would not be free. Consider Eve’s sinning upon being tempted by a serpent. We argue that if Molinism is true, then there is some set of facts that fully explains both Eve’s action and everythi…Read more
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Intuitions are Used as Evidence in PhilosophyMind 127 (505): 69-104. 2018.In recent years a growing number of philosophers writing about the methodology of philosophy have defended the surprising claim that philosophers do not use intuitions as evidence. In this paper I defend the contrary view that philosophers do use intuitions as evidence. I argue that this thesis is the best explanation of several salient facts about philosophical practice. First, philosophers tend to believe propositions which they find intuitive. Second, philosophers offer error theories for int…Read more
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If We Can’t Tell What Theism Predicts, We Can’t Tell Whether God Exists: Skeptical Theism and Bayesian Arguments from EvilOxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion. forthcoming.According to a simple Bayesian argument from evil, the evil we observe is less likely given theism than given atheism, and therefore lowers the probability of theism. I consider the most common skeptical theist response to this argument, according to which our cognitive limitations make the probability of evil given theism inscrutable. I argue that if skeptical theists are right about this, then the probability of theism given evil is itself largely inscrutable, and that if this is so, we ought …Read more
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Inference to the Best Explanation Made IncoherentJournal of Philosophy 114 (5): 251-273. 2017.Defenders of Inference to the Best Explanation claim that explanatory factors should play an important role in empirical inference. They disagree, however, about how exactly to formulate this role. In particular, they disagree about whether to formulate IBE as an inference rule for full beliefs or for degrees of belief, as well as how a rule for degrees of belief should relate to Bayesianism. In this essay I advance a new argument against non-Bayesian versions of IBE. My argument focuses on case…Read more
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The structure of epistemic probabilitiesPhilosophical Studies 177 (11): 3213-3242. 2020.The epistemic probability of A given B is the degree to which B evidentially supports A, or makes A plausible. This paper is a first step in answering the question of what determines the values of epistemic probabilities. I break this question into two parts: the structural question and the substantive question. Just as an object’s weight is determined by its mass and gravitational acceleration, some probabilities are determined by other, more basic ones. The structural question asks what probab…Read more
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A Cumulative Case Argument for InfallibilismIn Christos Kyriacou & Kevin Wallbridge (eds.), Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered, Routledge. 2021.I present a cumulative case for the thesis that we only know propositions that are certain for us. I argue that this thesis can easily explain the truth of eight plausible claims about knowledge: (1) There is a qualitative difference between knowledge and non-knowledge. (2) Knowledge is valuable in a way that non-knowledge is not. (3) Subjects in Gettier cases do not have knowledge. (4) If S knows that P, P is part of S’s evidence. (5) If S knows that P, ~P is epistemically impossible for S. (6)…Read more
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Evidence and Inductive InferenceIn Maria Lasonen-Aarnio & Clayton Littlejohn (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence, Routledge. pp. 435-449. 2024.This chapter presents a typology of the different kinds of inductive inferences we can draw from our evidence, based on the explanatory relationship between evidence and conclusion. Drawing on the literature on graphical models of explanation, I divide inductive inferences into (a) downwards inferences, which proceed from cause to effect, (b) upwards inferences, which proceed from effect to cause, and (c) sideways inferences, which proceed first from effect to cause and then from that cause to a…Read more
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Probability |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
2 more
Metaphilosophy |
Philosophy of Religion |
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Metaphysics |