• Patrick Rysiew (rhymes with the North American "issue")
  • Professor of Philosophy
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  • Department of Philosophy
  • The University of Victoria
  • P.O. Box 1700 STN CSC
  • Victoria BC V8W-2Y2 Canada
  • Phone: 250-721-7512
  • Fax: 250-721-7511
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    Below, you'll find information about some of my philosophical interests and activities. If you can't find what you're after, e-mail me at the address above.

     

    Research Interests

    • Epistemology - the relevance of social, psychological, and evolutionary considerations to epistemic matters, knowledge attributions, epistemic value(s), evidence, testimony, rationality, naturalism, scepticism, contextualism
    • Early Modern - especially Thomas Reid and the empiricists
    • Philosophy of Language & Mind - including rationality, perception, non-semantic aspects of communication, and theories of 'higher' cognitive processes

    Courses, 2023-2024 (descriptions)

    • Philosophy 251: Knowledge, Certainty, and Skepticism - Fall 2023
    • Philosophy 358: Theory of Perception - Spring 2024

    Publications

    • forthcoming: "Naturalism, Externalism, and Naturalistic Externalism," in Externalism about Knowledge, edited by Luis Oliveira (Oxford University Press)
    • forthcoming: "Knowledge Attributions and the Social," in The Oxford Handbook of Social Epistemology, edited by Jennifer Lackey and Aidan McGlynn (Oxford University Press)
    • forthcoming: "Reid on Memory and Testimony" (with Rebecca Copenhaver), in Memory and Testimony, edited by Stephen Wright and Sanford Goldberg (Oxford University Press)
    • "Common Sense in Reid's Response to Scepticism," Review Philosophique de la France et de L'Étranger - special issue on the Normativity of Common Sense, edited by Angelique Thébert, Vol. 146 (2021/1): 33-47 (.pdf)
    • "Assertion of Knowledge," in The Oxford Handbook of Assertion, edited by Sanford Goldberg (Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 581-603 (.pdf)
    • "Epistemic Contextualism," in Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, 2019. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_694-1 (link)
    • "First Principles as General, First Principle 7 as Special," Analytic Philosophy - symposium on James Van Cleve's Problems from Reid (Oxford University Press, 2015), Vol. 59, No. 4 (2018): 527-538 (.pdf)
    • "The Gettier Problem and the Program of Analysis," in The Gettier Problem, edited by Stephen Hetherington (Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 159-176 (.pdf)
    • "Factivity and Evidence," in The Factive Turn, edited by Veli Mitova (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 50-65 (.pdf)
    • "Thomas Reid (1710-1796)" Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis, 2018. doi:10.4324/0123456789-DB059-2 (link) (.pdf)
    • "Meaning, Communication, and the Mental," Protosociology - special issue on Meaning and Publicity, edited by Richard Manning, Vol. 34 (2017): 31-43 (.pdf)
    • "Judgment and Practice in Reid and Wittgenstein," European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy - special issue on Pragmatism and Common Sense, edited by Gabriele Gava and Roberto Gronda, Vol. IX, No. 2 (2017) (here)
    • "Veritism, Values, Epistemic Norms," Philosophical Topics, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2017): 181-203 (.pdf)
    • "'Knowledge' and Pragmatics," in The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism, edited by Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa (New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 205-217 (.pdf)
    • "Naturalism in Epistemology,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (first appeared January 2016; last substantive revision, March 2020) (here)
    • "Argumentation and the Social Significance of Reasons," Episteme, Volume 12, Special Issue 02 (June 2015): 309-317 (.pdf)
    • "Thomas Reid on Language," in Linguistic Content: New Essays in the History of the Philosophy of Language, edited by Margaret Cameron and Robert Stainton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 223-244 (.pdf)
    • "Pragmatism and Reid's 'Third Way'," in Mind, Knowledge and Action: Essays in Honour of Reid’s Tercentenary, edited by Todd Buras and Rebecca Copenhaver (Mind Association Occasional Series, Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 178-192 (.pdf)
