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Explanation and evidenceIn Maria Lasonen-Aarnio & Clayton Littlejohn (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence, Routledge. 2019.
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16Reason and Explanation: A Defense of Explanatory CoherentismPalgrave Macmillan UK. 2014.In this new explanationist account of epistemic justification, Poston argues that the explanatory virtues provide all the materials necessary for a plausible account of justified belief. There are no purely autonomous reasons. Rather reasons occur only within an explanatory coherent set of beliefs.
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31Hyperintensional evidence and Bayesian coherenceAsian Journal of Philosophy 3 (1): 1-13. 2024.Bayesian approaches to rationality require that a person’s degrees of belief be coherent. Among other implications, coherence requires that a person has the same degree of belief in every logically equivalent proposition. However, a person can have evidence for a claim without having evidence for all its propositional equivalences. This paper explores this conflict and argues that a person may be perfectly rational by virtue of responding to their evidence, even if their credences are not cohere…Read more
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100Critical Notice: Fitting Things Together: Coherence and the demands of structural rationality (review)Philosophical Quarterly 73 (3): 803-810. 2022.Alex Worsnip's recent book, Fitting Things Together: Coherence and the Demands of Structural Rationality, provides a sustained, wide-ranging defence of dualism
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14The Mystery of Skepticism: New Explorations (edited book)Brill. 2018.The thirteen newly commissioned essays in _The Mystery of Skepticism: New Explorations_ represent the cutting-edge of research on underexplored skeptical challenges, dimensions of the skeptical problematic, and responses to various kinds of skepticism.
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441Coherence & Confirmation: The Epistemic Limitations of the Impossibility TheoremsKriterion - Journal of Philosophy 36 (1): 83-111. 2022.It is a widespread intuition that the coherence of independent reports provides a powerful reason to believe that the reports are true. Formal results by Huemer, M. 1997. “Probability and Coherence Justification.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 35: 463–72, Olsson, E. 2002. “What is the Problem of Coherence and Truth?” Journal of Philosophy XCIX : 246–72, Olsson, E. 2005. Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification. Oxford University Press., Bovens, L., and S. Hartmann. 2003. Bayesia…Read more
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564Explanatory Coherence and the Impossibility of Confirmation by CoherencePhilosophy of Science 88 (5): 835-848. 2021.The coherence of independent reports provides a strong reason to believe that the reports are true. This plausible claim has come under attack from recent work in Bayesian epistemology. This work shows that, under certain probabilistic conditions, coherence cannot increase the probability of the target claim. These theorems are taken to demonstrate that epistemic coherentism is untenable. To date no one has investigated how these results bear on different conceptions of coherence. I investigate …Read more
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1061The Intrinsic Probability of Grand Explanatory TheoriesFaith and Philosophy 37 (4): 401-420. 2020.This paper articulates a way to ground a relatively high prior probability for grand explanatory theories apart from an appeal to simplicity. I explore the possibility of enumerating the space of plausible grand theories of the universe by using the explanatory properties of possible views to limit the number of plausible theories. I motivate this alternative grounding by showing that Swinburne’s appeal to simplicity is problematic along several dimensions. I then argue that there are three plau…Read more
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66Dispelling the Disjunction Objection to Explanatory InferencePhilosophers' Imprint 19. 2019.Although inference to the best explanation is ubiquitous in science and our everyday lives, there are numerous objections to the viability of IBE. Many of these objections have been thoroughly discussed, however, at least one objection to IBE has not received adequate treatment. We term this objection the “Disjunction Objection”. This objection challenges IBE on the grounds that it seems that even if H is the best explanation, it could be that the disjunction of its rivals is more likely to be t…Read more
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39The Mystery of Skepticism: New Explorations (edited book)Brill. 2018.The thirteen newly commissioned essays in _The Mystery of Skepticism: New Explorations_ represent the cutting-edge of research on underexplored skeptical challenges, dimensions of the skeptical problematic, and responses to various kinds of skepticism.
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707How do medical researchers make causal inferences?In Kevin McCain & Kostas Kampourakis (eds.), What is scientific knowledge? An introduction to contemporary epistemology of science., Routledge. 2020.Bradford Hill (1965) highlighted nine aspects of the complex evidential situation a medical researcher faces when determining whether a causal relation exists between a disease and various conditions associated with it. These aspects are widely cited in the literature on epidemiological inference as justifying an inference to a causal claim, but the epistemological basis of the Hill aspects is not understood. We offer an explanatory coherentist interpretation, explicated by Thagard's ECHO model …Read more
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65Skepticism and Perceptual Justification, edited by Dylan Dodd and Elia Zardini (review)International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 8 (3): 250-255. 2018._ Source: _Page Count 6
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89Best Explanations: New Essays on Inference to the Best Explanation (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2017.Twenty philosophers offer new essays examining the form of reasoning known as inference to the best explanation - widely used in science and in our everyday lives, yet still controversial. Best Explanations represents the state of the art when it comes to understanding, criticizing, and defending this form of reasoning.
