RESEARCH INTERESTS:
My research lies mainly in epistemology and where it intersects with philosophy of science and ethics.
PUBLICATIONS:
“X-Phi within its Proper Bounds” (Philosophical Psychology, 1-26, 2024)
“No Hope for Conciliationism” (Synthese, 203: 148, 2024)
"The Insignificance of Philosophical Skepticism" (Synthese, 200: 485, 2022)
"Moral Disagreement Skepticism Leveled" (Ratio, 34 (3): 203-216, 2021)
"Reliable Knowledge: A Reply to Turri" (Dialectica, 74(3): 495-509, 2020)
INVITED PUBLICATIONS:
“Skeptical Responses to Explanatory Solutions,” International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, (forthcoming), Symposium on Kevin McCain’s Explanatory Solutions to Skeptical Problems.
WORKS IN PROGRESS:
Paper on Peer Disagreement Skepticism (Under Peer Review)
Paper on Defeat and Pessimistic Inductions against Philosophy (Under Peer Review)
Paper on Knowledge-How (Under Peer Review)
Paper on Underdetermination Skepticism (Under Peer Review)
“X-Phi within its Proper Bounds” (Philosophical Psychology, 1-26, 2024)
“No Hope for Conciliationism” (Synthese, 203: 148, 2024)
"The Insignificance of Philosophical Skepticism" (Synthese, 200: 485, 2022)
"Moral Disagreement Skepticism Leveled" (Ratio, 34 (3): 203-216, 2021)
"Reliable Knowledge: A Reply to Turri" (Dialectica, 74(3): 495-509, 2020)
INVITED PUBLICATIONS:
“Skeptical Responses to Explanatory Solutions,” International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, (forthcoming), Symposium on Kevin McCain’s Explanatory Solutions to Skeptical Problems.
WORKS IN PROGRESS:
Paper on Peer Disagreement Skepticism (Under Peer Review)
Paper on Defeat and Pessimistic Inductions against Philosophy (Under Peer Review)
Paper on Knowledge-How (Under Peer Review)
Paper on Underdetermination Skepticism (Under Peer Review)
CURRENT PROJECTS:
My research is centered around a larger project – that will hopefully culminate in a book – on the nature and limitations of various skeptical arguments in epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of science. In brief, I aim to show that philosophers’ focus on skeptical arguments in these domains is misplaced since such arguments tend to be self-undermining in various hitherto unacknowledged ways. If sound, my arguments show that the path to knowledge in these areas is much easier than previously thought.
This project begins with my dissertation, Defending Philosophical Knowledge, where all four of its chapters have been worked into stand-alone articles for publication. The first paper, “Reliable Knowledge: A Reply to Turri” (published in Dialectica), concerns whether reliability (i.e. of cognitive processes) is a necessary condition for knowledge. I argue that reliability must be a necessary condition for knowledge by first responding to John Turri’s arguments against this claim. I then show that the reasons Turri’s arguments fail help to demonstrate why reliability must be a necessary condition for knowledge. The second paper, “Moral Disagreement Scepticism Leveled” (published in Ratio), concerns one of the oldest and most discussed challenges to moral knowledge: the argument from moral disagreement to moral skepticism. While there are many different versions of this argument, I first show that all moral disagreement arguments share an underlying structure. I then argue that, because this structure leads to a previously unrecognized reductio ad absurdum, all moral disagreement arguments are refuted in one fell swoop.
