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5Tetens’ Refutation of Idealism and Properly Basic BeliefIn Gideon Stiening Udo Thiel (ed.), Johann Nikolaus Tetens (1736-1807): Philosophie in der Tradition des europäischen Empirismus, De Gruyter. pp. 147-168. 2014.
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Hume on Pyrrhonian Scepticism and Suspension of JudgementIn Scott Stapleford & Verena Wagner (eds.), Hume and Contemporary Epistemology, Routledge. forthcoming.This paper examines Hume’s understanding of a third doxastic position distinct from belief and disbelief, arguing that his epistemology presupposes different forms of doxastic neutrality. While Hume does not explicitly discuss this third position, his Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry concerning Human Understanding offer ideas relevant to contemporary debates on suspension of judgement and inquiry. Hume engaged with Pyrrhonian scepticism, finding its suspension of judgement excessive, yet ack…Read more
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Hume and Contemporary Epistemology (edited book)Routledge. forthcoming.Epistemologists have a special fondness for David Hume. Even Kant-obsessed a priorists admire the honesty, directness and elegance of his thinking. He is the Mozart of analytic philosophy rather than the Bach. Sparkling ideas, icy clarity and popular delivery make his writings the standard for good philosophy. 'Try to think like Hume' is pretty decent advice. But is that his only use today—to be emulated in style and approach? This volume is a collective 'no'. A team of top epistemologists and h…Read more
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Appearances and the Problem of Stored BeliefsIn Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford & Matthias Steup (eds.), Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles, Routledge. 2023.Internalist theories of epistemic justification supposedly have trouble explaining what justifies beliefs that are both stored in memory and currently out of mind. This is the problem of stored beliefs. This chapter provides a preliminary defence of stored/dispositional appearances and suggests that they provide a straightforward solution to the problem of stored beliefs.
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68Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles (edited book)Routledge. 2023.This volume presents new research on the epistemology of seemings. It features original essays by leading epistemologists on the nature and epistemic import of seemings and intuitions. Seemings and intuitions are often appealed to in philosophical theorizing. In fact, epistemological theories such as phenomenal conservatism and dogmatism give pride of place to seemings. Such views insist that seemings are of central importance to theories of epistemic justification. However, there are many quest…Read more
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Epistemic Dilemmas, Epistemic Quasi-Dilemmas, and Quasi-Epistemic DilemmasIn Scott Stapleford & Kevin McCain (eds.), Epistemic Duties: New Arguments, New Angles, Routledge. 2020.In this paper we distinguish between epistemic dilemmas, epistemic quasi-dilemmas, and quasi epistemic dilemmas. Our starting point is the commonsense position that S faces a genuine dilemma only when S must take one of two paths and both are bad. It’s the “must” that we think is key. Moral dilemmas arise because there are cases where S must perform A and S must perform B—where ‘must’ implies a moral duty—but S cannot do both. In such a situation, S is doomed to violate a moral obligation. Analo…Read more
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40Epistemic Dilemmas: New Arguments, New Angles (edited book)Routledge. 2021.It seems plausible that there can be “no win” moral situations in which no matter what one does one fails some moral obligation. Is there an epistemic analog to moral dilemmas? Are there epistemically dilemmatic situations—situations in which we are doomed to violate an epistemic requirement? If there are, when exactly do they arise and what can we learn from them? A team of top epistemologists address these and closely related questions from a variety of new, sometimes unexpected, angles. Anyon…Read more
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Kant's Analogy of the SphereIn Valerio Hrsg v. Rohden, Ricardo Terra & Guido Almeida (eds.), Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants, De Gruyter. 2008.
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Bound by the EvidenceIn Scott Stapleford & Kevin McCain (eds.), Epistemic Duties: New Arguments, New Angles, Routledge. 2020.An evidentialist can be extreme about epistemic requirements in a couple of different ways. At the reductionist end of the spectrum are those who think our epistemic obligations are fully satisfied by the mere having of evidential fit—where having implies nothing about doing. Your beliefs ought to align with your evidence, in other words, but there’s nothing you’re obligated to do in order to get yourself into the epistemically optimal position. At the expansionist end of the spectrum are those …Read more
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33Tetens’s Writings on Method, Language, and Anthropology (edited book)Bloomsbury. 2022.Containing all of the key writings leading up to the publication of his Philosophical Essays in 1777, this volume presents complete works by Johann Nicolaus Tetens (1736-1807) in English for the very first time. These important essays focus on method in metaphysics and mathematics, the analysis of language, and various anthropological questions that occupied thinkers of the period. Key features of the volume include: · Accurate, readable translations · Detailed scholarly notes · A substantial…Read more
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45Epistemic Duties: New Arguments, New Angles (edited book)Routledge. 2020.There are arguably moral, legal, and prudential constraints on behavior. But are there epistemic constraints on belief? Are there any requirements arising from intellectual considerations alone? This volume includes original essays written by top epistemologists that address this and closely related questions from a variety of new, sometimes unexpected, angles. It features a wide variety of positions, ranging from arguments for and against the existence of purely epistemic requirements, reductio…Read more
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60Logic Works: A Rigorous Introduction to Formal LogicRoutledge. 2022.Logic Works is a critical and extensive introduction to logic. It asks questions about why systems of logic are as they are, how they relate to ordinary language and ordinary reasoning, and what alternatives there might be to classical logical doctrines. It considers how logical analysis can be applied to carefully represent the reasoning employed in academic and scientific work, better understand that reasoning, and identify its hidden premises. Aiming to be as much a reference work and handboo…Read more
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69Intraspecies impermissivismEpisteme 16 (3): 340-356. 2018.The Uniqueness thesis says that any body of evidence E uniquely determines which doxastic attitude is rationally permissible regarding some proposition P. Permissivists deny Uniqueness. They are charged with arbitrarily favouring one doxastic attitude out of the set of attitudes they regard as rationally permissible. Simpson claims that an appeal to differences in cognitive abilities can remove the arbitrariness. I argue that it can't. Impermissivists face a challenge of their own: The problem o…Read more
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47Was Berkeley an Extracranialist?Philosophical Forum 50 (2): 225-238. 2019.We defend a ‘tight borders’ view of mind and cognition. Our key move comes from Berkeley.