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39Is There an ‘I’ in Epistemology?Dialectica 66 (4): 517-541. 2012.Epistemic conservatism is the thesis that the mere holding of a belief confers some positive epistemic status on its content. Conservatism is widely criticized on the grounds that it conflicts with the main goal in epistemology to believe truths and disbelieve falsehoods. In this paper I argue for conservatism and defend it from objections. First, I argue that the objection to conservatism from the truth goal in epistemology fails. Second, I develop and defend an argument for conservatism from t…Read more
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85A Critical Introduction to Knowledge-HowBloomsbury Academic. 2018.We know facts, but we also know how to do things. To know a fact is to know that a proposition is true. But does knowing how to ride a bike amount to knowledge of propositions? This is a challenging question and one that deeply divides the contemporary landscape. A Critical Introduction to Knowledge-How introduces, outlines, and critically evaluates various contemporary debates surrounding the nature of knowledge-how. Carter and Poston show that situating the debate over the nature of knowledge-…Read more
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9Hell, Vagueness, and JusticeFaith and Philosophy 25 (3): 322-328. 2008.Ted Sider’s paper “Hell and Vagueness” challenges a certain conception of Hell by arguing that it is inconsistent with God’s justice. Sider’s inconsistencyargument works only when supplemented by additional premises. Key to Sider’s case is a premise that the properties upon which eternal destinies superveneare “a smear,” i.e., they are distributed continuously among individuals in the world. We question this premise and provide reasons to doubt it. The doubts come from two sources. The first is …Read more
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27BonJour and the Myth of the GivenRes Philosophica 90 (2): 185-201. 2013.The Sellarsian dilemma is a powerful argument against internalistic foundationalist views that aim to end the regress of reasons in experiential states. Laurence BonJour once defended the soundness of this dilemma as part of a larger argument for epistemic coherentism. BonJour has now renounced his earlier conclusions about the dilemma and has offered an account of internalistic foundationalism aimed, in part, at showing the errors of his former ways. I contend that BonJour’s early concerns abou…Read more
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2Review of Paul J. Weithman (ed.), Liberal Faith: Essays in Honor of Philip Quinn (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (2). 2010.
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6Is There an 'I' in Epistemology?Dialectica 66 (4): 517-541. 2012.Epistemic conservatism is the thesis that the mere holding of a belief confers some positive epistemic status on its content. Conservatism is widely criticized on the grounds that it conflicts with the main goal in epistemology to believe truths and disbelieve falsehoods. In this paper I argue for conservatism and defend it from objections. First, I argue that the objection to conservatism from the truth goal in epistemology fails. Second, I develop and defend an argument for conservatism from t…Read more
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14Explanationist Plasticity and the Problem of the CriterionPhilosophical Papers 40 (3): 395-419. 2011.Abstract This paper develops an explanationist treatment of the problem of the criterion. Explanationism is the view that all justified reasoning is justified in virtue of the explanatory virtues: simplicity, fruitfulness, testability, scope, and conservativeness. A crucial part of the explanationist framework is achieving wide reflective equilibrium. I argue that explanationism offers a plausible solution to the problem of the criterion. Furthermore, I argue that a key feature of explanationism…Read more
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141Why Explanatoriness Is Evidentially RelevantThought: A Journal of Philosophy 3 (2): 145-153. 2014.William Roche and Elliott Sober argue that explanatoriness is evidentially irrelevant. This conclusion is surprising since it conflicts with a plausible assumption—the fact that a hypothesis best explains a given set of data is evidence that the hypothesis is true. We argue that Roche and Sober's screening-off argument fails to account for a key aspect of evidential strength: the weight of a body of evidence. The weight of a body of evidence affects the resiliency of probabilities in the light o…Read more
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14Know How to Be Gettiered?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (3). 2009.Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson's influential article "Knowing How" argues that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that. One objection to their view is that knowledge-how is significantly different than knowledge-that because Gettier cases afflict the latter but not the former. Stanley and Williamson argue that this objection fails. Their response, however, is not adequate. Moreover, I sketch a plausible argument that knowledge-how is not susceptible to Gettier cases. This suggests a s…Read more
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14Basic reasons and first philosophy: A coherentist view of reasonsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 50 (1): 75-93. 2012.This paper develops and defends a coherentist account of reasons. I develop three core ideas for this defense: a distinction between basic reasons and noninferential justification, the plausibility of the neglected argument against first philosophy, and an emergent account of reasons. These three ideas form the backbone for a credible coherentist view of reasons. I work toward this account by formulating and explaining the basic reasons dilemma. This dilemma reveals a wavering attitude that cohe…Read more
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63Reason and ExplanationPalgrave Macmillan. 2014.Reason and Explanation develops a new explanationist account of epistemic justification. Poston argues that the explanatory virtues provide a plausible account of necessary and sufficient conditions for justification. The justification of a subject's belief consists in the explanatory virtue of her entire beliefs compared with other sets of beliefs she could have. Poston's argument for coherentism involves a defense of the epistemic value of background beliefs, the development of a novel fram…Read more
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32Richard Swinburne, Mind, Brain, & Free Will (review)Journal of Analytic Theology 4 480-484. 2016._ _.
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79Justification without Awareness (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (2): 570-573. 2008.No Abstract
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102Foundational Evidentialism and the Problem of ScatterAbstracta 3 (2): 89-106. 2007.This paper addresses the scatter problem for foundational evidentialism. Reflection on the scatter problem uncovers significant epistemological lessons. The scatter problem is evaluated in connection with Ernest Sosa’s use of the problem as an argument against foundational evidentialism. Sosa’s strategy is to consider a strong intuition in favor of internalism—the new evil demon problem, and then illustrate how a foundational evidentialist account of the new evil demon problem succumbs to the sc…Read more
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96Skeptics without bordersAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 47 (3): 223. 2010.Timothy Williamson’s anti luminosity argument has received considerable attention. Escaping unnoticed, though, is a strikingly similar argument from David Hume. This paper highlights some of the arresting parallels between Williamson’s reasoning and Hume’s that will allow us to appreciate more deeply the plausibility of Williamson’s reasoning and to understand how, following Hume, we can extend this reasoning to undermine the “luminosity” of simple necessary truths. More broadly the parallels he…Read more
University Of Missouri
Department Of Philosophy
Alumnus
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Philosophy of Medicine |
Areas of Interest
Formal Epistemology |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Religion |
PhilPapers Editorships
Coherentism |
Coherentism, Misc |
Epistemology of Specific Domains |