Joe Salerno (Ph.D., Ohio State University, 1999) is associate professor at St Louis University. He was a visiting researcher at the Jean Nicod Institute in Paris (2010-2011) and research fellow at the RSSS philosophy program at Australian National University in 2008.  He is the editor of New Essays on the Knowability Paradox and a special issue of Synthese titled Knowability and Beyond.  Current research includes papers on modal epistemic paradoxes and epistemic modals. 

Publications  

Non-Final Drafts

• Knowability and Beyond.  (ed.), Special issue of Synthese 173, No 1, 2010.
  
• "The Knowability Paradox" in S. Bernecker, and D. Pritchard (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, Routledge, 2010.   
  
• New Essays on the Knowability Paradox (ed.), OUP, 2009.  20 new essays on the paradox, including some unpublished stuff by Alonzo Church.  
• "Knowability Noir: 1945-1963' to appear in Salerno J. (ed.) New Essays on the Knowability Paradox, Oxford University Press, 2010.  The paper is an account of the early history of Fitch's knowability paradox. It evaluates an unpublished debate between Fitch and his anonymous referee (Alonzo Church) for a JSL submission in 1945. Their debate foreshadows some recent discussion and helps to explain what the knowability result is doing in Fitch's 1963 paper. 
• "Referee Reports on Fitch's 'A Definition of Value' " J. Salerno and  J. Murzi (eds.), to appear in Salerno J. (ed.) NEKP, OUP, 2010.  An edition of a pair of anonymous referee reports authored by Alonzo Church in 1945.  They mark the earliest known discussion of the modal epistemic result known as Fitch's knowability paradox.  They will be printed in their entirety with the kind permission of Alonzo Church, Jr.  Here is a link to the archival documentation page.  The editors' appendix to the reports is here.
  
• "Counterfactuals and Context" with B. Brogaard, Analysis 68:1, 2008.  We discuss what we take to be a contextual fallacy in the standard logic of counterfactuals.
  

• "Remarks on Counterpossibles" with B. Brogaard, in Johan van Benthem, Vincent F. Hendricks, John Symons, and Stig Andur Pedersen, (eds.), Between Logic and Intuition: David Lewis and the Future of Formal Methods in Philosophy, Synthese Library, forthcoming.   The paper defends a non-vacuous reading of counterpossible conditionals.
  

• "Truth-tracking and the Problem of Reflective Knowledge" in Keim-Campbell J. and M. O'Rourke (eds.), Topics in Contemporary Philosophy, Volume 5: Knowledge and Skepticism, MIT Press, forthcoming.
  The paper questions the received view that the special case of reflective knowledge provides reason for abandoning Nozick conditionals in favor of Sosa conditionals in an attempt to explicate what is right about epistemic externalism.

• "Knowability, Possibility and Paradox" with B. Brogaard, in V. Hendricks and D. Pritchard (eds.), New Waves in Epistemology, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Quantified expressions play a special role in modal contexts. On the account of this special role articulated by Stanley and Szabo, we propose a solution to the knowability paradoxes. 

• "Williamson on Counterpossibles" with B. Brogaard, The Reasoner 1(3), 2007.
  

• "Why Counterpossibles are Non-Trivial" with B. Brogaard, The Reasoner 1:1,  2007.  Here we provide several reasons for favoring a non-vacuous reading of counterpossibles: besides preserving some familiar pre-theoretic intuitions, such a treatment explains the non-triviality of counterfactual philosophy and facilitates a modal analysis of essence.
  

• "Knowability and a Modal Closure Principle" with B. Brogaard, American Philosophical Quarterly, 43:3, 2006. This is a study of an alleged incompatibility (proposed by Sven Rosenkranz) between normal modal logic and factive conceptions of knowability.
  

• "Anti-realism, Theism and the Conditional Fallacy" with B. Brogaard, Noûs, 39:1, 2005. Here we disagree with Plantinga and Rea that the best way to be an anti-realist is to be a theist. We argue, however, that without a massive revision of classical logic, the anti-realist will have to embrace an unwelcome form of idealism. 

• "Fitch's Paradox of Knowability" with B. Brogaard, in Zalta, E. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2002 and Summer 2004 Editions. Survey of proposals to resolve the knowability paradox. 

• "Clues to the Paradoxes of Knowability: Reply to Dummett and Tennant" with B. Brogaard, Analysis, 62:2, 2002.
  The paper develops some new paradoxes of knowability that, unlike Fitch's original paradox, are not blocked by the restricted brands of semantic anti-realism advocated by Dummett and Tennant. 

• On Frege, Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2001. The book (98 pp.) was written to introduce Frege's philosophy of language and logic to intro students. 

• "Revising the Logic of Logical Revision", Philosophical Studies, 99:2, 2000.
  The paper develops the argument that semantic anti-realism entails a rejection of classical logic.

Talks

• "Epistemic Modal Eavesdropping: a straight solution to a relativist challenge" presented at the Epistemology Brown Bag Series at Northwestern University, October 24th, 2012.
  
