
Joshua Schechter, Chair
Biography
Josh Schechter received his PhD from New York University in 2006. He has taught at Brown since 2005. His research ranges from epistemology, to metaethics, to the philosophy of logic and philosophy of mathematics, to technical issues in logic itself.
Much of his current work concerns the epistemology of the a priori—including accounts of a priori justification and explanations of our reliability about a priori matters. Additional work concerns the nature of logic and logical concepts, the nature of objectivity, and the question of when phenomena "call out" for explanation. He also works on issues in core epistemology—for instance, whether justification is internal and whether it is closed under competent deduction.
Schechter was the recipient of an NEH Summer Stipend in 2009 and held a Visiting Fellowship at New College, Oxford University, in Spring 2009.
Recent seminar topics have included the epistemology of inference, the a priori, the metaphysics and epistemology of modality, and recent work in epistemology.
Publications
- "The Theoretical Significance of the A Priori/A Posteriori Distinction", forthcoming in Dylan Dodd and Elia Zardini (eds.), Beyond Sense? New Essays on the Significance, Grounds, and Extent of the A Priori, Oxford.
- "Internalism and Entitlement to Rules and Methods", Nikolaj Jang Pedersen and Peter Graham (eds.), Epistemic Entitlement (2020), Oxford, pp. 254-78.
- "Aiming at Aptness", Episteme (2019) 16: 438-52.
- "Small Steps and Great Leaps in Thought: The Epistemology of Basic Deductive Rules", Brendan Balcerak Jackson and Magdalena Balcerak Jackson (eds.), Reasoning: New Essays on Theoretical and Practical Thinking (2019), Oxford, pp. 152-77.
- "Explanatory Challenges in Metaethics", Tristram McPherson and David Plunkett (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics (2018), Routledge, pp. 443-58.
- "Is There a Reliability Challenge for Logic?", Philosophical Issues (2018), Philosophy of Logic and Inferential Reasoning 28: 325-347.
- "Difficult Cases and the Epistemic Justification of Moral Belief", Oxford Studies in Metaethics (2017) 12: 27-50.
- "No Need for Excuses: Against Knowledge-First Epistemology and the Knowledge Norm of Assertion", J. Adam Carter, Emma Gordon, and Benjamin Jarvis (eds.), Knowledge First: Approaches in Epistemology and Mind (2017), Oxford, pp. 132-59.
- "Could Evolution Explain Our Reliability about Logic?", Oxford Studies in Epistemology 4 (2013), 214–239
- "Rational Self-Doubt and the Failure of Closure", Philosophical Studies 163 (2) (2013), 428–452. This paper was selected for the Philosophers' Annual, volume 31
- "Juxtaposition: A New Way to Combine Logics", The Review of Symbolic Logic 4(4) (2011), 560–606
- "Weakly Classical Theories of Identity", The Review of Symbolic Logic 4 (4) (2011), 607–644
- "The Reliability Challenge and the Epistemology of Logic", Philosophical Perspectives, Epistemology 24(2010), 437–464
- "How are Basic Belief-Forming Methods Justified?" (with David Enoch), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (3) (2008), 547–579
- "Hawthorne's Lottery Puzzle and the Nature of Belief" (with Christopher Hill), Philosophical Issues (2007) 17, The Metaphysics of Epistemology, 102–122 (slightly expanded PDF)
- "Meaning and Justification: The Case of Modus Ponens" (with David Enoch), Noûs (2006) 40 (4) 687–715
- "Luck, Rationality, and Explanation", expanded version of a commentary on Adam Elga's "Lucky to be Rational" delivered at the 2008 Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference
- "Deductive Reasoning", The Encyclopedia of the Mind (2013) edited by Hal Pashler, SAGE Reference, 226–230
- "Review of Grounding Concepts by C. S. Jenkins", Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2010)