Books
Meaning Without Representation: Essays on Truth, Expression, Normativity, and Naturalism -
Edited by Steven Gross, Nicholas Tebben, and Michael Williams (Oxford UP).
Much contemporary thinking about language is animated by the idea that the core function of language is to represent how the world is, and that therefore the notion of representation should play a fundamental role in any account of meaning or language use. This volume brings together leading thinkers in the field who explore ways in which this idea may be challenged as well as obstacles to developing various forms of anti- representationalism. Here is a link to the table of contents.
Published Papers
The Community of Rational Beings - in Koons and Loeffler eds. Ethics, Practical Reasoning, Agency: Wilfrid Sellars’s Practical Philosophy. (Routledge).
Sellars’ moral theory is explicitly Kantian, but he despaired of providing a justification for morality that mirrors Kant’s. This article argues that Sellars has the resources to provide such a justification. To act immorally, on the view developed here, is to act against one’s own nature. It is, in a way, to deny that one is a person. And so, the necessity of respecting the moral law comes from the necessity of respecting oneself.
Expert Testimony and Practical Interests - in Inquiry (co-authored with John P. Waterman)
We argue that one is likely to accept what a speaker says when the expected utility of accepting their testimony is greater than the expected utility of continuing inquiry. One virtue of our hypothesis is that it allows us to explain why confidence in experts has declined in recent years. In a traditional media landscape expert testimony is easy to find, and alternative sources of information are relatively costly to access. Hence, practical considerations largely favour accepting expert testimony. But on social media, alternative information is easy to find, and it is often practically rational to accept this information rather than to search for (and identify) genuinely expert testimony.
Those with a subscription to Inquiry, please access the article through this link: Expert Testimony (subscription required)
If neither of the above work, you can also use this link: submitted version
Inferentialism is as Compositional as it needs to be - in Contemporary Pragmatism
Normative inferentialism is a semantic theory according to which the meaning of an expression is, or is determined by, its proper inferential role. Critics of inferentialism often argue that it violates the principle of compositionality, and that it is therefore unable to explain some important linguistic data. I have two tasks in this paper: the first is to demonstrate that inferentialism, appearances perhaps to the contrary, does not violate the principle of compositionality, and the second is to explain why this demonstration is unlikely to mollify critics of inferentialism. The dispute between inferentialists and their critics, I shall argue, is not about compositionality, it is a more fundamental dispute about the nature of representations.
Assertions and their Function - in The Journal of Philosophical Research.
I argue that the norms of assertion are engendered by the function of assertions, and that the function of assertions is, roughly, to facilitate the transmission of information from those who have it to those who need it. Assertions can play this role if they are governed by two norms. One norm is deontic in nature, and specifies the conditions under which a speaker may issue an assertion. I argue that the deontic norm permits A to issue an assertion to B if and only if: (1) doing so would improve B’s epistemic position with regards to the proposition thus conveyed, and (2) the proposition conveyed is justified (for A) in a way, and to a degree, appropriate to the purposes for which B is likely to use it. The other is not deontic; it says what it is for an assertion to be good, qua assertion. This is a truth norm. Assertions ought to be true, in that an assertion is good, qua assertion, when it is true.
The Paradox of Patience - in Southwest Philosophy Review
Some normative theories—act utilitarianism and rational decision theory among them—both designate some range of outcomes as particularly important, and, with an eye towards securing those outcomes, provide agents with advice concerning what is to be done. In this paper I argue that there are situations in which these two aspects of such theories are in tension. I provide a handful of conditions that, when jointly satisfied, pick out situations in which these theories recommend that agents act in ways that do not contribute to the outcomes on which they place value.
Selfless Assertions and the Knowledge Norm - Synthese 2020.
If a speaker selflessly asserts that p, the speaker (1) has good evidence that p is true, (2) asserts that p on the basis of that evidence, but (3) does not believe that p. Selfless assertions are widely thought to be acceptable, and therefore to pose a threat to the Knowledge Norm of Assertion. Advocates for the Knowledge Norm tend to respond to this threat by arguing that there are no such things as selfless assertions. They argue that those who appear to be selfless asserters either: believe what they assert, perform a speech act other than assertion, or assert a proposition other than the one that they seem to. I argue that such counterarguments are unsuccessful. There really are selfless assertions. But I also argue that they are no threat to the Knowledge Norm. There is a good case to be made that knowledge does not require belief. And if it does not, then the fact that some selfless assertions are appropriate does not tell against the Knowledge Norm.
Knowledge Requires Commitment (Instead of Belief) - Philosophical Studies, 176, 321-338.
