Research Overview

I study the relationship between knowledge, politics, and practical life. There are two sides to my research:

On one hand, I use the theoretical tools of epistemology to better understand social and political issues. I’ve written about the value of political empathy, the role of truth in politics, the epistemic dysfunctions of democracy, and other topics at the intersection of epistemology and political philosophy. Some questions that animate my research 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?

On the other hand, I examine how practical life bears on theoretical issues in epistemology. As a pragmatist, I investigate philosophical issues from a practical point of view. 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, the level of justification required for knowledge, and skepticism. I have been further developing this type of epistemic pragmatism in recent work.

Articles and Book Chapters

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

Is Intellectual Humility Compatible with Political Conviction? (w/ Ian James Kidd)
Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 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, forthcoming.

Is There a Duty to Speak Your Mind?
Social Epistemology, forthcoming.

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.

What’s the Point of Knowledge?: A Function-First Epistemology
Oxford University Press, 2019. 

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.