"How To Defend Scientific Anti-Realism" This was a seminar paper for an advanced graduate seminar on underdetermination of theory by data. Both the `No Miracles Argument' and the `Pessimistic Metainduction' commit the base rate fallacy if they don't assume a rate of scientific theory truth (which is what's at issue, and so they cannot). Stanford's Problem of Unconceived Alternatives does not rely on such assumptions, and so constitutes a new threat to scientific realism.

"Black’s Closure Patch, and Why it’s No Help for the Reliabilist" This was a seminar paper for a standard graduate course in Epistemology. Reliabilism makes knowledge too easy, and Tim Black offers a solution by examining how the closure principle ought to function. I argue that while his suggestion is well-motivated, it will be unacceptable to a thorough-going externalist, and seems to leave the reliabilist pulling themselves up too easily by their bootstraps.

"A Mouse in the Wainscoting, an Inference to Empirical Adequacy" This paper summarizes and defends an attack on van Fraassen's constructive empiricism, that van Fraassen’s own skepticism of abduction is at odds with his thesis that empiricists ought to be constructive empiricists. It's mostly summary, but is clear and lucid enough that it may be of use to someone wondering whether to believe what science tells us about the world.

Political Philosophy