• 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. 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 now published by 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 Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy and (with Diego Machuca) International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, and he is the series editor (with V. F. Hendricks) of the New Waves in Philosophy book 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, 2010).
• Epistemological Disjunctivism, (Oxford UP, in preparation).

Journal Editorships

• Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy, (Oxford UP, from 2010).
• International Journal for the Study of Skepticism (with D. Machuca), (Brill, from 2011).

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 (with K. Kappel et al), special issue of Episteme (forthcoming).
• Extended Cognition and Epistemic Action (with A. Clark & K. Vaesen), special issue of Philosophical Explorations (forthcoming).
• The Philosophy of Crispin Wright (with J. Kallestrup), special issue of Synthese 171, 2009.
• 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

• 'Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology', The Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming). (pdf)
• ‘Evidentialism, Internalism, Disjunctivism’, Evidentialism and its Discontents, (ed.) T. Dougherty, (Oxford UP, forthcoming). (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)
• '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, (Cambridge UP, forthcoming). (pdf)
• ‘Epistemic Relativism, Epistemic Incommensurability and Wittgensteinian Epistemology’, The Blackwell Companion to Relativism, (ed.) S. Hales, (Blackwell, forthcoming). (DRAFT pdf)
• ‘Wittgensteinian Pyrrhonism’, Pyrrhonism in Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Philosophy, (ed.) D. Machuca, (Springer, forthcoming). (pdf)
• ‘Hume on Miracles’ (with A. Richmond), The Continuum Companion to Hume, (eds.) A. Bailey & D. O’Brien, (Continuum, forthcoming).
• ‘Skepticism and Information’ (with E. T. Kerr), Knowledge, Technology and Policy (forthcoming).
• 'Relevant Alternatives, Perceptual Knowledge and Discrimination', Noûs 44 (2010), 245-68. (pdf)
• 'Cognitive Ability and the Extended Cognition Thesis', Synthese 175 (2010), 133-51. (pdf)
• 'Absurdity, Angst and the Meaning of Life', The Monist 93 (2010), 3-16. (pdf)
• 'Achievements, Luck and Value', Think 25 (2010), 1-12. (pdf)
• 'Religious Belief, Epistemology of', Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy (2010). (pdf)
• 'Skepticism, Contemporary', Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy (2010). (pdf)
• 'Testimony, Epistemology of' (with J. A. Carter), Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy (2010). (pdf)
• 'The Value of Knowledge', The Harvard Review of Philosophy 16 (2009), 2-19. (pdf)
• ‘Wright Contra McDowell on Perceptual Knowledge and Scepticism’, Synthese 171 (2009), 467-79. (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)
• ‘Scepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge’, Analysis 69 (2009), 317-25. (pdf)
• ‘Knowledge’, Central Issues of Philosophy, (ed.) J. Shand, 24-36, (Blackwell, 2009). (pdf)
• ‘Apt Performance and Epistemic Value’, Philosophical Studies 143 (2009), 407-16. (pdf)
• 'Knowledge and Virtue: Response to Kelp', International Journal of Philosophical Studies 17 (2009), 589-96. (pdf)
• ‘Safety-Based Epistemology: Whither Now?’, Journal of Philosophical Research 34 (2009), 33-45. (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, 437-55, (Oxford UP, 2008). (pdf)
• 'McDowellian Neo-Mooreanism', New Essays on Disjunctivism, (eds.) A. Haddock & F. Macpherson, 283-310, (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)
• ‘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).
• ‘Entitlement and the Groundlessness of Our Believing’, New Essays on Entitlement, (eds.) P. Graham & N. Pedersen, (Oxford UP).
• ‘Knowledge, Value and Virtue Epistemology’, The Oxford Guide to Powers and Capacities in Philosophy, (eds.) J. Greco & R. Groff, (Oxford UP).
• ‘Perceptual Knowledge and Seeing That P’, Philosophical Issues (special issue on Epistemology and Perception), (ed.) B. Brogaard.

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
• Grazer Philosophische Studien
• Journal of Applied Philosophy
• Journal of Moral Philosophy
• Journal of Philosophical Research
• Information
• Inquiry
• Les Ateliers de l'Éthique
• Metaphilosophy
• Mind
• Oxford University Press
• Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
• 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
• Polity Press
• Princeton University Press
• Principia
• The Review of Philosophy and Psychology
• Routledge Press
• Social Epistemology
• The Southern Journal of Philosophy
• Synthese
• Theoria
  

Other Professional Activities

• Associate Fellow of the Northern Institute of Philosophy.
• 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, Episteme, Philosophy Compass, Disputatio and Logos & Episteme: An International Journal of Epistemology.
• Leiter Report evaluator.
• External examiner for the Philosophy Departments at the Universities of Glasgow (2004-09) and Aberdeen (2005-10).
• Member of the British Philosophical Association, 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.
• Director of Graduate Studies (PPLS), from 2011.
• PPLS Representative, College Academic Promotions Committee, from 2010.
• Gifford Lectureship Committee, from 2009.

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: February 22nd 2011.Back to top