Conceptualizing Ancient Skepticism as a Global Pattern: Zhuangzi, Sextus Empiricus and Nāgārjuna

Forthcoming in International Journal for the Study of Skepticism

I argue that there is a pattern of similarities between the core arguments of Zhuangzi, Sextus and Nāgārjuna (the core authors of philosophical Daoism, Pyrrhonian Skepticism and Mahayana Buddhism). It is plausible that these similarities are based on historical connections; but whether or not this is actually the case, I argue that we should conceptualize Ancient Skepticism as a global phenomenon.

DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10103

Emergent Properties in Chemistry - Relating Molecular Properties to Bulk Behavior

with Norman Sieroka and Tim Neudecker

Chemistry: A European Journal 30 (25): e202303868. 2024.

We suggest that the philosophical notion is usefully applied to reserach in chemistry. In particular, we argue that chemical properties can emerge in three ways: gradually, discretely, or at certain "magic numbers" of particles. This distinction is useful for understanding the nature of the relevant properties.

DOI: 10.1002/chem.202303868

Knowledge as a Social Kind

Acta Analytica 39 (2): 223-242. 2024.

I argue that knowledge, understood as a standard for the quality of transfered information, meets the criteria for a social kind. I also argue that viewing knowledge like this helps us better understand a couple of topics, specifically epistemic norms, epistemic injustice, and the threat of spreading misinformation.

DOI: 10.1007/s12136-023-00561-4

Mackie and the Meaning of Moral Terms

Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 10 (1): 1-13. 2022.

Some people take Mackie to have thought that our moral judgments necessarily presuppose objective values (and are thus false). Some take him to have thought that they don' presuppose such value. I argue that he does neither -- he stays neutral on this question. Taking such a stance is not required for him to reach his argumentative goals.

DOI: 10.15173/jhap.v10i1.4786

Knowledge and Cancelability

Synthese 199 (1-2): 397-405. 2021.

I argue that our intuitions on cancelability support the idea that there is pragmatic weakening in our understanding of knowledge ascriptions. This supports the idea that they have an infallibilist semantics.

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-020-02663-7

Three things to do with knowledge ascriptions

Episteme 18 (1): 99-110. 2021.

I distinguish three different purposes for using knowledge ascriptions: one focused on the embedded proposition, one focused on the subject knowledge is ascribed to, and one focused on the concept of knowledge itself. This distinction is important to how the meaning of those knowledge ascriptions is computed.

DOI: 10.1017/epi.2019.5

“Putting the linguistic method in its place”: Mackie's distinction between conceptual and factual analysis

History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 22 (1): 92-105. 2019.

I discuss John Mackie’s views on Oridnary Language Philosophy emerging in the 1950s and how this has lead him to adopt a two-level methodology. This methodology has shaped his better known work in the 1970s.

DOI: 10.30965/26664275-02201006