I argue that S knows that p implies that S is properly committed to the truth of p, not that S believes that p. Belief is not required for knowledge because it is possible that one could know that there are no beliefs. Being ‘properly committed’ to the truth of a proposition is a matter of having a certain normative status, not occupying a particular psychological state. After arguing that knowledge requires commitment instead of belief, I go on to demonstrate the theoretical utility of this hypothesis.
Realism, Inferential Semantics, and the Truth Norm - Synthese
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1516-7
Characteristic of neo-pragmatism is a commitment to deflationism about semantic properties, and inferentialism about conceptual content. It is usually thought that deflationism undermines the distinction between realistic discourses and others, and that the neo-pragmatists, unlike the classical pragmatists, cannot recognize that truth is a norm of belief and inquiry. I argue, however, that (1) the distinction between realistic discourses and others can be maintained even in the face of a commitment to deflationism, and (2) that neo-pragmatists can recognize that truth is a norm of belief and inquiry. If deflationism is true, realistic discourses, it turns out, are those that are inferentially integrated with a large body of other commitments, whereas those that call for an anti-realist treatment are inferentially isolated. Now, Grimm has persuasively argued that inquiry aims at achieving understanding, and that to understand something is, roughly, to grasp a large body of inferential connections in which it features. So, if he is right, realistic discourses are those in which the aim of inquiry can be achieved. This fact, together with an inferential theory of conceptual content, will, I argue, allow neo-pragmatists to recognize truth as a norm of belief and inquiry, despite their commitment to deflationism.
Belief Isn't Voluntary, but Commitment Is - Synthese, 195, 1163-1179.
To be committed to the truth of a proposition is to constrain one’s options in a certain way: one may not reason as if it is false, and one is obligated to reason as if it is true. Though one is often committed to the truth of the propositions that one believes, the states of belief and commitment are distinct. For historical reasons, however, they are rarely distinguished. Distinguishing between the two states allows for a defense of epistemic deontology against the charge that beliefs are not under the voluntary control of believers, and so cannot be subject to deontic evaluation. It also allows for the resolution of some disputes between naturalists and non- naturalists in epistemology, and permits us to account for obvious facts about the connection between belief and truth in a theoretically parsimonious way.
Deontology and Doxastic Control - Synthese, 191, 2835-2847.
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-014-0423-4
Matthias Steup has developed a compatibilist account of doxastic control, according to which one’s beliefs are under one’s control if and only if they have a “good” causal history. Paradigmatically good causal histories include being caused to believe what one’s evidence indicates, whereas bad ones include those that indicate that the believer is blatantly irrational or mentally ill. I argue that if this is the only kind of control that we have over our beliefs, then our beliefs are not properly subject to epistemic evaluation in deontological terms. I take as premises the claims (1) that acts which violate a deontic standard must be under the control of the agent that performs them, and (2) that deontic standards are deontic standards only if there is both something that it is to comply with them, and something that it is to violate them. The argument proceeds by showing that any belief which one might take to violate a deontic standard of a distinctively epistemic kind has a “bad” causal history, and so is, according to the compatibilist account, not under our control. Since these beliefs are not under our control, it follows from premise (1) that they do not violate any deontic standards of a distinctively epistemic kind. It then follows, from premise (2), that there are no deontic standards, of a distinctively epistemic kind, that govern belief. So if we have only compatibilist control over our beliefs, our beliefs are not properly subject to epistemic evaluation in deontological terms.
Counterfeit Testimony: Lies, Trust, and the Exchange of Information - Philosophical Studies, 173, 3101-3117.
Co-authored with John P. Waterman.
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0652-0
Most explanations of the rational authority of testimony provide little guidance when evaluating individual pieces of testimony. In practice, however, we are remarkably sensitive to the varying epistemic credentials of testimony: extending trust when it is deserved, and withholding it when it is not. A complete account of the epistemology of testimony should, then, have something to say about when it is that testimony is trustworthy. In the typical case, to judge someone trustworthy requires judging them to be competent and sincere. In this essay we develop an exchange-based account of testimony that shows how those who receive testimony are in a position to evaluate the sincerity of speakers.
Anti-Representational Semantics: Four Themes - In Meaning Without Representation (Oxford)
This is the introductory chapter of Meaning Without Representation. In it I discuss the nature and promise of, as well as the challenges to, anti-representational approaches to the theory of meaning. Along the way I provide summaries of all of the other contributions to the volume.
Peer Disagreement and the Limits of Coherent Error Attribution - Logos & Episteme: An International Journal of Epistemology, 4, 179-197.
