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Christensen

David Christensen

William Herbert Perry Faunce Professor of Philosophy, Director of Undergraduate Studies
David_Christensen@brown.edu
401-863-3214
Corliss Brackett 306
Research Profile
Office Hours Wednesdays 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM or by appointment

Biography

David Christensen received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1987 and taught for 20 years at the University of Vermont before coming to Brown in 2007. His main research interests are in epistemology (formal and informal).  

His first book, Putting Logic in its Place, investigates the role of logic in constraining rational beliefs and degrees of confidence. He's written papers on this topic and others, such as: What determines whether a given bit of evidence supports or refutes a given theory? Can thinking about the meanings of our words help us resist skepticism? Does the fact that one believes something provide some justification for continuing to believe it?

More recently, he has been working on questions about how our theory of rational belief should treat evidence that bears on the believer’s own cognitive reliability. For example, how should one's beliefs be affected by one's knowing that other people, who are equally informed, honest, and intelligent, believe differently? (This question is the subject of the collection The Epistemology of Disagreement, co-edited with Jennifer Lackey.) More generally, how should one’s beliefs be affected by evidence that one might be subject to unconscious bias, or other factors that can influence one’s cognitive reliability? This set of questions is explored in a number of papers, as well as in Christensen’s recent book, Judging One’s Own Case.

Publications

Books

Judging One's Own Case: Rational Implications of Self-Awareness, Oxford University Press (2026)

The Epistemology of Disagreement: New Essays, edited with Jennifer Lackey, Oxford University Press (2013)  

- Paperback edition (OUP), (2016)

Putting Logic in its Place: Formal Constraints on Rational Belief, Oxford University Press (2004)  

- Paperback edition (OUP), (2007)

 

Papers