Research Overview

I have two research projects: 

1. The Role of Truth in Politics

I 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. Questions that animate my recent work include: 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? Is there a moral duty to speak your mind?

2. Pragmatic Epistemology and Epistemic Normativity

I recently converted to pragmatism. As a pragmatist, I like to investigate philosophical issues from a practical point of view. For instance, in What’s the Point of Knowledge? (OUP 2019), I argue that humans think and speak of “knowing” to identify reliable sources of information, which is vital for human cooperation, survival, and flourishing. I use this idea to shed light on the social foundations of epistemic normativity, skepticism, and relativism. I have been further developing this type of epistemic pragmatism in recent work, such as this.

Articles and Book Chapters

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

Betting Democracy on Epistemology
Episteme, provisionally forthcoming.

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

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

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

Is There a Duty to Speak Your Mind?
Social Epistemology, 38 (3): 274-289, 2024.

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

Replies to Gardiner and DiPaolo
Inquiry 67 (2): 709-726, 2024.

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

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

Political Conviction, Intellectual Humility, and Quietism (Featured in PsyPost.)
Journal of Positive Psychology 18 (2): 233-236, 2023.

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

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.

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

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.

Assertion, Action, and Context  (w/ Robin McKenna)
Synthese 199 (1-2): 731-743. 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.

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

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

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

The Importance of Knowledge Ascriptions
Philosophy Compass 10 (12): 856-866, 2015.

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

Is Knowledge True Belief Plus Adequate Information?
Erkenntnis 79 (5): 1069-1076, 2014.

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

‘Knows’ Entails Truth
Journal of Philosophical Research 38 349-366, 2013.