The third chapter has been split into two papers. The first paper, “No Hope for Conciliationism” (published in Synthese), argues that the (in)famous self-undermining challenge to conciliatory views of peer disagreement is, by these views’ own lights, insolvable and that this demonstrates that conciliatory views are likely hopeless: there is likely nothing that can save them from this challenge and so conciliatory views, like any view, should be abandoned if they are (almost certainly) hopeless. The second paper (under peer review) further argues that conciliatory views of peer disagreement are problematic because, when combined with other plausible epistemic principles, they lead to a paradox. This novel paradox is significant because it shows that one can maintain a conciliatory view of peer disagreement only if one is willing to deny (or significantly revise their commitment to) other plausible epistemic principles. The last paper “X-Phi within its Proper Bounds” (published in Philosophical Psychology) concerns the empirical x-phi literature that challenges the reliability and justificatory nature of philosophers’ use of our intuitions about (sometimes far-fetched) hypothetical cases to dis/confirm philosophical theses. I first argue that the often-discussed self-defeat challenge to these empirical studies (i.e. they indirectly rely on intuitions while denying the reliability of intuitions) cannot be avoided in the way many experimental philosophers claim. I then show that this self-defeat challenge places unrecognized severe limits on the scope of the philosophical skepticism that experimental philosophers’ aim to establish.
Addressing these challenges to philosophical knowledge in my dissertation has led me to reconsider other widely discussed skeptical arguments, viz. the use of skeptical hypotheses, like the Brain-in-a-Vat hypothesis, to argue for external world skepticism. In “The Insignificance of Philosophical Skepticism” (published in Synthese), I argue that the reasoning on which such Cartesian arguments are based leads to a previously unrecognized self-undermining dilemma: they either lead to a reductio ad absurdum, or to avoid this reductio the skeptic must accept that these arguments are epistemically idle – they do not provide any support for external world skepticism. Either way, these Cartesian arguments provide no epistemic support for external world skepticism, and they cannot legitimately threaten or even call into question our beliefs about the external world.
Additionally, I have recently co-authored a paper (under peer review) that extends the project of my dissertation by defending philosophical knowledge from the pessimistic induction against philosophy, i.e. given philosophy’s (alleged) dismal track-record of consensus and progress, there is very likely to always be at least one successful defeater to any such substantive philosophical claim. Thus, our justification for believing any substantive philosophical claim is perennially compromised. We argue that such arguments lead to a dilemma: Either a crucial premise in this skeptical argument already has successful defeaters to it, or it doesn’t. If it does, then the argument fails; and if it doesn’t, then the argument still fails because it is self-defeating, i.e. by this skeptic’s own reasoning, there are likely to be successful defeaters to their own argument. We argue this result is unavoidable because we show that attempts to respond to this self-defeat worry are also self-defeating, i.e. there also are likely to be defeaters to any response to this self-defeat worry. The upshot of our arguments is that they provide serious doubt that such arguments can ever undermine philosophical knowledge.
Click here to for my research statement.
My research is centered around a larger project – that will hopefully culminate in a book – on the nature and limitations of various skeptical arguments in epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of science. In brief, I aim to show that philosophers’ focus on skeptical arguments in these domains is misplaced since such arguments tend to be self-undermining in various hitherto unacknowledged ways. If sound, my arguments show that the path to knowledge in these areas is much easier than previously thought.
This project begins with my dissertation, Defending Philosophical Knowledge, where all four of its chapters have been worked into stand-alone articles for publication. The first paper, “Reliable Knowledge: A Reply to Turri” (published in Dialectica), concerns whether reliability (i.e. of cognitive processes) is a necessary condition for knowledge. I argue that reliability must be a necessary condition for knowledge by first responding to John Turri’s arguments against this claim. I then show that the reasons Turri’s arguments fail help to demonstrate why reliability must be a necessary condition for knowledge. The second paper, “Moral Disagreement Scepticism Leveled” (published in Ratio), concerns one of the oldest and most discussed challenges to moral knowledge: the argument from moral disagreement to moral skepticism. While there are many different versions of this argument, I first show that all moral disagreement arguments share an underlying structure. I then argue that, because this structure leads to a previously unrecognized reductio ad absurdum, all moral disagreement arguments are refuted in one fell swoop.
