Papers

“Methods, Processes, and Knowledge” (2023). In L. Oliveira, ed., Externalism About Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 25-52.

Methods have been a controversial element in theories of knowledge for the last 40 years. Recent developments in theories of justification, concerning the identification and individuation of belief-forming processes, can shed new light on methods, solving some longstanding problems in the theory of knowledge. We needn’t and shouldn’t shy away from methods; rather, methods, construed as psychological processes of belief-formation, need to play a central role in any credible theory of knowledge.

“Cognitive Diversity and the Contingency of Evidence” (2022). Synthese 200 (3), 202.

(Special issue on neurodiversity) "Evidence essentialism” holds that if e is evidence of h, for some agent at some time, then necessarily, e is evidence of h, for any agent at any time. I argue that such a view is only plausible if we ignore cognitive diversity among epistemic agents, i.e., the fact that different agents have different—sometimes radically different—cognitive skills, abilities, and proclivities. Instead, cognitive diversity shows that evidential relations are contingent and relative to cognizers. This is especially obvious in extreme cases (from pathological to gifted agents) and in connection with epistemic defeat, but it is also very plausibly true of ordinary agents, and regarding prima facie justification.

“The Structure of Defeat: Pollock’s Evidentialism, Lackey’s Framework, and Prospects for Reliabilism”, with Peter Graham. (2021). In M. Simion and J. Brown, eds., Reasons, Justification, and Defeat. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The standard, Pollockian, understanding of epistemic defeat is evidentialist. Lackey’s orthogonal view about defeat is deeply problematic. The Pollockian view can be purged of its evidentialism, making room for a reliabilist theory of defeat that is not evidentialist, responsibilist, or any significant concession to internalism. 

“Algorithm and Parameters: Solving the Generality Problem for Reliabilism”. (2019). Philosophical Review 128 (463-509).

The famous generality problem for reliabilism holds that there is no principled way to type-individuate cognitive processes. I develop one here, relying on well-established concepts from cognitive science. The result not only solves the generality problem, and integrates our epistemology with the brain sciences; it also allows us to make interesting, empirical, discoveries about justification. (And it makes good on claims I’ve sketched elsewhere about the epistemology of cognitive penetration.)

“Unconscious Evidence”. (2016). Philosophical Issues 26, 243-62. 

I argue that some unconscious beliefs can serve as evidence, but other unconscious beliefs cannot. Person-level beliefs can serve as evidence, but subpersonal beliefs cannot. I try to clarify the nature of the personal/subpersonal distinction and to show how my proposal illuminates various epistemological problems and provides a principled framework for solving other problems.

“What We Talk About When We Talk About Epistemic Justification” (2016). Inquiry 59(7-8), 867-88.

This is a bit of metaphilosophy. Stewart Cohen argues that epistemologists are better off theorizing in terms of rationality, rather than in terms of ‘epistemic justification’, as the latter is a messy and not properly explicated term of art. I argue that the concept picked out by ‘epistemic justification’ is nevertheless quite familiar, and partly because it’s a term of art, justification talk is a better vehicle for philosophical theorizing than rationality talk.

“Should Reliabilists Be Worried About Demon Worlds?” (2013). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86, 1-40.

The New Evil Demon Problem purports to show that straightforward versions of reliabilism are false: reliability is not necessary for justification after all. I argue that it does no such thing. The reliabilist can count a number of beliefs as justified even in demon worlds, others as unjustified but having positive epistemic status nonetheless. The remaining beliefs are not, on further reflection, intuitively justified after all, and the reliabilist is right to count them as unjustified in demon worlds.

“General Rules and the Justification of Probable Belief in Hume’s Treatise”. (2001). Hume Studies 27, 247-77.

Hume has a positive epistemology of probable belief in the Treatise. A distinction between good and bad “general rules”—roughly, statistical or universal generalizations about the world—play an important role. Justified beliefs are the ones that result from the influence of the "extensive" and "constant" general rules.

“Testimony, Induction, and Folk Psychology”. (1997). Australasian Journal of Philosophy 75, 163-78.

