Recent literature has paid attention to a demarcation problem for evolutionary debunking arguments. This is the problem of asking in virtue of what regulative metaepistemic norm evolutionary considerations either render a belief justified, or debunk it as unjustified. I examine the so-called ‘Milvian Bridge principle’ A new science of religion, Routledge, New York, 2012; Sloan, McKenny, Eggelson Darwin in the 21st century: nature, humanity, and God, University Press, Notre Dame, 2015)), which offers exactly such a called for regulative metaepistemic norm. (...) The Milvian Bridge principle suggests that the metaepistemic norm is: adaptive reliability for truth of cognitive processes that the existence of corresponding truth-making facts evolutionary theory justifies. I argue that the Milvian Bridge principle is problematic on a number of counts, something that is shown via spiraling ‘companions in guilt arguments’. Finally, I consider ‘the core reductionist objection’ to the critique of the Milvian Bridge principle and offer a response. I conclude that the Milvian Bridge principle is destabilized. (shrink)

Expressivism is a blossoming meta-semantic framework sometimes relying on what Carter and Chrisman call “the core expressivist maneuver.” That is, instead of asking about the nature of a certain kind of value, we should be asking about the nature of the value judgment in question. According to expressivists, this question substitution opens theoretical space for the elegant, economical, and explanatorily powerful expressivist treatment of the relevant domain. I argue, however, that experimental work in cognitive psychology can shed light on how (...) the core expressivist maneuver operates at the cognitive level and that this: raises worries about the aptness of the expressivist question substitution and supports an evolutionary debunking argument against expressivism. Since evolutionary debunking arguments are usually run in favor of expressivism, this creates an obvious puzzle for expressivists. I wrap up by briefly responding to the objection that the debunking argument against expressivism overgeneralizes and, therefore, should be rejected. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the relationship between social cognition and religious cognition. Many cognitive theories of religion claim that these two forms are somehow related, but the details are usually left unexplored and insights from theories of social cognition are not taken on board. I discuss the three main (groups of) theories of social cognition, namely the theory-theory, the simulation theory and enactivist theories. Secondly, I explore how these theories can help to enrich a number of cognitive theories of (...) religion. The theories I discuss are Stewart Guthrie’s anthropomorphism, Justin Barrett’s hyperactive agency detection device, Jesse Bering’s existential theory of mind, Pascal Boyer’s minds with full strategic access and Tanya Luhrmann’s porous theory of mind. Finally, I look at how enrichment with insights from social cognition can help to combine different existing theories of religious cognition into a unified framework. (shrink)

The relationship between Legal Realism and Legal Positivism has been a recurrent source of debate. The question has been further complicated by the related difficulty of assessing the internal relationship between the two main original strands of Legal Realism: American and Scandinavian. This paper suggests considering American and Scandinavian Realism as instantiations of forward-looking and backward-looking rule skepticism respectively. This distinction brings into sharp relief not only the fundamentally different relationship between each of these two Realist schools and Legal Positivism (...) but also their equally different potentials as starting points for naturalizing jurisprudence. (shrink)

‘Naturalized’ philosophers of mind regularly appeal to the empirical psychological literature in support of the ‘theory-theory’ account of the natural epistemology of mental state ascription (to self and others). It is argued that such appeals are not philosophically neutral, but in fact presuppose the theory-theory account of mental state ascription. It is suggested that a possible explanation of the popularity of the theory-theory account is that it is generally assumed that alternative accounts in terms of introspection (and simulation) presuppose a (...) discredited ‘inner ostensive definition’ account of the meaning of mental state terms. However, the inner ostensive definition account is not the only alternative to the theory-theory account of the meaning of mental state terms, and commitment to a theory-theory account of the meaning of mental state terms does not mandate commitment to a theory-theory account of the epistemology of mental state ascription. (shrink)

How do we know what kinds of things constitute knowledge or justified belief? Naturalized epistemology is committed to denying a priori insight into the kinds of kinds that are and are not knowledge or justification makers. By contrast, it is argued here that knowledge of these matters is a priori knowledge of a special kind. Such knowledge may be called “categorial.” The dialectical give and take between categorial and naturalized epistemology is pursued, before endorsing an argument that breaks the standoff (...) in favor of categorial epistemology. In particular, an argument is given for a certain kind of mathematical skepticism that is entirely a priori. The skeptical argument turns on categorial claims about actuality. Responses are considered before defending a method of categorial dumbfounding in certain circumstances. This yields a positive argument for the categoriality of fundamental epistemic principles. The categorial rationalist conclusions are embraced and some consequences noted. (shrink)

Naturalism, construed as the idea that philosophy should be continuous with science, is a highly influential view. Its consequences for epistemology, however, are rather odd. Many believe that naturalized epistemology allows eschewing traditional skeptical challenges. This is often seen as an advantage; but it also calls into question its claim of belonging to the philosophical inquiry into knowledge. This paper argues that skeptical challenges can be stated to defy epistemic optimism within naturalized epistemology, and that there are distinctively naturalistic forms (...) of skepticism. To that end, it outlines some assumptions underlying many attempts to naturalize epistemology. It contrasts these approaches to traditional epistemology and identifies the reasons offered by naturalistic epistemologists to dismiss traditional skeptical challenges. Next, it argues that the problem of skepticism can be sensibly stated within a naturalistic setting. Finally, it contends that there are distinctively naturalistic strategies to argue for skepticism and diagnoses the prospects of naturalism vis-à-vis these kinds of skeptical challenges. (shrink)