• Research Interests
• Teaching Areas
• Publications
• Administrative Roles

Duncan Pritchard (PhD, St. Andrews) joined the Department in July 2007 as the new Chair in Epistemology. Before coming to Edinburgh, he was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Stirling. He did his PhD under the supervision of Crispin Wright at the University of St. Andrews, where he held a Royal Institute of Philosophy Jacobsen Fellowship. Between 2002 and 2004 he held a Leverhulme Trust Special Research Fellowship. In 2007 he was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize.

Research Interests

Duncan's research is mainly in epistemology with particular focus on the following issues: the problem of scepticism, the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction; the rationality of religious belief; testimony; the relationship between epistemic and content externalism; virtue epistemology; epistemic value; modal epistemology; the history of scepticism; and epistemological contextualism. Some of these themes in his work are brought together in his book, entitled Epistemic Luck (Oxford UP, hardback 2005, paperback 2007), which is concerned with the role of luck within knowledge acquisition. More recently, he has co-authored (with Adrian Haddock and Alan Millar) a new monograph, The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations, which is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. He is currently working on a new book which will be on epistemological disjunctivism. This book is under contract with Oxford University Press for the Lines of Thought series that they jointly run with the Aristotelian Society.

Duncan is also the author of Knowledge (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), What is this Thing Called Knowledge? (Routledge, 1st ed. 2006, 2nd ed. 2009), Epistemology A-Z (Edinburgh UP/Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, with M. Blaauw), and editor or co-editor of more than a dozen volumes and journal special issues (for more details about Duncan's publication record, see below). He is the editor-in-chief of the new Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy journal that is being launched by Oxford University Press in the spring of 2010, and he is the series editor (with V. F. Hendricks) of the New Waves in Philosophy series. He also administers the weblog, Epistemic Value.

Aside from epistemology, Duncan is also interested in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and language, the philosophy of religion, and, increasingly, ethics and value theory.

Duncan is part of the Department of Philosophy's Epistemology research cluster.

Teaching Areas

Epistemology, Logic, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Religion, Axiology, Wittgenstein

Publications

Books

• Epistemic Luck, (Oxford UP, hardback 2005, paperback 2007).
• The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations (with Adrian Haddock and Alan Millar), (Oxford UP, forthcoming).
• Epistemic Disjunctivism (Oxford UP, in preparation).

Journal Editorships

• Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy, (Oxford UP, from 2010).

Series Editorships

• New Waves in Philosophy (with V. F. Hendricks), (Palgrave Macmillan, from 2007).

Textbooks

• Knowledge, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
• What is this Thing Called Knowledge? (Routledge, 1st ed. 2006, 2nd ed. 2009).
• Epistemology A-Z, (with M. Blaauw), (Edinburgh UP/Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

Edited Works

• Philosophy: Five Questions (with V. F. Hendricks & J. Symons), (Automatic Press, forthcoming).
• The Routledge Companion to Epistemology (with S. Bernecker), (Routledge, 2010).
• Social Epistemology (with A. Haddock & A. Millar), (Oxford UP, 2010).
• Epistemic Value (with A. Haddock & A. Millar), (Oxford UP, 2009).
• Williamson on Knowledge, (with P. Greenough), (Oxford UP, 2009).
• Arguing About Knowledge (with R. Neta), (Routledge, 2008).
• Epistemology: Five Questions (with V. F. Hendricks), (Automatic Press, 2008).
• New Waves in Epistemology, (with V. F. Hendricks), (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
• Moral and Epistemic Virtues, (with M. S. Brady), (Blackwell, 2003).

Edited Journal Special Issues

• Cognitive Ecology: The Role of the Concept of Knowledge in our Social Cognitive Ecology, special issue of Episteme, (forthcoming).
• The Philosophy of Crispin Wright (with J. Kallestrup), special issue of Synthese, (forthcoming).
• Epistemic Luck, special issue of Synthese 158, 2007.
• Epistemic Virtue and Virtue Epistemology, (with M. S. Brady), special issue of Philosophical Studies 130, 2006.
• Epistemological Contextualism, (with M. S. Brady), special double issue of The Philosophical Quarterly 55, 2005.
• Virtues: Moral and Epistemic, (with M S Brady), special double issue of Metaphilosophy 34, 2003.