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65Believing Against the Evidence: Agency and the Ethics of Belief (review)Philosophical Review 126 (4): 551-554. 2017.
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86The worst argument in the world – defendedThink 16 (47): 15-23. 2017.In this paper, I argue that Berkeley’s master argument is not the worst argument in the world—more like third or fourth.
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64Completing Epistemic OughtsPhilosophical Forum 45 (2): 133-148. 2014.Our intuitions about what a person epistemically ought or ought not believe are sometimes quite clear. Keith DeRose and Richard Feldman have devised examples about which our intuitions are likely to conflict. DeRose argues that the conflict of intuitions arises from ambiguity in the epistemic ought. I argue that it results from incompleteness. The success of the argument depends on rejecting the narrow conception of evidential support according to which a person’s evidence supports some proposit…Read more
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169Locke on sensitive knowledge as knowledgeTheoria 75 (3): 206-231. 2009.This article is an extended analysis of the most recent scholarly work on Locke's account of sensitive knowledge. Lex Newman's "dual cognitive relations" model of sensitive knowledge is examined in detail. The author argues that the dual cognitive relations model needs to be revised on both philosophical and historical grounds. While no attempt is made to defend Locke's position, the aim is to show that it is at least consistent, contrary to the received view. The final section provides textual …Read more
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87Kant's Transcendental Arguments as Conceptual ProofsPhilosophical Papers 35 (1): 119-136. 2006.The paper is an attempt to explain what a transcendental argument is for Kant. The interpretation is based on a reading of the 'Discipline of Pure Reason', Sections 1 and 4 of the first Critique. The author first identifies several statements that Kant makes about the method of proof he followed in the 'Analytic of Principles' which seem to be inconsistent. He then tries to remove the apparent inconsistencies by focusing on the idea of instantiation and drawing a distinction between the intensio…Read more
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108On the Contradiction in Conception Test of the Categorical ImperativeSouth African Journal of Philosophy 26 (3): 306-318. 2007.The author argues against Christine Korsgaard's influential interpretation of Kant's contradiction in conception test of the categorical imperative. Korsgaard's rejection of the ‘teleological' interpretation is shown to be based on a misunderstanding of the role that teleology plays for Kant in ruling out immoral maxims, and her defence of the ‘practical' interpretation is shown to be less faithful to the text than the competing ‘logical' interpretation. The works of Barbara Herman and Allen Woo…Read more
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280Tetens’ Refutation of Idealism and Properly Basic BeliefIn Gideon Stiening Udo Thiel (ed.), Johann Nikolaus Tetens (1736-1807): Philosophie in der Tradition des europäischen Empirismus, De Gruyter. pp. 147-168. 2014.
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Kurt Mosser, Necessity and Possibility: The Logical Strategy of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (review)Philosophy in Review 29 (6): 430. 2009.
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135What's the point of a dreaming argument?Think 18 (52): 31-34. 2019.In this paper, I argue that dreaming arguments are no cause for alarm.
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108Epistemic versus all things considered requirementsSynthese 192 (6): 1861-1881. 2015.Epistemic obligations are constraints on belief stemming from epistemic considerations alone. Booth is one of the many philosophers who deny that there are epistemic obligations. Any obligation pertaining to belief is an all things considered obligation, according to him—a strictly generic, rather than specifically epistemic, requirement. Though Booth’s argument is valid, I will try to show that it is unsound. There are two central premises: S is justified in believing that P iff S is blameless …Read more
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29Paul Guyer, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy (review)Philosophy in Review 27 (3): 182. 2007.
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54A Refutation of Idealism from 1777Idealistic Studies 40 (1-2): 139-146. 2010.The paper identifies a possible precedent for Kant’s Refutation of Idealism in the work of Johann Nicolaus Tetens. An attempt is made to reconstruct the reasoning that led Tetens to reject idealism as a false starting point, and some parallels are drawn between Tetens’s psychologistic approach to the problem andKant’s transcendental methodology.
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1Seeing a Flower in the Garden: Common Sense, Transcendental IdealismIn Elizabeth Robinson & Chris W. Surprenant (eds.), Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment, Routledge. 2017.Stapleford (2007) identified Johann Nicolaus Tetens as the missing link between Reid’s common sense treatment of external world scepticism and Kant’s transcendental Refutation of Idealism. While that account is arguably correct, it failed to recognize the distinction between being justified in believing P and being justified in believing that my belief in P is justified. This paper corrects the oversight and explains its implications. Tetens emerges as a weak externalist regarding knowledge of e…Read more
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35Tom Sorell, G. A. J. Rogers, and Jill Kraye, eds. , 'Scientia' in Early Modern Philosophy: Seventeenth-Century Thinkers on Demonstrative Knowledge from First Principles . Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 30 (6): 438-441. 2010.
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |