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Thomas Kelly |
Associate Professor Thomas Kelly |
Books,
Papers, Reviews
Books
What Should I
Believe? With James Pryor of
Papers
“Hume, Norton,and Induction Without Rules”
Forthcoming in Philosophy
of Science.
This short piece was my contribution to the symposium “Induction Without
Rules” at the 2008 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science
Association. The other symposiasts were Peter Achinstein
(Johns Hopkins), John Norton (Pittsburgh HPS) and John Worrall (LSE).
“Peer Disagreement and Higher Order Evidence”
To appear in Richard Feldman and Ted Warfield (eds.) Disagreement, forthcoming from Oxford
Slightly abridged version to appear in Alvin Goldman and Dennis Whitcomb
(eds.) Social Epistemology: An Anthology,
also forthcoming from OUP.
A sequel to my earlier paper, “The Epistemic Significance of
Disagreement” (2005). How should we
respond to the phenomenon of peer disagreement?
I criticize ‘The Equal Weight View’ (Elga,
Feldman, Christensen) and develop and defend an
alternative theory.
“Disagreement, Dogmatism, and Belief Polarization”
In The Journal of Philosophy Vol.CV, No.10 Oct.2008, pp.611-633. Special issue on epistemic norms, edited by
John Collins and Christopher Peacocke.
Suppose that you and I disagree about some non-straightforward matter of
fact (say, about whether capital punishment tends to have a deterrent effect on
crime). Psychologists have demonstrated the following striking phenomenon: if
you and I are subsequently exposed to a mixed body of evidence that bears on
the question, doing so tends to increase the extent of our initial
disagreement. That is, in response to exactly the same evidence, each of us
grows increasingly confident of his or her original view; we thus become
increasingly polarized as our common evidence increases. I consider several
alternative models of how people reason about newly-acquired evidence which
seems to disconfirm their prior beliefs. I then explore the normative
implications of these models for the phenomenon in question.
“Common Sense as Evidence:
Against Revisionary Ontology and Skepticism”
In Peter French and Howard Wettstein (eds.)
How far might philosophy succeed in undermining our ordinary, common sense
views about what there is or what we know?
I explore this issue, with special attention to the status of ‘Moorean responses to radically revisionary theories in metaphysics
and epistemology. I defend such responses
against the charge that they are dogmatic.
“Evidence: Fundamental Concepts and the
Phenomenal Conception”
In Philosophy Compass, vol.3(5), (Blackwell Publishing, 2008),
pp.933-955. Edited by Brian Weatherson (Tamar Szabó Gendler, subject editor). T
The concept of evidence is among the central concerns of epistemology broadly construed. As such, it has long engaged the intellectual energies of both philosophers of science and epistemologists of a more traditional variety. Here I briefly survey some of the more important ideas to have emerged from this tradition of reflection. I then look somewhat more closely at an issue that has recently come to the fore, largely as a result of Williamson (2000): that of whether one’s evidence supervenes on one’s non-factive mental states.
“Evidence”.
My contribution to the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The concept of evidence is among
the central concerns of epistemology broadly construed. As such, it has long engaged the intellectual
energies of both philosophers of science and epistemologists of a more
traditional variety. Here I briefly
survey some of the more important ideas to have emerged from this tradition of
reflection, with special emphasis on some recent developments of note
“Evidence
and Normativity: Reply to Leite”
In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol.75, Issue 2,
September 2007: 465-474.
A defense of my previous paper, "Epistemic Rationality as Instrumental
Rationality: A Critique" against some recent criticisms by Adam Leite.
“The
Cost of Skepticism: Who Pays?”
In Philosophical Studies, vol.131, no.3, December 2006: 695-712.
(This is my contribution to a symposium on the recent book Epistemic
Justification by Laurence BonJour and Ernest
Sosa).
Those who favor externalist
accounts of knowledge and justification often accuse their internalist
opponents of playing into the hands of skeptic. According to this line
of thought, internalists characteristically set overly
demanding requirements for knowledge and justification, requirements which
ordinary believers infrequently satisfy: the internalist
is thus committed by his or her own theory to a massive and implausible
revisionism about the extent of what we know and justifiably believe. For
reasons that I explore, the version of internalist foundationalism developed by BonJour
might seem particularly vulnerable to this charge. Given this, one of the most
striking and provocative claims of the present work is BonJour's
insistence that his theory fares no worse than--and indeed, compares favorably
with--Sosa's externalist virtue theory with respect to the issue of skepticism.
