Peter D. Klein Professor I Contact Information Office: Davison Hall 123 Email: Phone: (732) 932-9861 x103

Education

B.A., Earlham College; Ph.D., Yale University

Speciality

Epistemology

Research

My current research focuses on the various theories of justification -- foundationalism, coherentism and infinitism. The latter view, namely that the structure of justificatory reasons is infinite and non-repeating, has never been carefully investigated primarily because it was thought that there are obvious, sound objections to it. I do not think those objections are sound. Further, I think there are some unanswerable objections to foundationalism and coherentism. The task is to uncover the advantages and drawbacks of infinitism.

Publications

Books Certainty: A Refutation of Scepticism, University of Minnesota Press, l981, xiv +242. (second printing, l984) Articles, Chapters in Books, Reviews and Other Items "The Private Language Argument and The Sense-Datum Theory," Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 47 (3), l969, 325-343. "Are Strawson's Persons Immortal? - A Reply," Philosophical Studies, 20 (5), l969, 65-69. "A Proposed Definition of Propositional Knowledge," Journal of Philosophy, 67 (16), 1971, 471-482. Reprinted in: Knowing, M. Roth & L. Galis (eds.), University Press of America, l984; Knowledge and Justification, Ernest Sosa (ed), Ashgate Publishing Co., 1994; On Knowing and the Known, Ken Lucey (ed), Prometheus Books, 1996; Epistemology: An Anthology, Kim, Sosa, McGrath (eds.), Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies, 1999. Review of Armstrong's Belief, Truth and Knowledge, in Philosophical Review, 85 (2), l976, 225-227. "Misleading 'Misleading, Defeators'," Journal of Philosophy, 76 (7), 1979, 382-386. Reprinted in: On Knowing and the Known, Ken Lucey (ed), Prometheus Books, 1996. "Misleading Evidence and the Restoration of Justification," Philosophical Studies, 37, 1980, 81-89. "Reply to Professor Odegard," Philosophical Books, 23 (4), l982, 198-203. Commentary article on Keith Lehrer: Profiles, ed. by Radu Bogdan, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 43 (3), l983, 409-419. "Real Knowledge," Synthese, 55 (2), l983, 143-164. "Virtues of Inconsistency," Monist, 68 (1), l985, 105-135. "Radical Interpretation and Global Scepticism" in Truth and Interpretation, Ernest LePore (ed.), Basil Blackwell, l986, 369-386. "Immune Belief Systems," Philosophical Topics, 14 (1), 1986, 259-280. "On Behalf of the Skeptic," The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and His Critics, S. Luper-Foy (ed.), Rowman & Littlefield, l987, 267-281. "Epistemic Compatibilism and Canonical Beliefs," in Doubting: Contemporary Perspectives on Scepticism, M. Roth & G. Ross (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990, 99-117. "Certainty" in A Companion to Epistemology, J. Dancy & E. Sosa (eds.), Basil Blackwell, 1992, 61-64. "Contemporary Scepticism" in A Companion to Epistemology, J. Dancy & E. Sosa (eds.), Basil Blackwell, 1992, 458-462. "Scepticism" in A Companion to Epistemology, J. Dancy & E. Sosa (eds.), Basil Blackwell, 1992, 457-8. "What Price Coherence?" (with Ted Warfield), Analysis, 54.3, July 1994, 129-32. "Skepticism and Closure: Why the Evil Genius Argument Fails," Philosophical Topics, 23.1, Spring 1995, 213-236. Reprinted in Huemer& Audi, eds., Epistemology: Contemporary Readings, Routledge, 2002. "Closure" in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, R. Audi (ed.), 1995, 126-7. "Certainty" in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, R. Audi (ed.), 1995, 113-4. "No Help for the Coherentist," (with Ted Warfield) Analysis, 56.2, April 1996, 118-121. "Warrant, Proper Function, Reliabilism and Defeasibility" in Warrant and Contemporary Epistemology, ed. Jonathan Kvanvig, Rowman & Littlefield, 1996, 97-130. "Certainty" in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge, E. Craig (ed.), 1998, vol 2, 264-267. "The Concept of Knowledge" in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge, E. Craig (ed.), 1998, vol 5, 266-276. Reprinted in The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E, Craig (ed.), 2005, 524-32. "Epistemology" in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge, E. Craig (ed.), 1998, vol 3, 362-365. Reprinted in The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E, Craig (ed.), 2005, 224-7. "Foundationalism and the Infinite Regress of Reasons," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 58.4, 1998, 919-925. "Human Knowledge and the Infinite Regress of Reasons," Philosophical Perspectives, 13, J. Tomberlin (ed.), 1999, 297-325. "Why Not Infinitism?" in Epistemology: Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress in Philosophy, Richard Cobb-Stevens (ed.), 2000, vol 5, 199-208. "Contextualism and the Real Nature of Academic Skepticism," Philosophical Issues, 10, 2000, 108-116. Also appeared in Spanish in Teorema, 19.3, 2000, 127-35 "The Failures of Dogmatism and a New Pyrrhonism," Acta Analytica, 15.24, 2000, 7-24. "Skepticism," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, October, 2001, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/. "Skepticism," The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, Paul Moser (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2002, 336-361. "How a Pyrrhonian Skeptic Might Respond to Academic Skepticism" in The Skeptics: Contemporary Essays, Ashgate Press, ed. Steven Luper, 2003, 75-94. "Coherence, Knowledge and Skepticism," The Epistemology of Keith Lehrer, ed. Erik Olsson, Kluwer, 2003, 281-297. "When Infinite Regresses Are Not Vicious," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 66.3, 2003, 718-729. "Knowledge is True, Non-defeated Justified Belief," Essential Knowledge, Longman Publishers, ed. Steven Luper, 2004, 124-135. "There is No Good Reason to be an Academic Skeptic," Essential Knowledge, Longman Publishers, ed. Steven Luper, 2004, 299-309. "What IS Wrong with Foundationalism is that it Cannot Solve the Epistemic Regress Problem," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 68.1, 2004, 166-171. "Skepticism: Ascent and Assent?" in Ernest Sosa and his Critics, ed. John Greco, Blackwell Publishers, 2004, 112-125. "Closure Matters: Skepticism and Easy Knowledge," Philosophical Issues, 14, 2004, 165-184. "Infinitism Is the Solution to the Epistemic Regress Problem," Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, ed. Matthias Steup and Ernest Sosa, Blackwell Publishers, 2005, 131-40. "Reply to Ginet," Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, ed. Matthias Steup and Ernest Sosa, Blackwell Publishers, 2005, 149-52. "Infinitism's Take on Justification, Knowledge, Certainty and Skepticism," in special edition of Veritas entitled Perspectives in Contemporary Epistemology, 50.4, December 2005, 153-172. On the web at: http://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/veritas/ojs/viewissue.php?id=4&locale=en. "Human Knowledge and the Infinite Progress of Reasoning," Philosophical Studies, 134. 1, 2006, 1-17. "How to be an Infinitist about Doxastic Justification," Philosophical Studies, 134.1, 2006, 25-29. "Useful Falsehoods" to appear in a collection edited by Quentin Smith entitled Epistemology: New Essays, Oxford University Press, 48 ms. pages, forthcoming, 2007. "Contemporary Responses to Agrippa's Trilemma" to appear in a volume on skepticism edited by John Greco, Oxford University Press. "Self-Profile," Blackwell Companion to Epistemology, Mathias Steup (ed), 10 ms pages, forthcoming.