•  1084
    Inertia, Optimism and Beauty
    Noûs 47 (1): 85-103. 2013.
    The best arguments for the 1/3 answer to the Sleeping Beauty problem all require that when Beauty awakes on Monday she should be uncertain what day it is. I argue that this claim should be rejected, thereby clearing the way to accept the 1/2 solution
  •  887
    The main claim of this essay is that knowledge is no more
    valuable than lasting true belief.
    This claim is surprising. Doesn't knowledge have a unique
    and special value? If the main claim is correct and if, as it seems,
    knowledge is not lasting true belief, then knowledge does not have a unique value:
    in whatever way knowledge is valuable, lasting true belief is just as valuable.
    However, this result does not show that knowledge is worthless, nor does it undermine
    our knowledge gathering practices. T…






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  •  233
    Moral Absolutism Defended
    Journal of Philosophy 105 (5): 273-275. 2008.
  •  150
    What justifies that?
    Synthese 160 (1). 2008.
    I clarify and defuse an argument for skepticism about justification with the aid of some results from recent linguistic theory. These considerations illuminate debates about the structure of justification.
  •  78
    What is said
    Journal of Pragmatics 34 (8): 969-991. 2002.
    A common misunderstanding of Grice's distinction between <br>saying and implicating is that the hearer in a conversation <br>needs to use what is said in a calculation to determine what <br>is implicated. This mistake lead some to misconstrue the relation <br>between pragmatics and semantics.
  • Skepticism Avoided
    Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2003.
    I evaluate three replies to skepticism, drawing conclusions about the meaning of "justified", the viability of foundationalism, the value of knowledge, and the role of belief in rational action. ;In the first chapter, I examine the following skeptical argument: Something is justified only if justified by a justified thing; circular and infinite chains of justification are illegitimate; therefore, no belief is justified. A linguistic investigation reveals that this argument contains two ambiguiti…Read more