• "Indicative conditionals and embedded epistemic modals" presented to the 1st Milano-Paris Workshop on Mind and Language, in Milan Italy on May 28, 2011.
• "Embedded Epistemic Modals", presented to the Metaphysics and Logic Group, Goethe University of Frankfurt, April 19, 2011.
• “Some Modal Epistemic Disagreements" presented to the CPR workshop at the Jean-Nicod Institute, Paris France, February 28, 2011.
  
• “Epistemic Modals in Action" presented to the KnowJust research group at the Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris France, January 28, 2011.
• “Epistemic Modals: Relativism and Ignorance” presented at the Midwest Epistemology Workshop, Saint Louis University, September 25, 2009. 
  
• “Relativism and Ignorance” Themes from Crispin Wright, workshop at Australian National University, July 16, 2009.
• “Embedded Epistemic Modals” present to the Australasian Association of Philosophy, Melbourne, Australia, July 2009.  
• “Embedded Epistemic Modals” RSSS Philosophy Seminar, Australian National University, May 21, 2009. 
  
• “Propositions as Hyperintensions” with B. Brogaard, Hyperintensionality and Impossible Worlds, workshop at Australian National University, Nov. 26, 2008.  
• “Must and Can” presented to the American Philosophical Association, Philadelphia, December, 2008.
  
• "A New Paradox of Happiness" presented to the Philosophy Department at  the University of Auckland, New Zealand, August 8, 2008. 
  
• "A New Paradox of Happiness" presented to the Philosophy Department at Victoria University, Wellington NZ, August 7, 2008.
  
• "A New Paradox of Happiness" presented to the Philosophy Department at the University of Otago, Dunedin NZ, August 6, 2008.
• "Must and Can" presented to the Australasian Association of Philosophy, Melbourne, July 11, 2008.
  
• "A New Paradox of Happiness" presented to the Philosophy Society, Australian National University, May 20, 2008.
  
• "Must and Can" Epistemology at the Beach, ANU-Kioloa, Australia, February 15, 2008. [pics]
  
• "Counterpossibles, Impossible Worlds and Essence" with B. Brogaard,  discussed at the Arizona Ontology Conference, January 2008.  Organizer: L. A. Paul.  [pics]

• "Counterpossible Conditionals" RSSS Philosophy Seminar, Australian National University, November 8. 

• "Counterpossible Conditionals", University of Sydney, October 17. 

• "Counterpossible Conditionals", presented to the IPHST at Université Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, October 8, 2007. 

• "Remarks on Counterpossibles", with B. Brogaard, 1st Synthese Annual Conference, Copenhagen, October 3, 2007.  Program Committee: Johan van Benthem, Vincent F. Hendricks, John Symons, and Stig Andur Pedersen. 

• "Remarks on Counterpossibles," with B. Brogaard, Epistemology Workshop, University of Edinburgh, May 15, 2007.   Other speakers: Ram Neta, Duncan Pritchard, and Jonathan Schaffer.
  

• "The Most General Factive Mental State Operator,"  International Conference on Linguistics and Epistemology, University of Aberdeen. May 12-13, 2007.  Keynotes by Kent Bach, Peter Ludlow, Jonathan Schaffer & Jason Stanley.  

• "Knowability Noir: 1945-1963" NAMICONA Epistemology Workshop, Department of Philosophy, University of Copenhagen. August 22, 2006
  

• "Knowability Noir: 1945-1963" presented at the Logic Tea to the Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation, at the University of Amsterdam. May 23, 2006. 

• "The History and Significance of the Knowability Paradox" colloquium at the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the Goethe University of Frankfurt. May 15, 2006. 

• "Who Discovered Fitch's Paradox and Why Won't it Go Away?", Pacific Division of the APA. March 24, 2006.
  Commentator: Ali Kazmi.
  

• "Knowability, Possibility and Paradox" with B. Brogaard. Book launch event for V. Hendricks and D. Pritchard's New Waves in Epistemology. Pacific Division of the APA. March 24, 2006. 

• "Truth-tracking and the Problem of Reflective Knowledge". Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference: Knowledge and Skepticism. April, 2004. [Pics]

• "Tracking and Safety: Some Counterexamples". Pacific Division of the APA, March 2004.
  Commentator: Steven Luper. 

• "Anti-realism, Theism and the Conditional Fallacy" with B. Brogaard. Central Division of the APA. 2003.
  Commentator: Michael Rea.

Other Activities

• Commentary on Salvatore Florio and Julien Murzi's "Paradox of Idealization" at the Eastern APA, Baltimore 2007.  

• Commentary on Pascal Engel's "Pragmatic Encroachment and Epistemic Value" to be given at the Epistemic Value Conference at the University of Stirling, August 20, 2006.  [Pics]
  

• Commentary on Jon Cogburn's "Moore Problems with Anti-realism". Central Division of the APA. Chicago, April, 2006. 

• Commentary on Mylan Engel's "Contextualism and the Problem of Semantic Ignorance". Illinois Philosophical Association. November 5, 2005. 

• Panel discussant for the Kline Conference on Knowledge, Closure and Lotteries at University of Missouri-Columbia, October 31-November 1, 2003. [Pics]