The third chapter has been split into two papers. The first paper, “No Hope for Conciliationism” (published in Synthese), argues that the (in)famous self-undermining challenge to conciliatory views of peer disagreement is, by these views’ own lights, insolvable and that this demonstrates that conciliatory views are likely hopeless: there is likely nothing that can save them from this challenge and so conciliatory views, like any view, should be abandoned if they are (almost certainly) hopeless. The second paper (under peer review) further argues that conciliatory views of peer disagreement are problematic because, when combined with other plausible epistemic principles, they lead to a paradox. This novel paradox is significant because it shows that one can maintain a conciliatory view of peer disagreement only if one is willing to deny (or significantly revise their commitment to) other plausible epistemic principles. The last paper “X-Phi within its Proper Bounds” (published in Philosophical Psychology) concerns the empirical x-phi literature that challenges the reliability and justificatory nature of philosophers’ use of our intuitions about (sometimes far-fetched) hypothetical cases to dis/confirm philosophical theses. I first argue that the often-discussed self-defeat challenge to these empirical studies (i.e. they indirectly rely on intuitions while denying the reliability of intuitions) cannot be avoided in the way many experimental philosophers claim. I then show that this self-defeat challenge places unrecognized severe limits on the scope of the philosophical skepticism that experimental philosophers’ aim to establish.
Addressing these challenges to philosophical knowledge in my dissertation has led me to reconsider other widely discussed skeptical arguments, viz. the use of skeptical hypotheses, like the Brain-in-a-Vat hypothesis, to argue for external world skepticism. In “The Insignificance of Philosophical Skepticism” (published in Synthese), I argue that the reasoning on which such Cartesian arguments are based leads to a previously unrecognized self-undermining dilemma: they either lead to a reductio ad absurdum, or to avoid this reductio the skeptic must accept that these arguments are epistemically idle – they do not provide any support for external world skepticism. Either way, these Cartesian arguments provide no epistemic support for external world skepticism, and they cannot legitimately threaten or even call into question our beliefs about the external world.
Additionally, I have recently co-authored a paper (under peer review) that extends the project of my dissertation by defending philosophical knowledge from the pessimistic induction against philosophy, i.e. given philosophy’s (alleged) dismal track-record of consensus and progress, there is very likely to always be at least one successful defeater to any such substantive philosophical claim. Thus, our justification for believing any substantive philosophical claim is perennially compromised. We argue that such arguments lead to a dilemma: Either a crucial premise in this skeptical argument already has successful defeaters to it, or it doesn’t. If it does, then the argument fails; and if it doesn’t, then the argument still fails because it is self-defeating, i.e. by this skeptic’s own reasoning, there are likely to be successful defeaters to their own argument. We argue this result is unavoidable because we show that attempts to respond to this self-defeat worry are also self-defeating, i.e. there also are likely to be defeaters to any response to this self-defeat worry. The upshot of our arguments is that they provide serious doubt that such arguments can ever undermine philosophical knowledge.
Click here to for my research statement.
DISSERTATION:
My dissertation is entitled Defending Philosophical Knowledge and it concerns whether philosophy as a discipline can, and does, produce philosophical knowledge. Some support philosophical skepticism by arguing that the philosophical practice of appealing to intuitions to justify philosophical beliefs is illegitimate because intuitions are an unreliable source of justification. Others argue that philosophical knowledge is untenable because philosophers rarely, if ever, resolve their philosophical disagreements despite spending their professional lives attempting to do so. In brief, the purpose of my dissertation is to show that philosophical knowledge is not threatened by either intuition or disagreement skepticism.
Click here for my dissertation summary.
My dissertation is entitled Defending Philosophical Knowledge and it concerns whether philosophy as a discipline can, and does, produce philosophical knowledge. Some support philosophical skepticism by arguing that the philosophical practice of appealing to intuitions to justify philosophical beliefs is illegitimate because intuitions are an unreliable source of justification. Others argue that philosophical knowledge is untenable because philosophers rarely, if ever, resolve their philosophical disagreements despite spending their professional lives attempting to do so. In brief, the purpose of my dissertation is to show that philosophical knowledge is not threatened by either intuition or disagreement skepticism.
Click here for my dissertation summary.
