In his book Knowledge and Practical Interests Jason Stanley offers an argument for the conclusion that it is quite unlikely that an ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ can be “linguistically grounded”. His argument rests on two important assumptions: that linguistic grounding of ambiguity requires evidence of the purported different senses of a word being represented by different words in other languages and that such evidence is lacking in the case of ‘knows’. In this paper, I challenge the conclusion that there isn’t (...) a linguistic grounding for an ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ by making cases against both of Stanley’s major assumptions. I will do this by making a case for a prime facie linguistic grounding for a polysemy theory of ‘knows’ without appealing to word use in other languages. Given that a polysemy theory of ‘knows’ is a type of ambiguity theory of ‘knows’, if I succeed in linguistically grounding a polysemy theory of ‘knows’, then I have shown that at least one type of ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ can be linguistically grounded. (shrink)

The ambiguity theory of “knows” is the view that knows and its cognates have more than one propositional sense—i.e., more than one sense that can properly be used in “knows that” etc. constructions. The ambiguity theory of “know” has received relatively little attention as an account of the truth-conditions for knowledge ascriptions and denials—especially compared to views like classical, moderate invariantism and epistemic contextualism. In this paper, it is argued that the ambiguity theory of knows has an advantage over both (...) classical, moderate invariantism and epistemic contextualism. This advantage is that it is the only one of these views that can account for “diverging knowledge responses without inconsistency” —i.e., cases in which, for the same subject S and proposition p, one and the same speaker says truly “S knows p” but instead could have truly said “S does not know p” and vice versa. This paper argues both for the existence of DRWI scenarios and the ability of the ambiguity theory of knows to best explain their existence. (shrink)

Much attention has been devoted recently to cases where a controversial speaker is invited to speak on campus and subsequently some members of the university seek to have that speaker disinvited. Debates about such scenarios often blur together legal, normative, and empirical considerations. I seek to help clarify issues by separating key legal, normative, and empirical questions. Central to my examination is the idea of the university as a multi-forum institution—i.e. a complex public institution whose parts contain different types of (...) forums. I conclude that it is sometimes legally and normatively permissible (1) for universities to disinvite speakers, and (2) for students to seek to get speakers they consider unacceptable disinvited. I also suggest that my arguments sometimes extent to shouting down speakers. (shrink)

Moral grandstanding is the use of moral talk for self-promotion. Recent philosophical work assumes that people can often accurately identify instances of grandstanding. In contrast, we argue that people are generally unable to reliably recognize instances of grandstanding, and that we are typically unjustified in judging that others are grandstanding as a result. From there we argue that, under most circumstances, to judge others as grandstanders is to fail to act with proper intellectual humility. We then examine the significance of (...) these conclusions for moral discourse. More specifically, we propose that moral discourse should focus on others’ stated reasons and whether their actions manifest respect. (shrink)

Collocations are recurrent combinations of words where one lexical item occurs near another lexical item with a frequency far greater than chance. Collocations can be used to study meaning. I argue that the collocational phrase ‘really know’, in conjunction with some reasonable interpretive conclusions, provides us with evidence that the verb ‘know’ has an infallibilist sense. I make my case, first, by arguing that ‘really’ when part of the phrase ‘really know’ is best understood as synonymous with ‘truly’. I then (...) argue that there are two plausible interpretations of the function that ‘really’ plays in the phrase ‘really know’. On the first interpretation, ‘really’ helps distinguish claims about genuine infallibilist knowing from loose talk about ‘knowing’. On the second interpretation, ‘really’ is often used to disambiguate an infallibilist sense of ‘know’ from a fallibilist sense of ‘know’. On either interpretation, there is an infallibilist sense of ‘know’. (shrink)

Orwell’s views on the nature of free speech are significantly more complex than is often recognized. This paper examines what he had to say about freedom of speech and intellectual freedom. It seeks to provide a philosophical analysis of his understanding and use of these concepts and to address some apparent tensions in his thought. In so doing, the paper identifies five dominant aspects of Orwell’s account of free speech. He viewed free speech as closely related to intellectual freedom, which (...) he highly valued; he treated free speech as primarily about the ability to say what one believes to be true; he thought that both government and various kinds of private actors posed serious threats to free speech; he believed that free speech required social safeguards, in addition to legal protection; and he recognized that free speech was a right with limits. He wrote little about the freedom of speech for liars. The paper concludes with the observation that he, therefore, left us with a number of crucial questions to discuss and think about for ourselves. (shrink)

