-
135What is Good Thinking? Comments on Mona Simion's Shifty Speech and Independent Thought (review)Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.Mona Simion’s Shifty Speech and Independent Thought argues for epistemic independence—the independence of good thinking from practical considerations. Along the way she argues against “shifty” views of knowledge and knowledge ascriptions, as well as against those who have tried to preserve the independence of knowledge from practical considerations by accepting shifty views of the epistemic normativity of assertion. In my discussion I start by highlighting some of Simion’s main claims and recons…Read more
-
311“Political epistemology” has recently emerged as an area of analytic epistemology. While it may not be an entirely new area, and its precise boundaries are up for negotiation, recent political events in the UK (e.g. Brexit) and the US (e.g. the election of Donald Trump) played a key role in its rise to prominence within contemporary analytic epistemology. Further, political epistemology is an inter-disciplinary field, drawing on relevant work in political science, political psychology, and scien…Read more
-
140Non-Ideal EpistemologyOxford University Press. 2023.Robin McKenna argues that we need to make space for an approach to epistemology that avoids the idealizations typical of the field. He applies this approach to topics in applied and social epistemology, such as what to do about science denial, whether we should try to be intellectually autonomous, and what our obligations are to other inquirers.
-
48Is Knowledge a Social Phenomenon?Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.In this paper, I offer some reasons for thinking that knowledge is a social phenomenon. My argument is based on Helen Longino’s work on scientific knowledge, in particular her 2002 book The Fate of Knowledge. Longino’s basic idea is that a scientific hypothesis or theory is justified when it emerges (relatively) unscathed from social interactions between scientists. If we accept – as Longino and many others do – that knowledge requires justification, it follows that scientific knowledge is a soc…Read more
-
5Nuno Venturinha, Description of Situations: An Essay in Contextualist Epistemology (review)International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 12 (2): 188-192. 2022.
-
8Mismeasure of the Self: A Study in Vice Epistemology (review)Philosophical Quarterly 72 (4): 1048-1051. 2022.
-
194Absolutism, Relativism and MetaepistemologyErkenntnis 86 (5): 1139-1159. 2021.This paper is about two topics: metaepistemological absolutism and the epistemic principles governing perceptual warrant. Our aim is to highlight—by taking the debate between dogmatists and conservativists about perceptual warrant as a case study—a surprising and hitherto unnoticed problem with metaepistemological absolutism, at least as it has been influentially defended by Paul Boghossian as the principal metaepistemological contrast point to relativism. What we find is that the metaepistemolo…Read more
-
112A (Partial) Defence of Moderate Skeptical InvariantismIn Christos Kyriacou & Kevin Wallbridge (eds.), Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered, Routledge. pp. 154-171. 2021.Skeptical invariantism isn’t a popular view about the semantics of knowledge attributions. But what, exactly, is wrong with it? The basic problem is that it seems to run foul of the fact that we know quite a lot of things. I agree that it is a key desideratum for an account of knowledge that it accommodate the fact that we know a lot of things. But what sorts of things should a plausible theory of knowledge say that we know? In this paper I sketch an answer to this question and then apply it to …Read more
-
103Persuasion and Intellectual AutonomyIn Jonathan Matheson & Kirk Lougheed (eds.), Epistemic Autonomy, Routledge. pp. 113-131. 2021.In her paper “Democracy, Public Policy, and Lay Assessments of Scientific Testimony” Elizabeth Anderson (2011) identifies a tension between the requirements of responsible public policy making and democratic legitimacy. The tension, put briefly, is that responsible public policy making should be based on the best available scientific research, but for it to be democratically legitimate there must also be broad public acceptance of whatever policies are put in place. In this chapter I discuss thi…Read more
-
91Asymmetrical Rationality: Are Only Other People Stupid?In Michael Hannon & Jeroen de Ridder (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology, Routledge. pp. 285-295. 2021.It is commonly observed that we live in an increasingly polarised world. Strikingly, we are polarised not only about political issues, but also about scientific issues that have political implications, such as climate change. This raises two questions. First, why are we so polarised over these issues? Second, does this mean our views about these issues are all equally ir/rational? In this chapter I explore both questions. Specifically, I draw on the literature on ideologically motivated reasonin…Read more
-
29Assertion, action, and contextSynthese 199 (1-2): 731-743. 2020.A common objection to both contextualism and relativism about knowledge ascriptions is that they threaten knowledge norms of assertion and action. Consequently, if there is good reason to accept knowledge norms of assertion or action, there is good reason to reject both contextualism and relativism. In this paper we argue that neither contextualism nor relativism threaten knowledge norms of assertion or action.
-
175Skepticism Motivated: On the Skeptical Import of Motivated ReasoningCanadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (6): 702-718. 2020.Empirical work on motivated reasoning suggests that our judgments are influenced to a surprising extent by our wants, desires and preferences (Kahan 2016; Lord, Ross, and Lepper 1979; Molden and Higgins 2012; Taber and Lodge 2006). How should we evaluate the epistemic status of beliefs formed through motivated reasoning? For example, are such beliefs epistemically justified? Are they candidates for knowledge? In liberal democracies, these questions are increasingly controversial as well as polit…Read more
-
4By Quassim CassamVices of the mind: From the intellectual to the political. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. xiv + 202 pp. ISBN 9780198826903 hb £25 (review)European Journal of Philosophy 27 (4): 1084-1087. 2019.European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.
