Publications

Forthcoming. “The Problem of Warranted Objections,” Philosophical Quarterly

• Disagreement is common. What happens when epistemic peers disagree over some issue p, where A believes p but B believes not-p? Conciliationism says that both A and B should suspend judgment after learning of their disagreement. But suppose A is the first to assert on the matter. B is then the first to learn of their disagreement. Does B have warrant to assert not-p in response? Answering this question leads to a surprising conclusion: the epistemic norm of assertion is incompatible with conciliationism.

In progress

Paper on the social epistemology of philosophy (under review)

• We disagree over trivial things, like how much we owe at the end of a meal. We disagree over significant things, like philosophy, politics, or religion. The former are one-off disagreements; the latter are systematic. Some think that the nature of systematic peer disagreement requires us to revise our conception of the norm of assertion. This is mistaken. There is a generalized version of the problem of systematic peer disagreement called the problem of warranted objections. The solution to both is not to revise our conception of the norm of assertion but to deny that evidence of peer disagreement undermines the rationality of belief. Even so, systematic disagreement is troubling, just not for the reason many think.

Paper on disagreement & testimony (under review)

• Conciliationists say that peer disagreement undermines the rationality of belief. This paper argues otherwise. Even under conditions of peer disagreement, if you competently share your reasoning, you can transmit knowledge and justification to your interlocutor. But testimony can only transmit knowledge and justification if the testifier knows and justifiably believes. So, in such cases peer disagreement doesn’t undermine the rationality of belief. Conciliationism is false.

Paper on peer disagreement & hinge epistemology (draft available)

• We disagree about a lot of things. Sometimes, we disagree with people who (we should think) are as intelligent and as well-informed as we are. Epistemologists say that in such cases, we disagree with an epistemic peer. How should we respond when we learn that we disagree with an epistemic peer? Conciliationism is the view which says that you are rationally required to reduce confidence in your initial belief. In this paper, I do two things. First, I raise a problem for conciliationism. Second, I provide a solution. The problem is that the view appears to lead to widespread skepticism. The solution involves an appeal to an epistemological approach inspired by Wittgenstein’s posthumously published On Certainty. If the appeal is sound, the problem of widespread skepticism is not really a problem, after all.

Paper on disagreement, testimony, and assertion (draft available)

• There are two questions at the core of the epistemology of disagreement. The first concerns whether learning of peer disagreement provides one with a higher-order defeater. The second concerns when it is reasonable to believe that someone is an epistemic peer. This paper focuses on the second question while assuming that conciliationism — that is, an affirmative answer to the first question — is true. In doing so, I argue if you are a conciliationist, then you should be an anti-reductionist about testimony-based justification and a proponent of the thesis that assertion is governed by a robustly epistemic norm. In big picture terms, this paper hopes to show how various core issues in social epistemology, such as peer disagreement, testimony-based justification, and the norm of assertion, are more intimately connected than has previously been recognized.

Paper on the norm of assertion, functionalist norms, & practical stakes (draft available)

• Many think that classical invariantism (CI) is the default view of the semantics of ‘know’, and many think that knowledge is the norm of assertion (KNA). The shiftiness dilemma challenges the claim that CI and KNA are compatible. What, then, is required to defeat the shiftiness dilemma? Perhaps, what is needed are independent grounds in support of CI/KNA compatibility. Mona Simion (2021), for example, appeals to a functionalist framework of normativity in an attempt to deliver this result. In this paper, I raise some concerns for Simion’s proposal but then offer a revised proposal instead. In sum, I argue that the revised functionalist proposal enjoys more prior plausibility and does a better job grounding CI/KNA compatibility.

Paper on higher-order evidence (draft available)

• There are two questions at the core of the epistemology of disagreement: Does evidence of peer disagreement defeat? When is it reasonable to believe that someone is an epistemic peer? If one responds to the first affirmatively, then one is a conciliationist, but what sort of conciliationist depends on how one responds to the second. In this paper, I argue for two claims: Conciliationism is in conflict with the claim that the norm of assertion is governed by a robustly epistemic norm (ENA), but the most plausible version of conciliationism assumes that ENA is true. The result is a self-defeat problem that is conceptual in nature: it is not only novel to the peer disagreement literature, but it poses a stronger challenge to conciliationism than the more familiar, epistemic self-defeat problem.

Paper on philosophical argumentation (in prep)

• Philosophers argue; they also disagree. Arguments fail to persuade; disagreement persists. What is the point of arguing? What is the point of asserting our philosophical views? I argue that there is a point, one that is not undermined by the mere fact of disagreement.