Research

Papers

"Agentive modals and agentive modality: a cautionary tale," (with Robert H. Wallace) forthcoming in American Philosophical Quarterly [link]

We argue that (reductive, metaphysical) conditional analyses of agentive modality can't succeed; they always take a kernel of agentive modality for granted.

"Knowledge-how and the limits of defeat," Synthese (2023) [link]

Carter and Navarro (2017) argue that we need two theories of defeasibility, one for knowledge-that, and another for knowledge-how. I argue that we don't.

"What we know when we act," Philosophical Studies (2023) [link]

I reconcile the causalist idea that intentional action has distinguished causal antecedents with the Anscombean idea that intentional action has distinguished epistemological features.

"Epistemic control without voluntarism," Philosophical Issues, annual supplement to Noûs (2023) [link]

I offer a theory of epistemic control that navigates a route between the Scylla of voluntarism and Charybdis of eliminativism.

"A plea for exemptions," Erkenntnis (2022) [link]

I articulate a theory of epistemic exemptions.

"Evidentialism and the problem of basic competence," Ergo (2022) [link]

Evidentialists about inferential justification have a hard time explaining the normative role of competence in inference. I sketch and defend an alternative to these evidentialist views, “inferential dogmatism”, that fares better.

"Epistemic akrasia and higher-order beliefs," Philosophical Studies (2020) [link]

Greco's (2014) Fragmentation Analysis of epistemic akrasia cannot accommodate higher-order akrasia. I offer a revised Fragmentation Analysis that can.

Book Chapters

"Knowledge from blindspots," (with Juan Comesaña and Rhys Borchert) in Rodrigo Borges and Ian Schnee (eds.), Illuminating Errors: New Essays on Knowledge from Non-Knowledge, Routledge (2023)

We argue that it is possible to gain inferential knowledge from blindspot propositions.

"Conocimiento, justificación, y clausura en la epistemología de Sosa," (with Juan Comesaña) in David Perez Chico and Modesto Gómez Alonso (eds.), Ernesto Sosa: Conocimiento y Vertud, Zaragoza University Press (2021)

We critically examine some recent trends in Sosa's work, especially his Epistemic Explanations.

Dissertation

Good Thinking, Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona (2022)  [link]

Good Thinking is a collection of papers about abilities, skills, and know-how and the distinctive but often overlooked—or explained away—role that these phenomena play in various foundational issues in epistemology and action theory. One distinctive argumentative strategy employed throughout Good Thinking is its placing special emphasis on “bad thinking”: defective judgments borne out of cognitive short-circuiting, incoherence or self-doubt, depression, or anxiety. The underlying motivation for this is that much of what we can learn about good thinking is only revealed at the margins, where thinking has in some respects gone bad without being entirely spoiled.

Email me for drafts of work in progress listed below

Books

Knowing and Doing: An Epistemic Theory of Control (with J. Adam Carter) [in preparation for Cambridge University Press]

Papers

A paper on the epistemology of skill [in R&R] 

A paper on fear [in preparation for The Moral Psychology of Fear] 

A paper on epistemic excuses and PF Strawson

A paper on intentional action and know-how

A paper on the position to know

A paper on epistemic abilities and responsibility

Comments on Shearer's "If you're so rational, why don't you have any friends?" SEECRs Applied Epistemology Conference, August 2023

Intentional action and skill proximity, Bled Epistemology Conference, June 2023

Comments on Mueller's "Bad beliefs and epistemic norms of coordination," SEECRs Applied Epistemology Conference, May 2023

Obstacles to knowledge, Flagler College Philosophy Colloquium, April 2023

Obstacles to knowledge, Stirling Philosophy Visiting Speaker Seminar, November 2022

Obstacles to knowledge, LOGOS Research Group in Analytic Philosophy, November 2022

Quality of thought, Lund Gothenburg Responsibility Project, October 2022

Obstacles to knowledge, COGITO Speaker Series, September 2022

Quality of thought, Pacific APA colloquium, April 2022

Comments on Kelly's "Dressed with intent: Gender conferralism and trans expression of intention to pass," Arizona Feminist Philosophy Graduate Conference, March 2022

Comments on Chakrabarti's "The problem of induction: A Nyaya response," Central APA colloquium, February 2022

Quality of thought, Free will, Moral Responsibility, and Agency Conference at FSU, February 2022

Agentive modals and agentive modality: a cautionary tale, Agency and Intentions in Language Workshop at Harvey Mudd, January 2022