Key Recent and Forthcoming Articles

• 'Relevant Alternatives, Perceptual Knowledge and Discrimination', Nous (forthcoming). (pdf)
• 'The Value of Knowledge', The Harvard Review of Philosophy (forthcoming). (DRAFT pdf)
• 'Absurdity, Angst and the Meaning of Life', The Monist (forthcoming). (pdf)
• 'Cognitive Ability and the Extended Cognition Thesis', Synthese (forthcoming). (pdf)
• ‘Evidentialism, Internalism, Disjunctivism’, Evidentialism and its Discontents, (ed.) T. Dougherty, (Oxford UP, forthcoming). (DRAFT pdf)
• ‘Anti-Luck Epistemology and the Ability Intuition’, Modal Epistemology: New Essays on Sensitivity, (eds.) T. Black & K. Becker, (Oxford UP, forthcoming).
• ‘Defusing Epistemic Relativism’, Synthese (forthcoming). (pdf)
• ‘Wright Contra McDowell on Perceptual Knowledge and Scepticism’, Synthese (forthcoming). (pdf)
• 'Wittgenstein on Scepticism', The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, (ed.) M. McGinn, (Oxford UP, forthcoming). (pdf)
• ‘What is the Swamping Problem?’, Reasons for Belief, (eds.) A. Reisner & A. Steglich-Petersen, (Springer, forthcoming). (DRAFT pdf)
• ‘Apt Performance and Epistemic Value’, Philosophical Studies 143 (2009), 407-16. (DRAFT pdf)
• ‘Scepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge’, Analysis Reviews (forthcoming). (pdf)
• ‘Epistemic Relativism, Epistemic Incommensurability and Wittgensteinian Epistemology’, The Blackwell Companion to Relativism, (ed.) S. Hales, (Blackwell, forthcoming). (DRAFT pdf)
• ‘Wittgensteinian Pyrrhonism’, New Essays on Pyrrhonian Scepticism, (ed.) D. Machuca, (Springer, forthcoming).
• 'Knowledge and Virtue: Response to Kelp', International Journal of Philosophical Studies (forthcoming). (pdf)
• 'Achievements, Luck and Value', Think (forthcoming). (pdf)
• 'Knowledge, Understanding and Epistemic Value', Epistemology (Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures), (ed.) A. O’Hear, 19-43, (Cambridge UP, 2009). (pdf)
• 'Two Deflationary Approaches to Fitch-Style Reasoning' (with C. Kelp), New Essays on the Paradox of Knowability, (ed.) J. Salerno, 324-38, (Oxford UP, 2009). (pdf)
• ‘Knowledge’, Central Issues of Philosophy, (ed.) J. Shand, 24-36, (Blackwell, 2009). (pdf)
• ‘Radical Scepticism, Epistemic Luck and Epistemic Value’, Proceedings and Addresses of the Aristotelian Society (suppl. vol.) 82 (2008), 19-41. (pdf)
• ‘Greco on Knowledge: Virtues, Contexts, Achievements’, The Philosophical Quarterly 58 (2008), 437-47. (pdf)
• 'Sensitivity, Safety, and Anti-Luck Epistemology', The Oxford Handbook of Scepticism, (ed.) J. Greco, (Oxford UP, 2008). (pdf)
• 'McDowellian Neo-Mooreanism', New Essays on Disjunctivism, (eds.) A. Haddock & F. Macpherson, (Oxford UP, 2008). (pdf)
• ‘Knowing the Answer, Understanding and Epistemic Value’, Grazer Philosophische Studien (special issue on Knowledge and Questions) 77 (2008), 325-39. (pdf)
• 'Contrastivism, Evidence, and Scepticism', Social Epistemology (special issue on Contrastivism), 22 (2008), 305-23. (pdf)
• ‘Certainty and Scepticism’, Philosophical Issues (supplement to Noûs) 18 (2008), 58-67. (pdf)
• 'Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Luck, Revisited', Metaphilosophy 39 (2008), 66-88. (pdf)
• ‘Safety-Based Epistemology: Whither Now?’, Journal of Philosophical Research 33 (2008). (pdf)
• ‘A Defence of Quasi-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony’, Philosophica (special issue on The Epistemology of Testimony) 78 (2008), 13-28. (pdf)
• 'Recent Work on Epistemic Value', American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2007), 85-110. (pdf)
• 'McDowell and the New Evil Genius' (with R. Neta), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (2007), 381-96. (pdf)
• 'Anti-Luck Epistemology', Synthese 158 (2007), 277-97. (pdf)
• 'How to be a Neo-Moorean', Internalism and Externalism in Semantics and Epistemology, (ed.) S. Goldberg, (Oxford UP, 2007). (pdf)
• 'The Value of Knowledge', Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (ed.) E. Zalta, (2007).
