Research

See also the Public Philosophy page for podcasts, interviews, talks, and media coverage of my research projects.

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Publications

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Please email me for a copy of 'Unthinkable: On Self-Deception and Dist-raction in the Wake of Trauma’.

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32.) 'Introduction' The Philosophy of Sexual Violence, eds. Georgi Gardiner and Micol Bez, Routledge (2024). 


31.) 'Naturalistic Function-First Epistemology' (forthcoming) Kornblith and his Critics (eds.) Josh DiPaolo and Luis Oliveira. Routledge. 



30.) 'We Forge the Conditions of Love' (2023) Linguistic Luck: Essays in Anti-Luck Semantics eds. Carlos Montemayor & Abrol Fairweather, OUP.



29.) ‘Corroboration’  (2023) American Philosophical Quarterly.


28.) ‘Legal Evidence and Knowledge’ (2023) The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence, Maria Lasonen-Aarnio and Clayton Littlejohn (eds.) Routledge. 


27.) ‘The Safe, The Sensitive, and the Severely Tested’  (2022) Synthese, with the statistician Brian Zaharatos.


(1.) Safety and sensitivity are not rivals. They play symbiotic roles within the relevant alternatives framework. 

(2) This essay translates Mayo's severe testing theory of statistical inference into mainstream modal epistemology.



26.) ‘Attunement: On the Cognitive Virtues of Attention’ (2022) Social Virtue Epistemology, eds. Mark Alfano, Jeroen de Ridder, & Colin Klein. Routledge.   


(i.) Attention is epistemically potent. 

(ii.) The normativity of attention is well-illuminated by virtue epistemology. 

(iii.) Attentional virtues and vices are traits of both individuals and collectives.


25.) ‘The Limits of Virtue?: Replies to Carter and Goldberg’ (2022) Social Virtue Epistemology, eds. Mark Alfano, Jeroen de Ridder, & Colin Klein. Routledge.   

(i.) Carter argues that resources from virtue reliabilism can explain the source of attention normativity. He modifies this virtue reliabilist AAA-framework to apply to attentional normativity. I raise concerns about Carter’s project. I suggest that true belief and proper attentional habits are not relevantly similar. 

(ii.) Goldberg claims that social roles underwrite kinds of attentional normativity that are not well-captured by virtue theory. I critically assess this claim. 


24.)  ‘Pragmatism, Skepticism, and Over-Compatibilism: On Michael Hannon’s What’s the Point of Knowledge? ’ (2022) Inquiry


23.) ‘The Banality of Vice’ (2022) Social Virtue Epistemology, eds. Mark Alfano, Jeroen de Ridder, & Colin Klein. Routledge.   


22.) ‘Antisocial Modelling’ (2022) Social Virtue Epistemology, eds. Mark Alfano, Jeroen de Ridder, & Colin Klein. Routledge.   


21.) ‘Banal Skepticism and the Errors of Doubt: On Ephecticism about Rape Accusations’ (2021) Midwest Studies in Philosophy


20.) ‘Opacity of Character: Virtue Ethics and the Legal Admissibility of Character Evidence’ (2021) Phil Issues 31, with Jacob Smith.   


19.) ‘Relevance and Risk: How the Relevant Alternatives Framework Models the Epistemology of Risk’ (2021) Synthese 199: 481-511.  

(i) evidence, stakes, and action

(ii) moral encroachment

(iii) social epistemic harms, such as gaslighting


18.) ‘The ‘‘She Said, He Said’’ Paradox and the Proof Paradox’ (2021) Truth and Trials: Dilemmas at the Intersection of Epistemology and Philosophy of Law, eds. Zachery Hoskins and Jon Robson. Routledge, 124-143. 


17.) ‘Evidence’ (2021) Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Duncan Pritchard.   

Section 1: Sketches the phenomenal conception of evidence and rival views. 

Section 2: Explains normative contours of evidence such as defeaters and higher order evidence. Describes views like evidentialism and uniqueness. 

Section 3: Emphasises the plurality of epistemic values of evidence. This includes increasing evidential balance, weight, and specificity, and enhancing cognitive character and habits. It is the most novel and innovative section. 


16.) ‘Book Review of Michael Hannon’s What’s the Point of Knowledge?: A Function-First Epistemology’ (2021) European Journal of Philosophy

(i.) Briefly explains function-first epistemology. 

(ii.) Aims to direct attention to ideas in Hannon’s monograph that will interest people who do not work within function-first methods in epistemology

(iii.) Criticises Hannon’s explanation of the value of knowledge and his response to the 'threshold problem' for knowledge.


15.) ‘Profiling and Proof: Are Statistics Safe?’  (2020) Philosophy 95(2).


14.) ‘Understanding in Epistemology’ (2020) The Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, Michael A. Peters (ed.) Springer.  



13.) ‘The Reasonable and the Relevant: Legal Standards of Proof’ (2019) Philosophy & Public Affairs


12.) ‘Legal Epistemology’ (2019) Oxford Bibliographies Online.


11.)  ‘Wisdom and Adversity: The Potential Role of Humility’ (2019)  with Tenelle Porter, Don E. Davis, and Jason Baehr, The Journal of Value Inquiry


10.) ‘Evidentialism and Moral Encroachment’  (2018) Believing in Accordance with the Evidence: New Essays on Evidentialism, Kevin McCain (ed.) Springer. 


9.) ‘Virtue Epistemology and Explanatory Salience’  (2018) The Routledge Handbook of Virtue Epistemology, Heather Battaly (ed.) Routledge.


8.) ‘Legal Burdens of Proof and Statistical Evidence’  (2018) The Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology, Coady, D and Chase, J (eds.) Routledge.


7.) ‘In Defence of Reasonable Doubt’  (2017) Journal of Applied Philosophy 34(2): 221-241.


6.) ‘Safety's Swamp: Against the Value of Modal Stability’  (2017) American Philosophical Quarterly 54(2): 119-129.


5.) ‘Coherence Without Conservation’ (2016) for invited symposium on Reason and Explanation by Ted Poston, in Syndicate Philosophy. 


4.) ‘Normalcy and the Contents of Philosophical Judgements’  (2015) Inquiry 58 (7): 700-740.


3.) ‘Teleologies and the Methodology of Epistemology’ (2015) in Epistemic Evaluation: Point and Purpose in Epistemology, Greco, J and Henderson, D (eds.) OUP. pp. 31-45.


2.) ‘The Commutativity of Evidence: A Problem for Conciliatory Views of Peer Disagreement’ (2014) Episteme 11: 83–95.



1.) ‘Understanding, Integration, and Epistemic Value’  (2012) Acta Analytica 27 (2): 163–181.

Drafts

3.) ‘Understanding and Emulation’  (Draft).


2.) ‘Defending Non-Summativism about Group Belief’  (Draft).


1.) ‘A-Quantification and the Semantics of Knowledge Attributions’  (Draft).


Theses

2.) In Pursuit of Understanding (2017) Doctoral Thesis, Rutgers University.


1.) A Defence of Robust Virtue Epistemology (2011) Master's Thesis, Edinburgh University.


Photo credits Emily McWilliams and Alex Worsnip.