A Metaphilosophical Dilemma for Epistemic Externalism

Varieties of Externalism

Our aim is to provide a topography of the relevant philosophical terrain with regard to the possible ways in which knowledge can be conceived of as extended. We begin by charting the different types of internalist and externalist proposals within epistemology, and we critically examine the different formulations of the epistemic internalism/externalism debate they lead to. Next, we turn to the ...

Externalism, Epistemic Artefacts and the Extended Mind

The Ontology of Epistemic Reasons

Epistemic reasons are mental states. They are not propositions or nonmental facts. The discussion proceeds as follows. Section 1 introduces the topic. Section 2 gives two concrete examples of how our topic directly affects the internalism/externalism debate in normative epistemology. Section 3 responds to an argument against the view that reasons are mental states. Section 4 presents two proble...

Biological Rationalism

I argue that contemporary philosophy of language in the analytic tradition rests on two fundamentally wrong assumptions: empiricism and externalism. After I show why these two assumptions are incorrect, I turn my attention to biological rationalism. Biological rationalism—a research program inspired by the work of Noam Chomsky—is committed to nativism and internalism. I believe biological ratio...

Temporal Externalism and Epistemic Theories

‘Epistemic’ theories of vagueness notoriously claim that (despite the appearances to the contrary) all of our vague terms have sharp boundaries; it’s just that we can’t know what they are. Epistemic theories are typically criticized for failing to explain (1) the source of the ignorance postulated, and (2) how our terms could come to have such precise boundaries. Both of these objections will, ...