• 'Knowledge, Luck, and Lotteries', New Waves in Epistemology, (eds.) D. H. Pritchard & V. Hendricks, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). (pdf)
• 'Greco on Reliabilism and Epistemic Luck', Philosophical Studies 116 (2006). (pdf)
• 'Moral and Epistemic Luck', Metaphilosophy 37 (2006), 1-25. (pdf)
• 'Scepticism, Epistemic Luck, and Epistemic Angst', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (2005), 185-206. (pdf)
• 'The Structure of Sceptical Arguments', The Philosophical Quarterly 55 (2005), 37-52. (pdf)
• 'Contextualism, Scepticism and Warranted Assertibility Manoeuvres', Knowledge and Skepticism, (eds.) J. Keim-Campbell, M. O’Rourke & H. Silverstein, (MIT Press, 2005). (pdf)
• 'Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Contemporary Anti-Scepticism', Investigating On Certainty: Essays on Wittgenstein's Last Work, (eds.) D. Moyal-Sharrock & W. H. Brenner, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). (pdf)
• 'Virtue Epistemology and the Acquisition of Knowledge', Philosophical Explorations 8 (2005), 229-43. (pdf)
• 'Neo-Mooreanism versus Contextualism', Grazer Philosophische Studien (special issue on Contextualism), 67 (2005), 20-43. (pdf)
• 'Greco on Scepticism' (with C. van Putten), Erkenntnis 62 (2005), 277-84. (pdf)
• ‘Neo-Mooreanism, Contextualism, and the Evidential Basis of Scepticism’, Contextualism, (ed.) D. Suster, 3-25, (Rutgers UP, 2005). (pdf)
• 'The Epistemology of Testimony', Philosophical Issues (supplement to Nous) 14 (2004), 326-48. (pdf)
• 'Epistemic Deflationism', The Southern Journal of Philosophy 42 (2004), 1-32. (pdf)
• 'Epistemic Luck', Journal of Philosophical Research 29 (2004), 193-222. (pdf)
• 'The Psychology and Philosophy of Luck' (with M. Smith), New Ideas in Psychology 22 (2004), 1-28. (pdf)
• 'Testimony', The Trial on Trial: Truth and Due Process, (eds.) R. A. Duff, L. Farmer, S. Marshall & V. Tadros, (Hart, 2004). (pdf)
• 'An Argument for the Inconsistency of Content Externalism and Epistemic Internalism' (with J. Kallestrup), Philosophia 31 (2004), 345-54. (pdf)
• 'Some Recent Work in Epistemology', The Philosophical Quarterly 54 (2004), 605-13. (pdf)
• 'McDowell on Reasons, Externalism and Scepticism', European Journal of Philosophy 11 (2003), 273-94. (pdf)
• 'Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Luck', Metaphilosophy 34 (2003), 106-30. (pdf)
• 'Reforming Reformed Epistemology', International Philosophical Quarterly 43 (2003), 43-66; and reprinted in The Epistemology of Basic Belief, (eds.) R. Rood & R. van Woudenberg, (Rodopi, 2004). (pdf)
• 'Recent Work on Radical Skepticism', American Philosophical Quarterly 39 (2002), 215-57. (pdf)
• 'McKinsey Paradoxes, Radical Scepticism, and the Transmission of Knowledge across Known Entailments', Synthese 130 (2002), 279-302. (pdf)
• 'Resurrecting the Moorean Response to Scepticism', International Journal of Philosophical Studies 10 (2002), 283-307. (pdf)
• 'Radical Scepticism, Epistemological Externalism and Closure', Theoria 69 (2002), 129-61. (pdf)
• 'Two Forms of Epistemological Contextualism', Grazer Philosophische Studien 64 (2002), 19-55. (pdf)
• 'Contextualism, Scepticism, and the Problem of Epistemic Descent', Dialectica 55 (2002), 327-49. (pdf)
• 'Skepticism, Contemporary', Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (eds.) B. Dowden & J. Fieser, (2002).
• 'Scepticism and Dreaming', Philosophia 28 (2001), 373-90. (pdf)
• 'Radical Scepticism, Epistemological Externalism, and "Hinge" Propositions', Wittgenstein-Jahrbuch 2001/2002, (ed.) D. Salehi, (Peter Lang, 2001). (pdf)
• 'Closure and Context', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (2000), 275-80. (pdf)
• 'Is "God Exists" a "Hinge" Proposition of Religious Belief?', International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 47 (2000), 129-40. (pdf)
• ‘Doubt Undogmatized: Pyrrhonian Scepticism, Epistemological Externalism, and the ‘Metaepistemological’ Challenge’, Principia—Revista Internacional de Epistemologia 4 (2000), 187-214. (pdf)