An influential argument for anti-reductionism about testimony, due to CAJ Coady, fails, because it assumes that an inductive global defense of testimony would proceed along effectively behaviorist lines. If we take seriously our wealth of non-testimonially justified folk psychological beliefs, the prospects for inductivism and reductionism look much better.

“Two Dogmas of Empirical Justification”. (2020). Philosophical Issues 30, 221-37.

It is very widely held that (a) perceptual beliefs get their justification from perceptual experiences, and (b) this is by being based on those experiences. I argue there are a priori reasons to doubt (a) and empirical reasons to doubt (b).

“Perception and Intuition of Evaluative Properties”. (2018). In A. Bergquist and R. Cowan (eds.) Evaluative Perception. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Outside of philosophy, ‘intuition’ means something like ‘knowing without knowing how you know’. Intuition in this broad sense is an important epistemological category, which includes perception. Although it is doubtful that we perceptually experience many evaluative properties, it is highly plausible that we intuit many instances of evaluative properties as such. The resulting epistemological status of evaluative property attributions is very much like it would be if we literally perceived such properties.

“Epistemological Problems of Perception”. (2016). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/perception-episprob/

An overview of the epistemology of perception

“Experiential Evidence?”. (2016). Philosophical Studies, 173(4), 1053-1079.

Much of the intuitive appeal of evidentialism results from conflating two importantly different conceptions of evidence. Perceptual experience, for example, is able to provide evidence in one sense of the term, although not in the sense that the evidentialist requires. I argue this parly by way of a reading of the Sellarsian dilemma that differs from the version standardly encountered in contemporary epistemology, one that is aimed initially at the epistemology of introspection but which generalizes to theories of perceptual justification as well. 

“Inferentialism and Cognitive Penetration of Perception”. (2016). Episteme 13, 1-28.

Inferentialism holds that cognitive penetration (the idea that what we think directly influences what we perceive) has negative epistemological consequences when and because it is or is akin to bad inference. I argue, with special attention to inferentialist theories by Siegel, Markie, and McGrath, that this is the wrong way to understand the epistemic import of cognitive penetration.

“Unencapsulated Modules and Perceptual Judgment”. (2015). In J. Zeimbekis and A. Raftopoulos, eds., The Cognitive Penetrability of Perception. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Two reasons we care about encapsulation/penetrability are: (a) encapsulation is sometimes held to be definitional of modularity, and (b) penetrability has epistemological implications independent of modularity. I argue that modularity does not require encapsulation; that modularity may have epistemological implications independently of encapsulation; and that the epistemological implications of the cognitive penetrability of perception are messier than is sometimes thought.

“Circularity, Reliability, and the Cognitive Penetrability of Perception”. (2011). Philosophical Issues 21, 289–311.

Cognitive penetration of perception (the idea that what we think directly influences what we perceive) is sometimes thought to have negative epistemic important because it would be very much like circular reasoning. Against this, I argue that penetration can be epistemically good, when—but only when—it increases the reliability of perception.

“Precis of Perception and Basic Beliefs”. (2011). Philosophical Studies 153, 443-6, and “Response to Critics”. (2011). Philosophical Studies 153, 477-88.

Both from a book symposium, on my 2009 Perception and Basic Beliefs. Symposiasts were Terry Horgan, Alvin Goldman, and Peter Graham.

“Perception and Virtue Reliabilism”. (2009). Acta Analytica 24, 249-61.

Ernest Sosa rejects the “perceptual model” of rational intuition, according to which beliefs are justified by standing in the appropriate relation to a nondoxastic intellectual experience. By extending some of Sosa’s arguments and adding a few of my own, I argue that we should reject the “perceptual model” of perception as well.

“Experience, Evidence, and Externalism”. (2008). Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86, 461-79.

The Sellarsian dilemma is a famous argument that attempts to show that nondoxastic experiential states cannot confer justification on basic beliefs. Sellars used it as an argument for coherentism, and most epistemologists find it quite unconvincing. By distinguishing between two importantly different justification relations (evidential and nonevidential), I hope to show that something like the Sellarsian dilemma does offer a powerful argument against standard epistemological views. But I use it to argue for a strongly externalist epistemology, not for coherentism.