There are limits to how much irrationality one can attribute, either to oneself or to others. In this paper I argue that disagreeing with an epistemic peer requires attributing irrationality to oneself or one's peer. The limits on coherent error attribution, I claim, show that one ought to respond to one-off disagreements with a single peer
by maintaining one's beliefs, but that one ought to respond to repeated disagreement, or disagreements with many peers, by moderating one's beliefs. Finally, I argue that only a response to peer disagreement of this kind is important because only such a response strikes the right balance between letting researchers pursue projects
which seem to them to be worthwhile, and requiring them to pursue projects that the community of experts as a whole believes likely to yield significant results.
On the Prospects for Naturalism - in Baumgartner et al eds. Metaphysics or Modernity? (Bamberg University Press), 235-248.
Contemporary naturalism has two components. The first is ontological, and says, roughly, that all and only what the sciences say exists, really does exist. The other is methodological, and it says that only scientific explanations are legitimate explanations. If these commitments were true, we would have an internally coherent picture of the world, that is nicely integrated with an attractive epistemology. Despite the obvious appeal of naturalism, I would like to sound a note of caution. First, I would argue that naturalism's ontological commitment cannot be vindicated. Not, that is, that it is false, rather, I argue that any attempt to show that it is true presupposes that it is not. Second, I argue that methodological naturalism is false. But, again, the problem is not straightforward. I will not claim that there are gaps in the explanations offered by science, such that the scientific project would be incomplete without emendation. Instead I argue that the goodness of an explanation depends, in part, on how the event to be explained is described, and that, some events, under some descriptions, call for non-scientific explanations.
Epistemic Free Riders and Reasons to Trust Testimony - with John Philip Waterman - Social Epistemology, 29, 270-279.
Sinan Dogramaci has recently developed a view according to which epistemic evaluations – like calling someone’s behavior ‘rational’ or ‘irrational’ – encourages or discourages the behavior evaluated. This view promises to explain the rational authority of testimony, by guaranteeing that, in the long run, epistemic procedures will be shared throughout a community. We argue that Dogramaci’s view is unsatisfactory, for two reasons. First, the social practice at its heart is vulnerable to free riders. Second, even if the problem of free riders can be solved, it ‘alienates’ epistemic agents from the testimony that they receive, in that, though they will accept testimony from their fellows, they will have no reason to do so. We argue that a more satisfactory view can be had if we couple the genuine insights that are to be found in Dogramaci’s proposal with the recognition that testimony is an excludible good that is often distributed according to market forces. It is this fact about testimony that discourages free riding, and, when coupled with an amended version of Dogramaci’s view, provides agents with a reason to trust testimony.
Cartesian Skepticism and Internal Realism - Principia, 17, 251-264.
The Cartesian skeptic’s strategy is to tell a story about the world that is entirely consistent with all of the empirical evidence that we do, or can, have, but according to which many or all of our ordinary beliefs are false. He then suggests that, since we cannot show that his story is false, we ought to surrender those beliefs. In this paper I offer a decision-theoretic response to skepticism. Say that a cognitive attitude is a propositional attitude that may be true or false. Paradoxical though this sounds, I argue that rejecting the skeptic’s story, and so retaining our ordinary opinions, will yield for us true cognitive attitudes, no matter whether the skeptic’s story is true or false, and that the best any alternative can do is yield no cognitive attitudes at all. Hence, it is rational to retain our ordinary opinions. One may be concerned that I can maintain this surprising conclusion because the cognitive attitudes at issue are not real beliefs, and do not represent the real world. I conclude the paper by arguing that this concern is misplaced.
Unpublished Papers
Beliefs and Commitments in Collective Epistemology
I argue that “group beliefs” are often best understood as commitments to the truth of a proposition, rather than as psychological states. At the heart of the matter is the fact that groups can know the same propositions that individuals can, but that, under the most plausible account of the mental content of groups, they could not possibly believe the same propositions as individuals. This is not to undermine the possibility of group knowledge. Arguably, what is epistemically important about the belief condition on knowledge is not that beliefs are psychological states, but that believing a proposition is one way of endorsing it, and so becoming answerable for its truth. Groups may not be capable of believing the same propositions as individuals, but they are capable of endorsing them.
I argue that seeing oneself as an agent requires seeing the objects of one's desires as desirable. Doing so requires possessing a system of mutually supporting normative explanations. Borrowing from recent work in epistemology and the philosophy of science, I say that it requires a kind of normative understanding. Popular forms of naturalism, however, hold that only scientific explanation (and, hence, only scientific understanding) is legitimate. I argue, however, that the success of scientific investigation supports the thesis that science is complete, not that it has an exhaustive to claim to legitimate explanation. Building on some of Putnam's work, I argue that, even if there is a scientific explanation of every fact, there may still be non-scientific explanations that allow us to retain the perspective from which we can see ourselves as agents.