Commisioned Articles

• ‘Hinge Propositions and Tacit Knowledge’, Tacit Knowledge, (eds.) N. Gascoigne & T. Thornton, (Oxford UP).
• ‘Theoretical Intuitions and Dialectical Burdens’, Intuitions in Inquiry, (eds.) D. Rowbottom & T. Booth, (Routledge).
• ‘Hume on Miracles’ (with A. Richmond), The Continuum Companion to Hume, (eds.) A. Bailey & D. O’Brien, (Continuum).

Manuscripts

• The Value of Knowledge (four chapter contribution to a co-authored monograph with Alan Millar and Adrian Haddock entitled The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations): analytical table of contents (pdf), chapter one (pdf), chapter two (pdf), chapter three (pdf), chapter four (pdf), bibliography (pdf).
• 'Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology.' (pdf)

Professional Service

Referee Work

• Acta Analytica
• Acumen Press
• American Philosophical Quarterly
• Ashgate Press
• Australasian Journal of Philosophy
• Blackwell Press
• Broadview Press
• British Journal for the History of Philosophy
• The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
• British Society for Ethical Theory
• Canadian Journal of Philosophy
• Cambridge University Press
• Central States Philosophical Association
• Dialectica
• Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review
• Edinburgh University Press
• Episteme
• Erkenntnis
• Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
• Ethics
• European Journal of Analytical Philosophy
• European Journal of Philosophy
• Journal of Applied Philosophy
• Journal of Moral Philosophy
• Journal of Philosophical Research
• Inquiry
• Les Ateliers de l'Éthique
• Metaphilosophy
• Mind
• Oxford University Press
• Palgrave Macmillan Press
• Philosopher's Imprint
• Philosophia
• The Philosophical Quarterly
• Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
• Philosophy Compass
• Philosophy at Yeditepe
• Philosophia
• Philosophical Papers
• Philosophical Studies
• Polish Journal of Philosophy
• Princeton University Press
• Principia
• The Review of Philosophy and Psychology
• Routledge Press
• Social Epistemology
• Synthese
• Theoria
  

Other Professional Activities

• Elected Member of the British Philosophical Association Executive Committee (2005-08).
• Member of the AHRC Review College (since 2007).
• Member of the editorial boards of The Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophy Compass and Disputatio, and consultative editor for Episteme.
• Leiter Report evaluator.
• External examiner for the Philosophy Departments at the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen.
• Member of the Society for Skeptical Studies, the International Society for the Study of Skepticism, and International Associate member of the American Philosophical Association.

Visiting Professorships

• University of Aarhus (Denmark), 2005.
• University of Helskinki, 2009.

Administrative Roles

• Deputy Head of School, from 2008
• Director of Graduate Studies (Philosophy), 2007-10

Other

If you'd like to read about the adventures of Duncan's alter ego, Jack Maverick ("a tough young epistemologist, living on the edge"), then click here.

 

 

Last updated: January 11th 2010.Back to top