“Cognitive Diversity and the Contingency of Evidence” (2022). Synthese 200 (3), 202.

(Special issue on neurodiversity) "Evidence essentialism” holds that if e is evidence of h, for some agent at some time, then necessarily, e is evidence of h, for any agent at any time. I argue that such a view is only plausible if we ignore cognitive diversity among epistemic agents, i.e., the fact that different agents have different—sometimes radically different—cognitive skills, abilities, and proclivities. Instead, cognitive diversity shows that evidential relations are contingent and relative to cognizers. This is especially obvious in extreme cases (from pathological to gifted agents) and in connection with epistemic defeat, but it is also very plausibly true of ordinary agents, and regarding prima facie justification.

“Two Dogmas of Empirical Justification”. (2020). Philosophical Issues 30, 221-37.

It is very widely held that (a) perceptual beliefs get their justification from perceptual experiences, and (b) this is by being based on those experiences. I argue there are a priori reasons to doubt (a) and empirical reasons to doubt (b). 

“Unconscious Evidence”. (2016). Philosophical Issues 26, 243-62. 

I argue that some unconscious beliefs can serve as evidence, but other unconscious beliefs cannot. Person-level beliefs can serve as evidence, but subpersonal beliefs cannot. I try to clarify the nature of the personal/subpersonal distinction and to show how my proposal illuminates various epistemological problems and provides a principled framework for solving other problems.

“Experiential Evidence?”. (2016). Philosophical Studies, 173(4), 1053-1079.

Much of the intuitive appeal of evidentialism results from conflating two importantly different conceptions of evidence. Perceptual experience, for example, is able to provide evidence in one sense of the term, although not in the sense that the evidentialist requires. I argue this parly by way of a reading of the Sellarsian dilemma that differs from the version standardly encountered in contemporary epistemology, one that is aimed initially at the epistemology of introspection but which generalizes to theories of perceptual justification as well. 

“Goldman on Evidence and Reliability”. (2016). In H. Kornblith and B. McLaughlin, eds., Goldman and His Critics. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Goldman has made recent moves in the direction of a reliabilist/evidentialist hybrid. I argue that fewer beliefs require evidence than Goldman thinks, that Goldman should construe evidential fit in process reliabilist terms, rather than the way he does, and that this process reliabilist understanding of evidence illuminates such important epistemological concepts as propositional justification, ex ante justification, and defeat.

“Experience, Evidence, and Externalism”. (2008). Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86, 461-79.

The Sellarsian dilemma is a famous argument that attempts to show that nondoxastic experiential states cannot confer justification on basic beliefs. Sellars used it as an argument for coherentism, and most epistemologists find it quite unconvincing. By distinguishing between two importantly different justification relations (evidential and nonevidential), I hope to show that something like the Sellarsian dilemma does offer a powerful argument against standard epistemological views. But I use it to argue for a strongly externalist epistemology, not for coherentism.

“Three Grades of Iconicity in Perception”. (2022). Asian Journal of Philosophy 1(2), 50.  

After critiquing some other well known views, I propose taking seriously an attempt to understand iconic representation in terms of similarity: a literal sharing of properties between the representation and representandum; and I try to spell this out in some detail. Three interestingly different grades of iconicity emerge, depending on what kind of property is shared and whether this happens at the level of the individual representation or the representational scheme. Finally, I turn to the question whether iconic representation is a mark of perceptual representation. I think no, not for any of the three grades, but I do suggest a speculative, Kantian possibility whereby all perceptual representation has an iconic element. 

“Clades, Capgras, and Perceptual Kinds”. (2005). Philosophical Topics 33, 185-206. (actual publication date 2007) 

I defend a moderate view about the contents of perception, by developing an account of perceptual kinds as perceptual similarity classes, which are convex regions in similarity space. For any property P, a perceptual state of O can represent something as P only if P is coextensive with some perceptual kind for O. 'Dog' and 'chair' will be perceptual kinds for most normal people, 'blackpool warbler' for the expert birdwatcher but not for the rest of us, 'dangerous', 'familiar', or 'meaning that the cat is on the mat' for none of us.

“In Defense of Epiphenomenalism”. (2006). Philosophical Psychology 19, 767-94.

Recent worries about possible epiphenomenalist consequences of nonreductive materialism are misplaced, but because the epiphenomenalist implications are actually virtues of the theory, rather than vices. It is only by showing how certain kinds of mental properties are causally impotent (qua properties) that cognitive scientific explanations of mentality as we know them are possible.

“Perceptual Belief and Nonexperiential Looks”. (2005). Philosophical Perspectives 19, 237-56.

The “looks” of things are frequently invoked (a) to account for the epistemic status of perceptual beliefs and (b) to distinguish perceptual from inferential beliefs. ‘Looks’ for these purposes is normally understood in terms of a perceptual experience and its phenomenal character. Here I argue that there is also a nonexperiential sense of ‘looks’—one that relates to cognitive architecture, rather than phenomenology—and that this nonexperiential sense can do the work of (a) and (b).

“The Cognitive Impenetrability of Early Vision: What’s the Claim?” (2020). Revista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia 11, 372-84.

Raftopoulos’s latest book argues, among other things, for the cognitive impenetrability of early vision. As contribution to this book symposium, I explore several different things that Raftopoulos and others might mean by “early vision” and by “cognitive penetration”. I argue that we need a single criterion, not a mishmash of distinct criteria, and that cognitive penetration should not be defined in epistemological terms. Finally, I raise some questions about how we are to understand the “directness” of certain putative cognitive influences on perception and about whether there’s a decent rationale for restricting directness in the way that Raftopoulos apparently does.

“Unencapsulated Modules and Perceptual Judgment”. (2015). In J. Zeimbekis and A. Raftopoulos, eds., The Cognitive Penetrability of Perception. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Two reasons we care about encapsulation/penetrability are: (a) encapsulation is sometimes held to be definitional of modularity, and (b) penetrability has epistemological implications independent of modularity. I argue that modularity does not require encapsulation; that modularity may have epistemological implications independently of encapsulation; and that the epistemological implications of the cognitive penetrability of perception are messier than is sometimes thought.

“Lesion Studies, Spared Performance, and Cognitive Systems”. (2003). Cortex 39, 145-7.

Reprinted in J. L Bermudez and B. Towl (eds.), Philosophy of Psychology: Vol. II: The Organization of Mind. Routledge. (2012).

A short discussion piece arguing that the neuropsychological phenomenon of double dissociations is most revealing of underlying cognitive architecture because of the capacities that are spared, more than the capacities that are lost.

“Carving the Mind at its (Not Necessarily Modular) Joints”. (2001). British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52, 277-302.

Reprinted in J. L Bermudez and B. Towl (eds.), Philosophy of Psychology: Vol. II: The Organization of Mind. Routledge. (2012).

The cognitive neurospsychological understanding of a cognitive (sub)system is that of something that is independent of other cognitive systems, specializes in some cognitive task, and exhibits a certain internal cohesiveness. Making all this more precise makes it possible to articulate in detail an alternative to a Fodorian doctrine of modularity, but one that still sees the mind as containing distinct parts.

“Three Grades of Iconicity in Perception”. (2022). Asian Journal of Philosophy 1(2), 50.

After critiquing some other well known views, I propose taking seriously an attempt to understand iconic representation in terms of similarity: a literal sharing of properties between the representation and representandum; and I try to spell this out in some detail. Three interestingly different grades of iconicity emerge, depending on what kind of property is shared and whether this happens at the level of the individual representation or the representational scheme. Finally, I turn to the question whether iconic representation is a mark of perceptual representation. I think no, not for any of the three grades, but I do suggest a speculative, Kantian possibility whereby all perceptual representation has an iconic element. 

“Contents of the Approximate Number System". (2021). Behavioral and Brain Sciences 44, 195.

Commentary on target article by Clarke and Beck. Against their proposal that the approximate number system represents rational numbers, I argue that it represents (approximate) natural numbers and ratios among them.

“The Epistemological Import of Morphological Content”. (2014). Philosophical Studies 169, 537–47.

Morphological content (MC) is content that is implicit in the standing structure of the cognitive system. Henderson and Horgan claim that MC plays a distinctive epistemological role unrecognized by traditional epistemic theories. I consider the possibilities that MC plays this role either in central cognition or in peripheral modules. I argue that the peripheral MC does not play an interesting epistemological role and that the central MC is already recognized by traditional theories.

“Representational Analyticity”. (2005). Mind and Language 20, 392-422.

The traditional understanding of analyticity in terms of concept containment is revisited, but here with a concept explicitly understood as a certain kind of mental representation and containment being read correspondingly literally. The resulting conception of analyticity avoids much of the vagueness associated with attempts to explicate analyticity in terms of synonymy by moving the locus of discussion from the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind.

“Hill on Perceptual Contents, Thouless Properties, and Representational Pluralism” (2024). Mind and Language, 96-101.

Part of a symposium on Christopher Hill’s book, Perceptual experience. Hill argues that perceptual experiences typically represent objects as having exotic properties that he calls Thouless properties. This and his representational pluralism allow him to attribute less perceptual error than the view that experiences represent simple relational properties (only). However, I think it is plausible that perceptual systems do make these sorts of errors, which although pervasive and systematic, are relatively subtle and perfectly explicable. I also express some concerns about representational pluralism, especially in the context of a representationalist view of the phenomenal character of experience.

“Capacities Second (or Never)”. (forthcoming). Perceptual Experience and Empirical Reason 2021 conference proceedings.

From the 2021 PEER conference at University of Pittsburgh. In this brief piece, I argue that Susanna Schellenberg's "capacities first" epistemology and philosophy of mind gets the explanatory role of capacities wrong. Capacities--at least the way she construe them--do not have explanatory priority, and we're likely better off without them.

“The Cognitive Impenetrability of Early Vision: What’s the Claim?” (2020). Revista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia 11, 372-84.

Raftopoulos’s latest book argues, among other things, for the cognitive impenetrability of early vision. As contribution to this book symposium, I explore several different things that Raftopoulos and others might mean by “early vision” and by “cognitive penetration”. I argue that we need a single criterion, not a mishmash of distinct criteria, and that cognitive penetration should not be defined in epistemological terms. Finally, I raise some questions about how we are to understand the “directness” of certain putative cognitive influences on perception and about whether there’s a decent rationale for restricting directness in the way that Raftopoulos apparently does.

“The Epistemological Import of Morphological Content”. (2014). Philosophical Studies 169, 537–47.

Morphological content (MC) is content that is implicit in the standing structure of the cognitive system. Henderson and Horgan claim that MC plays a distinctive epistemological role unrecognized by traditional epistemic theories. I consider the possibilities that MC plays this role either in central cognition or in peripheral modules. I argue that the peripheral MC does not play an interesting epistemological role and that the central MC is already recognized by traditional theories.

“Sosa on Reflective Knowledge and Knowing Full Well”. (2013). Philosophical Studies 166, 609-16.

Part of a book symposium on Ernest Sosa's Knowing Full Well. Here I try to get clearer on what Sosa might mean by reflective knowledge in contrast with animal knowledge and what epistemic role it is supposed to play.

Review of J. L. Zalabardo, Scepticism and Reliable Belief. (2016). International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 6, 412-417.

Critical Notice of Chris Tucker, ed., Seemings and Justification: New Essays on Dogmatism and Phenomenal Conservatism. (2015). Analysis 75, 153-164.

Focus is on the question of what seemings might be to play the role dogmatist/phenomenal conservative theories require, and whether a "seemings externalism" might be preferable.

Review of Willem A. deVries, ed., Empiricism, Perceptual Knowledge, Normativity, and Realism: Essays on Wilfrid Sellars. (2013). Mind 122, 274-8.

Review of Athanassios Raftopoulos, Cognition and Perception: How Do Psychology and Neural Science Inform Philosophy? (2010). Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Commentary on Sanford Goldberg's Relying on Others. Unpublished, for an APA Author-Meets-Critics session.