I argue that beliefs based on irresponsibly formed experiences — whose causes were not appropriately regulated by the subject — are doxastically unjustified. Only this position, I claim, accounts for the higher epistemic standard required of perceptual experts. Section I defends this standard and applies it to a pair of cases in which either an expert umpire or a complete novice judge a force play in baseball. I argue that when the latter, but not the former, fails to follow rules (...) about perceiving force plays, their resulting belief is justified. Section II shows that this difference can be explained by the fact that the novice, but not the expert, formed her experience responsibly. Section III shows that alternative explanations of the expert’s unjustified belief — from defeat, reliability, and inference — fail. Section IV shows that the epistemic relevance of responsible experience formation has broad implications for the epistemology of perceptual beliefs. (shrink)

This paper will be concerned with hard choices—that is, choice situations where an agent cannot make a rationally justified choice. Specifically, this paper asks: if an agent cannot optimize in a given situation, are they facing a hard choice? A pair of claims are defended in light of this question. First, situations where an agent cannot optimize because of incompleteness of the binary preference or value relation constitute a hard choice. Second, situations where agents cannot optimize because the binary preference (...) or value relation violates acyclicity do not constitute a hard choice. (shrink)

This paper will be concerned with hard choices—that is, choice situations where an agent cannot make a rationally justified choice. Specifically, this paper asks: if an agent cannot optimize in a given situation, are they facing a hard choice? A pair of claims are defended in light of this question. First, situations where an agent cannot optimize because of incompleteness of the binary preference or value relation constitute a hard choice. Second, situations where agents cannot optimize because the binary preference (...) or value relation violates acyclicity do not constitute a hard choice. (shrink)

The infamous Hole Argument has led philosophers to develop various versions of substantivalism, of which metric essentialism and sophisticated substantivalism are the most popular. In this journal, Trevor Teitel has recently advanced novel arguments against both positions. However, Teitel does not discuss the position of Jeremy Butterfield, which appeals to Lewisian counterpart theory in order to avoid the Hole Argument. In this note I show that the Lewis-Butterfield view is immune to Teitel’s challenges.

According to a Kantian conception truthfulness is characterised as a requirement of respect for the agency of another. In lying we manipulate the other’s rational capacities to achieve ends we know or fear they may not share. This is paradigmatically a failure of respect. In this paper we argue that the importance of truthfulness also lies in significant part in the ways in which it supports our agential need to make sense of the world, other people, and ourselves. Since sense-making (...) is something we do together, and that we can support or undermine, it generates norms of interaction that constitute a further, distinct, mode of recognition and respect for another’s agency. But the requirements of truthfulness and support for sense-making sometimes conflict. Through a series of cases, we analyze why and when a rigid insistence on truthfulness is disrespectful of the other and undermining of their agency. (shrink)

Intentionalism is the view that perceptual phenomenology depends on perceptual content. The aim of this paper is to make explicit an ambiguity in usual formulations of intentionalism, and to argue in favor of one way to disambiguate it. It concerns whether perceptual phenomenology depends on the content of one and only one representation (often construed as being identical to a certain perceptual experience), or instead depends on a collection of many different representations throughout the perceptual system. We argue in favor (...) of the latter option. Intentionalism so conceived can make better sense of contemporary neuroscience of perception, and is better equipped to confront several influential objections to traditional intentionalism. (shrink)

Recent research has identified a tension between the Safety principle that knowledge is belief without risk of error, and the Closure principle that knowledge is preserved by competent deduction. Timothy Williamson reconciles Safety and Closure by proposing that when an agent deduces a conclusion from some premises, the agent’s method for believing the conclusion includes their method for believing each premise. We argue that this theory is untenable because it implies problematically easy epistemic access to one’s methods. Several possible solutions (...) are explored and rejected. (shrink)

I propose that logic may be seen as a science of patterns—however, not in the sense in which mathematics is a science of patterns, but rather in the sense in which physics is. The proposal is that logic identifies, explores, and fixes the inferential patterns which de facto govern our argumentative practices. It can be seen, I argue, as picking up the patterns and working from them toward the state of reflective equilibrium, where the laws it aims at are explicitly (...) articulated. Due to the normativity of logic, this process is not quite the same as that in which a natural science works its way from data to its laws; however, there is no reason why it should be seen as proceeding via a mysterious "a priori analysis.” Instead, it should proceed in the intersubjective space in which the sciences are practiced. (shrink)