My primary concern in this short paper is to evaluate BonJour's
claim.
“The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement”
In John Hawthorne and Tamar Gendler Szabo (eds.)
It is a striking fact that
almost everyone holds at least some beliefs that are explicitly rejected by
others who have been exposed to all of the same evidence and arguments. When a
belief that one holds is explicitly rejected by individuals over whom one
possesses no discernible epistemic advantage, does this give one a reason for
skepticism about that belief? In deciding what to believe about some
controversial question, how (if at all) should one take into account the
considered judgements of one's epistemic peers? I
explore these and related questions. I argue that an awareness of the relevant
kind of disagreement need not undermine the rationality of maintaining one's
original views.
“Moorean Facts and Belief Revision or Can the Skeptic Win?”
In John Hawthorne (ed.) Philosophical Perspectives vol.19: Epistemology
(Blackwell Publishers, 2005), pp.179-209.
A Moorean fact, in the words of
the late David Lewis, is 'one of those things that we know better than we know
the premises of any philosophical argument to the contrary'. Although appeals
to Moorean facts are denigrated by some, such appeals
are championed by others. Indeed, the need to respect the Moorean
facts is often emphasized in explicit discussions of philosophical methodology.
Despite this, the concept of a Moorean fact has
received little extended scrutiny. My aim here is to contribute to the rectification
of this state of affairs.
“Sunk Costs, Rationality, and Acting for the
Sake of the Past”
Nous 38:1 (2004), pp.612-640.
If you are more likely to
continue a course of action in virtue of having previously invested in that
course of action, then you tend to honor sunk costs. It is widely thought both
that (i) individuals often do give some weight to
sunk costs in their decision-making and that (ii) it is irrational for them to
do so. In this paper I attempt to cast doubt on the conventional wisdom about
sunk costs, understood as the conjunction of these two claims.
Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research vol.66, no.3 May 2003, pp.612-640.
In this paper, I explore the
relationship between epistemic rationality and instrumental rationality, and I
attempt to delineate their respective roles in typical instances of theoretical
reasoning. My primary concern is with the instrumentalist conception of
epistemic rationality: the view that epistemic rationality is simply a species
of instrumental rationality, viz. instrumental rationality in the service of
one's cognitive or epistemic goals. After sketching the relevance of the
instrumentalist conception to debates over naturalism and 'the ethics of
belief', I argue that, despite enjoying considerable popularity among both
epistemologists and philosophers of science, it is ultimately indefensible.
Having thus argued for the distinctness of epistemic and instrumental
rationality, I attempt to clarify the role played by each in typical instances
of theoretical reasoning. I suggest that being theoretically rational--that is,
being proficient with respect to theoretical reasoning--is best construed as a
hybrid virtue, inasmuch as it involves manifesting sensitivity to two very
different kinds of reasons.
“The Rationality of Belief and Some
Other Propositional Attitudes”
Philosophical Studies 110 (2002) ,
pp.163-196.
In this paper, I explore the
question of whether the expected consequences of holding a belief can affect
the rationality of doing so. Special attention is given to various ways in
which one might attempt to exert some measure of control over what one believes
and the normative status of the beliefs that result from the successful
execution of such projects. I argue that the lessons which emerge from thinking
about the case of belief have important implications for the way we should
think about the rationality of a number of other propositional attitudes, such
as regret, desire, and fear. Finally, I suggest that a lack of clarity with
respect to the relevant issues has given rise to a number of rather serious
philosophical mistakes.
Reviews
Review of Robert Fogelin, Walking the Tightrope of Reason: The Precarious Life of a Rational Animal. Mind Volume 113, Number 452 October 2004, pp.750-753.
Review of David Schmidt (ed.) Robert Nozick: Contemporary Philosophers in Focus, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 7/16/2002
Review of Robert Nozick's Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World. The Review of Politics Fall 2002, pp. 761-763.