“Pragmatic accounts of justification, epistemic analyticity, and other routes to easy knowledge of abstracta”
Deflationist Conceptions of Abstract Objects (X. de Donato-Rodríguez, J. Falguera, C. Martínez-Vidal, eds.), forthcoming (Invited contribution)Using an argument adapted from the Benacerraf–Field challenge, I show that, if our goal is to vindicate our beliefs about abstract objects, appeals to a theory on which those beliefs’ justification is easy, in the sense that it does not require that we be in contact with those objects, are hopeless.
“Best laid plans: Idealization and the rationality–accuracy bridge”
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, forthcoming (Published version here)I argue that the “Best-Plan-to-Make” picture of the bridge between rationality and accuracy, to which Miriam Schoenfield and Robert Steel appeal to avoid concluding that rationality requires conditionalizing, can’t help them avoid that conclusion – this picture turns out to be equivalent to the picture it’s intended to replace.
“Higher-order evidence and the dynamics of self-location: An accuracy-based argument for calibrationism”
Erkenntnis, 2024 (Published version here)I argue that the thesis that agents should conditionalize is, on any reasonable way of generalizing conditionalization so as to handle the evolution of self-locating belief, consistent with the thesis that calibrating is the right way to respond to higher-order evidence, and I show on this basis that calibrating maximizes expected accuracy.
“Saving sensitivity”
Philosophical Quarterly, 2022 (Published version here)Working from the idea that sensitivity is intended to serve as a proxy for a certain sort of responsiveness to the facts, I develop a new sensitivity-based anti-luck epistemological condition that’s well motivated and immune to the usual counterexamples to sensitivity conditions.
“Categoricity by convention”, with Julien Murzi
Philosophical Studies, 2021 (Published version here)We show, by appeal to a fairly orthodox naturalist-friendly (and realist-friendly) metasemantics, that a unified response is available to both Carnap’s categoricity problem for propositional logic and the Putnamian challenge to mathematical determinacy.
“Realism, reliability, and epistemic possibility: On modally interpreting the Benacerraf–Field challenge”
Synthese, 2021 (Published version here)I argue that the necessity objection to modal interpretations of the Benacerraf–Field challenge fails: what motivates an interpretation of the challenge in terms of our beliefs’ modal security also motivates an understanding of modal security in terms of epistemic possibilities rather than metaphysical possibilities.
“Linguistic convention and worldly fact: Prospects for a naturalist theory of the a priori”
Philosophical Studies, 2019 (Published version here; published version contains formatting errors, corrected here)I give a new rendering of the most influential argument against truth by convention and consider possible conventionalist responses, concluding that, even in the face of that argument, there remains a promising way forward for the conventionalist project.
“Quinean holism, analyticity, and diachronic rational norms”
Synthese, 2018 (Published version here)I argue that W. V. O. Quine’s arguments against analyticity have been widely misinterpreted by his opponents and show that the Quinean position, properly understood, can’t be undermined by epistemological objections recently advanced by David Chalmers.
“Coin flips, credences and the Reflection Principle”
Analysis, 2012 (Published version here)I argue that the orthodox way of understanding what imprecise credences are and how they’re updated – i.e., the treatment defended by Jim Joyce – leads to incoherent belief states in certain circumstances and so is untenable.
