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659Should have knownSynthese 194 (8): 2863-2894. 2017.In this paper I will be arguing that there are cases in which a subject, S, should have known that p, even though, given her state of evidence at the time, she was in no position to know it. My argument for this result will involve making two claims. The uncontroversial claim is this: S should have known that p when another person has, or would have, legitimate expectations regarding S’s epistemic condition, the satisfaction of these expectations would require that S knows that p, and S fails to…Read more
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367Defending Philosophy in the Face of Systematic DisagreementIn Diego E. Machuca (ed.), Disagreement and Skepticism, Routledge. pp. 277-294. 2013.I believe that the sort of disagreements we encounter in philosophy—disagreements that often take the form that I have elsewhere called system- atic peer disagreements—make it unreasonable to think that there is any knowledge, or even justified belief, when the disagreements themselves are systematic. I readily acknowledge that this skeptical view is quite controversial; I suspect many are unconvinced. However, I will not be defending it here. Rather, I will be exploring a worry, or set of worri…Read more
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296The problem of the many mindsMinds and Machines 16 (4): 463-470. 2006.It is argued that, given certain reasonable premises, an infinite number of qualitatively identical but numerically distinct minds exist per functioning brain. The three main premises are (1) mental properties supervene on brain properties; (2) the universe is composed of particles with nonzero extension; and (3) each particle is composed of continuum-many point-sized bits of particle-stuff, and these points of particle-stuff persist through time.
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288The Division of Epistemic LaborEpisteme 8 (1): 112-125. 2011.In this paper I formulate the thesis of the Division of Epistemic Labor as a thesis of epistemic dependence, illustrate several ways in which individual subjects are epistemically dependent on one or more of the members of their community in the process of knowledge acquisition, and draw conclusions about the cognitively distributed nature of some knowledge acquisition
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248Against epistemic partiality in friendship: value-reflecting reasonsPhilosophical Studies 176 (8): 2221-2242. 2019.It has been alleged that the demands of friendship conflict with the norms of epistemology—in particular, that there are cases in which the moral demands of friendship would require one to give a friend the benefit of the doubt, and thereby come to believe something in violation of ordinary epistemic standards on justified or responsible belief :329–351, 2004; Stroud in Ethics 116:498–524, 2006; Hazlett in A luxury of the understanding: on the value of true belief, Oxford University Press, Oxfor…Read more
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238The Psychology and Epistemology of Self-KnowledgeSynthese 118 (2). 1999.In this paper I argue, first, that the most influential (and perhaps only acceptable) account of the epistemology of self-knowledge, developed and defended at great length in Wright (1989b) and (1989c) (among other places), leaves unanswered a question about the psychology of self-knowledge; second, that without an answer to this question about the psychology of self-knowledge, the epistemic account cannot be considered acceptable; and third, that neither Wright's own answer, nor an interpretati…Read more
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225Reliabilism in philosophyPhilosophical Studies 142 (1). 2009.The following three propositions appear to be individually defensible but jointly inconsistent: (1) reliability is a necessary condition on epistemic justification; (2) on contested matters in philosophy, my beliefs are not reliably formed; (3) some of these beliefs are epistemically justified. I explore the nature and scope of the problem, examine and reject some candidate solutions, compare the issue with ones arising in discussions about disagreement, and offer a brief assessment of our predi…Read more
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219Monitoring and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of TestimonyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (3). 2006.One of the central points of contention in the epistemology of testimony concerns the uniqueness (or not) of the justification of beliefs formed through testimony--whether such justification can be accounted for in terms of, or 'reduced to,' other familiar sort of justification, e.g. without relying on any epistemic principles unique to testimony. One influential argument for the reductionist position, found in the work of Elizabeth Fricker, argues by appeal to the need for the hearer to monitor…Read more
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218On the Epistemic Significance of Evidence You Should Have HadEpisteme 13 (4): 449-470. 2016.Elsewhere I and others have argued that evidence one should have had can bear on the justification of one's belief, in the form of defeating one's justification. In this paper, I am interested in knowing how evidence one should have had (on the one hand) and one's higher-order evidence (on the other) interact in determinations of the justification of belief. In doing so I aim to address two types of scenario that previous discussions have left open. In one type of scenario, there is a clash betw…Read more
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202Comments on Miranda Fricker's Epistemic InjusticeEpisteme 7 (2): 138-150. 2010.Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice is a wide-ranging and important book on a much-neglected topic: the injustice involved in cases in which distrust arises out of prejudice. Fricker has some important things to say about this sort of injustice: its nature, how it arises, what sustains it, and the unhappy outcomes associated with it for the victim and the society in which it takes place. In the course of developing this account, Fricker also develops an account of the epistemology of testimony…Read more
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187A Reliabilist Foundationalist CoherentismErkenntnis 77 (2): 187-196. 2012.While Process Reliabilism has long been regarded by many as a version of Foundationalism, this paper argues that there is a version of Process Reliabilism that can also been seen as at least a partial vindication of Coherentism as well. The significance of this result lies in what it tells us both about the prospects for a plausible Process Reliabilism, but also about the old-school debate between Foundationalists and Coherentists.
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172The Twin Earth Chronicles: Twenty Years of Reflection on Hilary Putnam’s “the Meaning of ”Meaning’ ‘ (edited book)M. E. Sharpe. 1996.This volume will acquaint novice philosophers with one of the most important debates in twentieth-century philosophy, and will provide seasoned readers with a ...
