Jessica Brown
Arché Professor of Philosophy
Profile
My main areas of research are philosophical methodology and epistemology.
During 2008-2012, with my co-investigator, Prof Cappelen, I ran a major 4-year AHRC project on Intuitions and Philosophical Methodology. I continue to work on methodological issues especially in epistemology including the nature of philosophy (its subject matter and evidence); the role of ordinary language, linguistics and conceptual analysis in philosophy; thought experiments; and, sources of scepticism about philosophy (disagreement, experimental philosophy).
Within epistemology, I work on our knowledge of our own minds and our ability to reason, as well as the closure and transmission of knowledge and warrant, scepticism, the debate between contextualists and invariantists, the epistemic norms of assertion and practical reasoning, and evidence.
See also the PURE research profile.
Academic qualifications
1995: D.Phil. in Philosophy (Wolfson College, Oxford). Thesis title: Thought, the Environment and Privileged Access.
1992: B.Phil. Degree in Philosophy (Corpus Christi College, Oxford).
1990: BA Degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Distinction in prelims; first class degree. (St. Hilda's College, Oxford.)
Previous appointments
2001: Reader in Philosophy at Bristol University.
1996: Lecturer in Philosophy at Bristol University (permanent).
1995-6: Lectureship at University College, Oxford (2 year appointment).
1994-6: Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford (3 year appointment).
1994-5: Lectureship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (1 year appointment).
Selected publications
Books
Anti-Individualism and Knowledge, MIT Press 2004.
The book examines the epistemological consequences of a view which dominates contemporary philosophy of mind—anti-individualism. According to this view, a subject’s thought contents are partly individuated by her environment. By contrast, individualists deny this and argue that a subject’s thought contents are wholly fixed by her ‘internal’ states, such as her brain states. Many have taken anti-individualism to have radical consequences for our knowledge of our minds, our ability to reason, and our knowledge of the world. By contrast, I argue that anti-individualism does not have such radical consequences in a discussion which links central issues in the philosophy of mind, such as rationality, psychological explanation and the nature of thought, with the epistemological literature on knowledge, warrant, justification and reliability.
Brown and Cappelen (eds.). Assertion. OUP: Oxford 2011. Contributors include Brown, Cappelen, Goldberg, Greenough, Kölbel, Kvanvig, Lackey, MacFarlane, Maitra, Pagin, Stalnaker.
Brown and Gerken (eds). 2012. Knowledge Ascriptions. OUP: Oxford. Contributors include Beebe, Blome-Tillman, Brown, Gerken, Fantl and McGrath, Glick, Lackey, Nagel, Pinillos, Weatherson.
7. ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS.
Forthcoming. "Dogmatism and Intuitions", in Tucker (ed.), Dogmatism and Phenomenal Conservatism, under contract at OUP.
Forthcoming. “Shifty talk: knowledge and causation”. Philosophical Studies. Online early, 10.1007/s11098-012-0054-x, 28th November 2012.
Forthcoming. "Impurism, practical reasoning, and the threshold problem." Nous. Online early, DOI: 10.1111/nous.12008, 27th December 2012 |
2013. “Knowing-how: linguistics and cognitive science”. Analysis; doi: 10.1093/analys/ant003
2012. "Words, concepts, and epistemology", in Brown and Gerken (eds.) Knowledge Ascriptions, OUP: Oxford. (31-54)
2012. Introduction (with Gerken) to Brown and Gerken (eds). Knowledge Ascriptions. OUP: Oxford. (1-30)
2012. "Assertion and practical reasoning: common or divergent epistemic standards". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84, 1:123-157. Article first published online : 11 JAN 2011, DOI: 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2010.00432.x
2011. "Thought experiments and philosophical evidence". Dialectica special issue, Justification, 65, 4:493-516.
2011. "Intuitions, evidence and hopefulness". Synthese. Online first, DOI: 10.1007/s11229-011-9952-2, 1st May 2011.
2011. "Practical reasoning, decision theory and anti-intellectualism", in Lackey (ed.), Episteme special volume on pragmatic encroachment 9, 1:1-20.
2011. "Experimental-philosophy, contextualism and subject-sensitive invariantism". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Article first published online : 12 JAN 2011, DOI: 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2010.00461.x
2011. "Introduction " (co-author Cappelen), in Brown and Cappelen (eds), Assertion, OUP: 1-17.
2011. "Fallibilism and the Knowledge Norm for Assertion and Practical Reasoning". In Brown and Cappelen (eds.). Assertion. OUP: Oxford.
2011. "The knowledge norm of practical reasoning and impurism". Proceedings of the 34th International Wittgenstein Symposium.
2010. "Knowledge and Assertion". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81, 3,: 549-566.
2008. ‘The Knowledge Norm for Assertion'. Philosophical Issues 18:89-103
2008. ‘Knowledge and Practical Reason.' Philosophy Compass.
2008. ‘Internalism and Externalism’ in Internalism and Externalism: Mind and Epistemology, ed. S. Goldberg,, OUP.
2008. ‘Anti-Individualism and Self-Knowledge’, entry for the Oxford Handbook in the Philosophy of Mind, eds. Beckermann and McLaughlin, OUP.
2006. 'Contextualism and warranted assertibility manoeuvres', Philosophical Studies 130:407-435.
Doubt, Circularity, and the Moorean Response to the Sceptic, Philosophical Perspectives (2005).
'Noninferential justification and epistemic circularity', Analysis (2004).
'Wright on Transmission Failure', Analysis (2004).
2003. "The Reductio Argument and Transmission of Warrant", in Nuccetelli, ed., New Essays on Semantic Externalism, Scepticism, and Self-Knowledge, MIT.
2003: “Externalism and the Neo-Fregean Tradition”, in A.Barber, Epistemology of Language, OUP.
'Anti-Individualism and Agnosticism', Analysis (2001), pp.213-224.
'Critical Reasoning, Understanding, and Self-Knowledge', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2000), pp 659-77.
2000: “Against Temporal Externalism”, Analysis, pp.178-88.
2000: “Reliabilism, Knowledge and Mental Content”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, pp.115-135.
1999: “Boghossian and Privileged Access”, Analysis, pp.52-58.
1998: “Recognitional Capacities and Natural Kind Terms”, Mind, pp.275-303.
1995: “The Incompatibility of Anti-Individualism and Privileged Access”, Analysis, pp.149-56. Reprinted in P.Ludlow and N.Martin, (eds.) Externalism and Self-Knowledge, CSLI Publications, Stanford, 1998.
Research interests
My main areas of research are philosophical methodology and epistemology.
Research grants
2010-2013: Leverhulme Institutional Network Grant, "Intuitions and Philosophical Methodology"; £58k
2008-2012: Major 4-year AHRC grant 'Intuitions and Philosophical Methodology' (co-investigator Herman Cappelen); circa £970K
2007: AHRC Research Leave Award
2001-2003: Philip Leverhulme Prize (£50,000)
2000-2001: Bristol University Research Fellowship
2000: Faculty of Arts Research Award.
1999-2000: AHRB Research Leave Award.
1994-6: Junior Research Fellowship, Wolfson College, Oxford.
Research students
Julia Langkau, Andrea Onofri, Laura Cecilia Porro, Margot Strohminger, Nicholas Hughes and Laurence Carrick
Teaching
PY4642: Trust, Knowledge and Society