Mark Murphy has argued that the relationship between a creator and their creatures is not a special relationship that generates new moral obligations for the creator. Murphy’s position is grounded, in part, on his claim that there are no good arguments to the contrary and that the creator-creature relationship is not a relationship between equals. I argue that there are good reasons to think that a creator and creature being equals is not required for such an obligation. I offer an (...) argument for such an obligation based on the moral significance of thrusting upon sentient or rational beings significant, unsought, and wholly new circumstances. More specifically, I argue that it is reasonable to conclude that a creator enters into a duty-generating special relationship with their creatures to promote their creatures’ well-being, when the creator is the voluntary source of the creatures’ wholly new and unconsented to circumstances from which to flourish or languish and it would cost the creator virtually nothing to promote the creatures’ welfare. (shrink)

Susanna Rinard aims to show that it is possible to rationally persuade an external world skeptic to reject external world skepticism. She offers an argument meant to convince a skeptic who accepts her views on “several orthogonal issues in epistemology” to give up their external world skepticism. While I agree with Rinard that it is possible to reason with a skeptic, I argue that Rinard overlooks a variety of good epistemic grounds a skeptic could appeal to in rejecting her argument (...) and its conclusion. More specifically, I argue that the external world skeptic can resist Rinard’s conclusion by (1) distinguishing between skepticism about knowledge and skepticism about justification, (2) by prioritizing obtaining accurate beliefs (maximizing true beliefs and minimizing false beliefs) over being rational, or (3) by treating suspension of judgment as the default rational doxastic attitude. (shrink)

The ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ is the view that ‘knows’ and its cognates have more than one sense, and that which sense of ‘knows’ is used in a knowledge ascription or denial determines, in part, the meaning (and as a result the truth conditions) of that knowledge ascription or denial. In this paper, I argue that the ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ ought to be taken seriously by those drawn to epistemic contextualism. In doing so I first argue that the ambiguity (...) theory of ‘knows’ is a distinct view from epistemic contextualism. Second, I provide independent philosophical and linguistic considerations to motivate the ambiguity theory. Third, I argue that the ambiguity theory has the same central, generally agreed upon virtues ascribed to epistemic contextualism (namely, the ability to solve certain persistent epistemological problems relating to skeptical arguments and the ability to preserve the truth of most of our everyday, ordinary usages of ‘knows’ and its cognates). Finally, I provide an ambiguity-theory-friendly account of why contextualism may be initially appealing, and why this shouldn’t dissuade us from taking the ambiguity theory seriously nonetheless. (shrink)

The ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ is the view that ‘knows’ and its cognates have more than one propositional sense – i.e. more than one sense that can properly be used in ‘knows that’ etc. constructions. Given that most of us are ‘intuitive invariantists’ – i.e. most of us initially have the intuition that ‘knows’ is univocal – defenders of the ambiguity theory need to offer an explanation for the semantic blindness present if ‘knows’ is in fact ambiguous. This paper is (...) an attempt to offer such an explanation. Section 1 contains a general argument for the ubiquity of semantic blindness for ambiguous words; the upshot being that semantic blindness for the ambiguity of ‘knows’ is thus unsurprising. Section 2 offers more specific arguments for why ‘knows’ is the type of ambiguous word that we’re very unlikely to quickly recognize is ambiguous. (shrink)

Physicists Brian Greene and Max Tegmark both make variants of the claim that if the universe is infinite and matter is roughly uniformly distributed, then there are infinitely many “people with the same appearance, name and memories as you, who play out every possible permutation of your life choices.” In this paper I argue that--while our current best theories in astrophysics may allow one to conclude that we have infinitely many duplicates whose lives are identical to our own from start (...) to finish--without either further advances in physics or advances in fields like biology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Greene’s and Tegmark’s claims about the ways in which our duplicates lives will differ from our own are not a consequence of our best current scientific theories. Rather, I argue that Greene and Tegmark’s conclusions rely on philosophically imprecise usages of the language of “possibility.”. (shrink)