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166The dialectical context of Boghossian's memory argumentCanadian Journal of Philosophy 35 (1): 135-48. 2005.Externalism1 is the thesis that some propositional attitudes depend for their individuation on features of the thinker’s (social and/or physical) environment. The doctrine of self-knowledge of thoughts is the thesis that for all thinkers S and occurrent thoughts that p, S has authoritative and non-empirical knowledge of her thought that p. A much-discussed question in the literature is whether these two doctrines are compatible. In this paper I attempt to respond to one argument for an incompati…Read more
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161A novel (and surprising) argument against justification internalismAnalysis 72 (2): 239-243. 2012.A variant 'evil demon' case is used to argue against internalism about doxastic justification. The argument is not merely novel but surprising, since evil demon cases have long been used by internalists against externalist accounts of doxastic justification
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156Internalism and externalism in semantics and epistemology (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2007.Internalism and Externalism in Semantics and Epistemology presents eleven specially written essays exploring these debates in metaphysics and epistemology and ...
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155Relying on others: an essay in epistemologyOxford University Press. 2010.Sanford Goldberg investigates the role that others play in our attempts to acquire knowledge of the world.
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151What is a speaker owed?Philosophy and Public Affairs 50 (3): 375-407. 2022.Philosophy & Public Affairs, Volume 50, Issue 3, Page 375-407, Summer 2022.
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151Externalism and Authoritative Knowledge of Content: A New Incompatibilist Strategy (review)Philosophical Studies 100 (1): 51-79. 2000.A typical strategy of those who seek to show that externalism is compatible with authoritative knowledge of content is to show that externalism does nothing to undermine the claim that all thinkers can at any time form correct and justi?ed self-ascriptive judgements concerning their occurrent thoughts. In reaction, most incompat- ibilists have assumed the burden of denying that externalism is compatible with this claim about self-ascription. Here I suggest another way to attack the compatibilist…Read more
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147Brown on self-knowledge and discriminability1Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (3): 301-314. 2006.In her recent book Anti-Individualism and Knowledge, Jessica Brown has presented a novel answer to the self-knowledge achievement problem facing the proponent of anti-individualism. She argues that her answer is to be preferred to the traditional answer (based on Burge, 1988a). Here I present three objections to the claim that her proposed answer is to be preferred. The significance of these objections lies in what they tell us about the nature of the sort of knowledge that is in dispute. Perhap…Read more
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144Anti-Individualism, Content Preservation, and Discursive JustificationNoûs 41 (2): 178-203. 2007.Most explorations of the epistemic implications of Semantic Anti- Individualism (SAI) focus on issues of self-knowledge (first-person au- thority) and/or external-world skepticism. Less explored has been SAIs implications forthe epistemology of reasoning. In this paperI argue that SAI has some nontrivial implications on this score. I bring these out by reflecting on a problem first raised by Boghossian (1992). Whereas Boghos- sians main interest was in establishing the incompatibility of SAI and…Read more
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142Self‐ascription, Self‐knowledge, and the Memory ArgumentAnalysis 57 (3): 211-219. 1997.is tendentious. (Throughout this paper I shall refer to this claim as
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139Epistemic extendedness, testimony, and the epistemology of instrument-based beliefPhilosophical Explorations 15 (2). 2012.In Relying on others [Goldberg, S. 2010a. Relying on others: An essay in epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press], I argued that, from the perspective of an interest in epistemic assessment, the testimonial belief-forming process should be regarded as interpersonally extended. At the same time, I explicitly rejected the extendedness model for beliefs formed through reliance on a mere mechanism, such as a clock. In this paper, I try to bolster my defense of this asymmetric treatment. I argu…Read more
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136Metaphysical Realism and ThoughtAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 45 (2). 2008.In this paper I argue that the implications of semantic externalism (SE) are even more far-reaching than has heretofore been acknowledged. If SE is true, then it is possible that a thinker's mental reality has joints that cannot in principle be discerned by the thinker herself.
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136Anti-Individualism: Mind and Language, Knowledge and JustificationCambridge University Press. 2007.Sanford C. Goldberg argues that a proper account of the communication of knowledge through speech has anti-individualistic implications for both epistemology and the philosophy of mind and language. In Part I he offers a novel argument for anti-individualism about mind and language, the view that the contents of one's thoughts and the meanings of one's words depend for their individuation on one's social and natural environment. In Part II he discusses the epistemic dimension of knowledge commun…Read more
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135Anonymous assertionsEpisteme 10 (2): 135-151. 2013.This paper addresses how the anonymity of an assertion affects the epistemological dimension of its production by speakers, and its reception by hearers. After arguing that anonymity does have implications in both respects, I go on to argue that at least some of these implications derive from a warranted diminishment in speakers' and hearers' expectations of one another when there are few mechanisms for enforcing the responsibilities attendant to speech. As a result, I argue, anonymous assertion…Read more
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131Interpersonal epistemic entitlementsPhilosophical Issues 24 (1): 159-183. 2014.In this paper I argue that the nature of our epistemic entitlement to rely on certain belief-forming processes—perception, memory, reasoning, and perhaps others—is not restricted to one's own belief-forming processes. I argue as well that we can have access to the outputs of others’ processes, in the form of their assertions. These two points support the conclusion that epistemic entitlements are “interpersonal.” I then proceed to argue that this opens the way for a non-standard version of anti-…Read more
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130How lucky can you get?Synthese 158 (3): 315-327. 2007.In this paper, I apply Duncan Pritchard’s anti-luck epistemology to the case of knowledge through testimony. I claim that Pritchard’s distinction between veritic and reflective luck provides a nice taxonomy of testimony cases, that the taxonomic categories that emerge can be used to suggest precisely what epistemic statuses are transmissible through testimony, and that the resulting picture can make clear how testimony can actually be knowledge-generating
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |