Research Overview

I work at the intersection of epistemology, political philosophy, and ethics, in which I pursue two broad lines of inquiry. First, I explore how the demands of practical life bear on theoretical issues in epistemology. Second, I apply the conceptual tools of epistemology to urgent social and political issues. 

Pragmatic Epistemology
Pragmatism is one of the most significant yet often misunderstood developments in the history of philosophy. For years, I regarded it with skepticism before coming to appreciate its depth and importance. I now approach philosophical problems through a pragmatist lens, emphasizing how our concepts, institutions, and practices earn their place through the roles they play in human life. In my book, What’s the Point of Knowledge?, I argue that humans think and speak of “knowing” to identify reliable informants, which is vital for human cooperation, survival, and flourishing. I use this idea shed light on the foundations of epistemic normativity and skepticism. I continue to develop this form of epistemic pragmatism in a book-in-progress, Believing Responsibly: The Social Origins of Epistemic Norms, which explores how our epistemic norms arise from our need to hold one another accountable as thinkers and speakers. I’m also writing a commissioned article for Analysis called “The Case for the Pragmatist Theory of Truth.”

Political Epistemology
I also use the theoretical tools of epistemology to better understand social and political issues. I’ve written about the value of political empathy, the epistemology of democracy, public ignorance and bias, post-truth, and other topics at the intersection of epistemology and political philosophy. These themes are explored in my recent book, Political Epistemology: An Introduction (w/ Elise Woodard), where we argue that the epistemic health of democracy depends less on individual virtue than on the institutional and structural conditions that shape how citizens reason, deliberate, and distribute trust. My work continues to investigate questions such as: What is the proper role of truth in politics? Is intellectual humility compatible with political conviction? Are better educated citizens a bigger threat to democracy than ignorant ones? Should we gamble the future of democracy on its alleged epistemic merits?

Journal Articles

Social Identity, Understanding, and Deference
Philosophical Studies, forthcoming.

The Construction of Epistemic Normativity (w/ Elise Woodard)
Philosophical Issues, provisionally forthcoming.

Understanding Philosophy (w/ James Nguyen)
Inquiry, forthcoming.

Betting Democracy on Epistemology
Episteme 22 (3): 649-667, 2025.

Is Intellectual Humility Compatible with Political Conviction? (w/ Ian James Kidd)
Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 27 (2): 211-33, 2024.

Public Discourse and Its Problems
Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 22 (3): 336-356, 2023.

The Politics of Post-Truth
Critical Review 35 (1): 40-62, 2023.

Are Knowledgeable Voters Better Voters? 
Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 21 (1): 29-54, 2022.

Recent Work in the Epistemology of Understanding
American Philosophical Quarterly 58 (3): 269-290, 2021.

Replies to Henderson, Elgin, and Lawlor
Analysis 81 (1): 114-129. 2021.

Empathetic Understanding and Deliberative Democracy
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (3): 591-611, 2020.

Why Purists Should Be Infallibilists
Philosophical Studies 177 (3): 689-704, 2020.

Skepticism: Impractical, Therefore Implausible
Philosophical Issues 29 (1): 143-158, 2019.

Intuitions, Reflective Judgments, and Experimental Philosophy
Synthese 195 (9): 4147-4168, 2018.

A Solution to Knowledge's Threshold Problem
Philosophical Studies 174 (3): 607-629, 2017.

Skepticism about Meta-skepticism: Meditations on Experimental Philosophy
Episteme 14 (2): 213-231, 2017.

The Universal Core of Knowledge
Synthese 192 (3): 769-786, 2015.

Stabilizing Knowledge
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 96 (1): 116-139, 2015. 

Fallibilism and the Value of Knowledge
Synthese 191 (6): 1119-1146, 2014.

The Practical Origins of Epistemic Contextualism
Erkenntnis 78 (4): 899-919, 2013.

Book Chapters

A Guide to Political Epistemology (w/ Elizabeth Edenberg)
The Oxford Handbook of Social Epistemology, Oxford University Press, 2025.

Disagreement and Contemporary Political Philosophy
The Routledge Handbook of Disagreement, Routledge, 2024.

Disagreement or Badmouthing? The Role of Expressive Discourse in Politics
Political Epistemology, Oxford University Press, 2021. 

The Point of Political Belief  (w/ Jeroen de Ridder)
The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology, Routledge, 2021.

Skepticism, Fallibilism, and Rational Evaluation
Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered, Routledge, 2021. 

Intellectual Humility and the Curse of Knowledge
Polarisation, Arrogance, and Dogmatism: Philosophical Perspectives, Routledge, 2021.

Skepticism and Contextualism
The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism, Routledge, 2017.