-
99Persuasion and Epistemic PaternalismIn Guy Axtell & Amiel Bernal (eds.), Epistemic Paternalism: Conceptions, Justifications and Implications, Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 91-106. 2020.Many of us hold false beliefs about matters that are relevant to public policy such as climate change and the safety of vaccines. What can be done to rectify this situation? This question can be read in two ways. According to the descriptive reading, it concerns which methods will be effective in persuading people that their beliefs are false. According to the normative reading, it concerns which methods we are permitted to use in the service of persuading people. Some effective methods—a progra…Read more
-
129The Disappearance of Ignorance (review)International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 10 (1): 4-20. 2020.Keith DeRose’s new book The Appearance of Ignorance is a welcome companion volume to his 2009 book The Case for Contextualism. Where latter focused on contextualism as a view in the philosophy of language, the former focuses on how contextualism contributes to our understanding of some perennial epistemological problems, with the skeptical problem being the main focus of six of the seven chapters. DeRose’s view is that a solution to the skeptical problem must do two things. First, it must explai…Read more
-
169Pragmatic Encroachment and Feminist EpistemologyIn Natalie Alana Ashton, Robin McKenna, Katharina Anna Sodoma & Martin Kusch (eds.), Social Epistemology and Epistemic Relativism, Routledge. 2020.Pragmatic encroachers argue that whether you know that p depends on a combination of pragmatic and epistemic factors. Most defenses of pragmatic encroachment focus on a particular pragmatic factor: how much is at stake for an individual. This raises a question: are there reasons for thinking that knowledge depends on other pragmatic factors that parallel the reasons for thinking that knowledge depends on the stakes? In this paper I argue that there are parallel reasons for thinking that knowled…Read more
-
99The 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
-
111Relativism and externalismIn Martin Kusch (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Relativism, Routledge. pp. 301-309. 2019.Internalists in epistemology think that whether one possesses epistemic statuses such as knowledge or justification depends on factors that are internal to one; externalists think that whether one possesses these statuses can depend on factors that are external to one. In this chapter we focus on the relationship between externalism and epistemic relativism. Externalism isn’t straightforwardly incompatible with epistemic relativism but, as we’ll see, it is very common to hold that key externalis…Read more
-
97Irrelevant Cultural Influences on BeliefJournal of Applied Philosophy 36 (5): 755-768. 2018.Recent work in psychology on ‘cultural cognition’ suggests that our cultural background drives our attitudes towards a range of politically contentious issues in science such as global warming. This work is part of a more general attempt to investigate the ways in which our wants, wishes and desires impact on our assessments of information, events and theories. Put crudely, the idea is that we conform our assessments of the evidence for and against scientific theories with clear political releva…Read more
-
118No Epistemic Trouble for Engineering ‘Woman’Logos and Episteme 9 (3): 335-342. 2018.In a recent article in this journal, Mona Simion argues that Sally Haslanger’s “engineering” approach to gender concepts such as ‘woman’ faces an epistemic objection. The primary function of all concepts—gender concepts included—is to represent the world, but Haslanger’s engineering account of ‘woman’ fails to adequately represent the world because, by her own admission, it doesn’t include all women in the extension of the concept ‘woman.’ I argue that this objection fails because the primary fu…Read more
-
23Metaepistemology: Realism & Antirealism (edited book)Palgrave Macmillan. 2018.This book contains twelve chapters by leading and up-and-coming philosophers on metaepistemology, that is, on the nature, existence and authority of epistemic facts. One of the central divides in metaepistemology is between epistemic realists and epistemic anti-realists. Epistemic realists think that epistemic facts exist independently of human judgements and practices, and that they have authority over our judgements and practices. Epistemic anti-realists think that, if epistemic facts exist at…Read more
-
402Situating feminist epistemologyEpisteme 17 (1): 28-47. 2020.Feminist epistemologies hold that differences in the social locations of inquirers make for epistemic differences, for instance, in the sorts of things that inquirers are justified in believing. In this paper we situate this core idea in feminist epistemologies with respect to debates about social constructivism. We address three questions. First, are feminist epistemologies committed to a form of social constructivism about knowledge? Second, to what extent are they incompatible with traditiona…Read more
-
206The 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
-
179Kornblith versus Sosa on grades of knowledgeSynthese 196 (12): 4989-5007. 2019.In a series of works Sosa (in: Knowledge in perspective, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991; A virtue epistemology: apt belief and reflective knowledge, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007; Reflective knowledge: apt belief and reflective knowledge, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009; ‘How Competence Matters in Epistemology’, Philos Perspect 24(1):465–475, 2010; Knowing full well, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2011; Judgment and agency, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015…Read more
-
98Reliabilism and RelativismIn McKenna Robin (ed.), Proceedings of the 38th International Wittgenstein Society Conference, . 2015.Process reliabilism says that a belief is justified iff the belief-forming process that produced it is sufficiently reliable. But any token belief-forming process is an instance of a number of different belief-forming process types. The problem of specifying the relevant type is known as the ‘generality problem’ for process reliabilism. This paper proposes a broadly relativist solution to the generality problem. The thought is that the relevant belief-forming process type is relative to the cont…Read more
-
8Action, Knowledge, and Will By John Hyman (review)Analysis 77 (3): 667-670. 2017._Action, Knowledge, and Will_By HymanJohnOxford University Press, 2015. 255 pp. £35.00.
Liverpool, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Areas of Interest
Metaphilosophy |
Meta-Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |