research

I work mainly in epistemology, but I also think about philosophical logic and defeasible reasoning. A few papers that are in progress can be found below (most recent first):

• “The Problem of the Basing Relation Disposed.” In this paper I argue that causal analyses of the basing relation cannot account for important structural features of the basing relation and that meta-doxastic analyses over-intellectualize the basing relation. In their place I propose a novel dispositional analysis. 27 June 2008: Revised draft will be up in about a week.
• “The Infinite Progress of Klein’s epistemology.” In this paper I argue that Klein is committed to unjustified foundationalism; argues, pace Bergmann, that Klein’s solution to the regress problem is a genuine infinitist solution; and rebuts six objections to unjustified foundationslim. Soon it will morph into (or spawn) a new paper that argues that there are two (though not only two) irreducible types of justification: one concerns the etiology of beliefs and the other concerns the practice of defending beliefs.
• “Basic Knowledge is Easy (to Lose).” In this paper I argue that the addition of a no-defeater condition on knowledge commits externalists to various level connections. These level connections generate an interesting phænomenon that I call the easy come, easy go phænomenon. I think this feature of externalist knowledge can be used to explain why it is more valuable than internalist knowledge; I hope to argue for that in another paper.
• “Knowing that One Knows Revisited.” An oldie but (I think) goodie. I argue that the standard analysis of knowing that one knows (frequently invoked in discussion of the KK-thesis) is essentially flawed.

I’ve also been thinking quite a bit about pragmatic encroachment in epistemology (via both assertion and action). I’d like to defend classical invariantism against the twin hydras of contextualism and subject-sensitive invariantism. I think I can.