Milburn, J. (Joe)
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- SIEGEL, HARVEY, Education’s Epistemology: Rationality, Diversity, and Critical Thinking, Oxford University Press, New York, 2017, 304 pp. [RECENSIÓN](Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra, 2018) Milburn, J. (Joe)
- Prudence, rules, and regulative epistemology(MDPI, 2023) García-Valdecasas, M. (Miguel); Milburn, J. (Joe)Following Ballantyne, we can distinguish between descriptive and regulative epistemology. Whereas descriptive epistemology analyzes epistemic categories such as knowledge, justified belief, or evidence, regulative epistemology attempts to guide our thinking. In this paper, we argue that regulative epistemologists should focus their attention on what we call epistemic prudence. Our argument proceeds as follows: First, we lay out an objection to virtue-based regulative epistemology that is analogous to the no-guidance objection to virtue ethics. According to this objection, virtue-based regulative epistemology cannot offer us useful guidance in our deliberations, because an abstract knowledge of virtue does not tell us what we should do here and now, especially in hard cases. We respond to this objection by showing that our making good epistemic decisions cannot simply be a matter of our following the right epistemic rules. In order to reliably inquire and deliberate well, we need epistemic prudence. Thus, while virtue-based regulative epistemology fails to determine how we should inquire and resolve deliberation here and now, this is also true of norm-based regulative epistemology. The upshot of this argument is that regulative epistemologists should focus their attention on understanding the nature of epistemic prudence and on understanding how we can promote its development in ourselves and others.
- Creator theology and Sterba’s argument from evil(MDPI, 2022) Milburn, J. (Joe)In this paper, I reformulate Sterba’s argument from evil and consider the various ways theists might respond to it. There are two basic families of responses. On the one hand, theists can deny that God, as a perfect being, needs to act in accordance with Sterba’s moral evil prevention requirements (MEPRs). We can call these responses exceptionalist responses. On the other hand, the theist can deny that God’s acting in accordance with the MEPRs would imply an absence of significant and especially horrendous evil consequences of immoral actions in the world. We can call these responses compatibilist responses. I argue that the availability of both sorts of responses shows that Sterba’s argument should not be taken as a logical argument from evil. A good God is logically possible. However, this does not show that Sterba’s argument fails as an evidential argument from evil. In the second section, I argue that if we work within the framework of what Jonathan Kvanvig calls Creator Theology (CT), the force of Sterba’s argument as an evidential argument is greatly weakened.
- Subject-involving luck(Wiley, 2014) Milburn, J. (Joe)In recent years, philosophers have tended to think of luck as being a relation between an event (taken in the broadest sense of the term) and a subject; to give an account of luck is to fill in the right‐hand side of the following biconditional: an event e is lucky for a subject S if and only if ——. We can call such accounts of luck subject‐relative accounts of luck, since they attempt to spell out what it is for an event to be lucky relative to a subject. This essay argues that we should understand subject‐relative luck as a secondary phenomenon. What is of philosophical interest is giving an account of subject‐involving luck, i.e., filling in the right‐hand side of this biconditional: it is a matter of luck that Sφs iff ———. The essay argues that one of the upshots of focusing on subject‐involving luck is that lack of control accounts of luck (LCALs) become more attractive. In particular, a range of counterexamples to LCALs of subject‐relative luck do not apply to LCALs of subject‐involving luck.
- Two forms of memory knowledge and epistemological disjunctivism(Routledge, 2019) Milburn, J. (Joe); Moon, A. (Andrew)In our paper, we distinguish between two forms of memory knowledge: experiential memory knowledge and stored memory knowledge. We argue that, mutatis mutandis, the case that Pritchard makes for epistemological disjunctivism regarding perceptual knowledge can be made for epistemological disjunctivism regarding experiential memory knowledge. At the same time, we argue against a disjunctivist account of stored memory knowledge.
- Evilism and the a priori(Cambridge University Press, 2021) Milburn, J. (Joe)In this article, I respond to Stephen Law's evil god challenge (EGC) to traditional theism. I argue that while there are credible a priori grounds for believing that the first cause is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good, there are no credible a priori grounds for believing that the first cause is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-evil. Because of this, theists have a reason for explaining away the a posteriori evidence against theism. The hypothetical evilist, on the other hand, does not. Thus, while the problem of the good makes it absurd to believe in evilism, the problem of evil does not make it absurd to believe in theism.
- Faith and reason in the Oxford University sermons: John Henry Newman and the legacy of English Deism(Philosophy Documentation Center, 2018) Milburn, J. (Joe)I argue that I can understand John Henry Newman as defending the Principle of Faith throughout the University Sermons.
- Anti-luck virtue epistemology as religious epistemology: a response to Bobier(Springer Nature, 2015) Milburn, J. (Joe)In a recent paper, Christopher Bobier (2014) has argued that Duncan Pritchard’s (2012) Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology (ALVE) cannot account for knowledge that we have through Divine Revelation. This gives philosophers who believe that Divine Revelation can be source of knowledge reason to reject ALVE. Bobier’s arguments are specifically against ALVE, but they serve as arguments against all sorts of (modest) virtue epistemologies. In this paper then, I will critically examine Bobier’s argument, and contend that (modest) virtue epistemologies are compatible with knowledge through Divine Revelation
- The philosophy of luck and experimental philosophy(Routledge, 2019) Milburn, J. (Joe); Machery, E. (Edouard)
- Unpossessed evidence: what’s the problem?(Springer, 2022) Milburn, J. (Joe)Pat is a precocious 16 year old; her reading varies widely, and when she is not devouring War and Peace or the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, she picks up scientifc works that are listed in a great books program. One of these books is B.F. Skinner’s Science and Human Behavior. It is the first work on psychology Pat has read all the way through and she is fascinated by Skinner’s ambitions, struck by his confident tone, and carried away by his arguments. Upon reading it, Pat becomes enthralled with the idea of behaviorism; she spends months reading and refecting daily on Skinner’s book, looking for whatever faw she can find in the argument. At the end of several months' time, she becomes a convinced behaviorist.