    • "Reid's First Principle #7," in New Essays on Reid, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 41: sup1 (2014): 167-182
      • reprinted in New Essays on Thomas Reid, edited by Patrick Rysiew (Routledge, 2015): 167-182 (.pdf)
    • "What is Knowledge-first Epistemology?", "Experience First", and "Still Nowhere Else to Start" (with Trent Dougherty), in Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, 2nd edition, edited by Ernest Sosa, Matthias Steup, and John Turri (Blackwell Publishing, 2014), pp. 10-16, 17-22, 25-26 (.pdf)
    • "Is Knowledge a Non-Composite Mental State?," in Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Volume 4, edited by Tamar Szabó Gendler and John Hawthorne (Oxford University Press, 2013): 333-344 (.pdf)
    • "Rationality," in Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy, edited by Duncan Pritchard (New York: Oxford University Press, published on-line, November 2012) (link)
    • "Epistemic Scorekeeping," in Knowledge Ascriptions, edited by Jessica Brown and Mikkel Gerken (Oxford University Press, 2012): 270-293 (.pdf)
    • "Elusive 'Knowledge'," Analytic Philosophy, Vol. 53, No. 1 (2012): 130-138 (.pdf)
    • "Surveys, Intuitions, Knowledge Attributions," Philosophical Studies, Vol. 156, No. 1 (2011): 111-120 (.pdf)
    • "Making it Evident: Evidence and Evidentness, Justification and Belief," in Evidentialism and its Discontents, edited by Trent Dougherty (Oxford, 2011): 207-225 (.pdf)
    • "Clarity About Concessive Knowledge Attributions: Reply to Dodd" (with Trent Dougherty), Synthese, Vol. 181, No. 3 (2011): 395-403 (.pdf)
    • "Relativism and Contextualism," in A Companion to Relativism, edited by Steven D. Hales (Blackwell, 2011): 286-305 (.pdf)
    • "Contextualism," in The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, edited by Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard (Routledge, 2011): 523-535 (.pdf)
    • "Fallibilism, Epistemic Possibility, and Concessive Knowledge Attributions" (with Trent Dougherty), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 78, No. 1 (January 2009): 123-132 (.pdf)
    • "Rationality Disputes - Psychology and Epistemology," Philosophy Compass, Vol. 3, Issue 6 (October 2008): 1153-1176 (abstract)
    • "Speaking of Knowing," Noûs, Vol. 41, No. 4 (December 2007): 627-662 (.pdf)
    • "Beyond Words: Communication, Truthfulness, and Understanding," Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology, Vol. 4, No. 3 (October 2007): 285-304 (.pdf)
    • "Epistemic Contextualism," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (first appeared Fall 2007 Edition; last substantive revision, December 2020) (here)
    • "A Study in the Cognition of Individuals' Identity: Solving the Problem of Singular Cognition in Object and Agent Tracking" (with Nicolas Bullot), Consciousness and Cognition, Vol. 16 (2007): 276-293 (.pdf)
    • "Motivating the Relevant Alternatives Approach," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 32, No. 2 (June 2006): 259-280 (.pdf)
    • "Reidian Evidence," Journal of Scottish Philosophy, Vol. 3, Issue 2 (Autumn 2005): 107-121 (.pdf)
    • "Contesting Contextualism," Grazer Philosophische Studien - special issue on contextualism, Vol. 69 (July 2005): 51-70 (.pdf)
    • "Introduction," Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2005): 163-168 (.pdf)
    • "Tracking Objects, Tracking Agents" (with Nicolas Bullot) – Interdisciplines on-line Symposium, ‘Referring to Objects’ (March 2005) (.pdf)
    • "Analyzing Knowledge Management Systems: A Veritistic Approach" (with Palash Bera), Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Philosophy and Informatics (Cologne; April-May 2004) (.pdf)
    • "Goldman's Knowledge in a Social World: Correspondence Truth and the Place of Justification in a Veritistic Social Epistemology," Protosociology, Vol. 18-19 (2003): 409-422 (.pdf)
    • "'Encouragement in Darwin'?," Facta Philosophica, Vol. 4., Issue 2 (Fall 2002): 271-286 (.pdf)
    • "Reid and Epistemic Naturalism," The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 209 (October 2002): 437-456 (.pdf)
      • winner of The Philosophical Quarterly Essay Prize, 2001
      • reprinted in The Philosophy of Thomas Reid: A Collection of Essays, edited by John Haldane and Stephen Read (Blackwell, 2003)
      • chosen as one of 10 highlights of the previous ten volumes (i.e., ten years) of The Philosophical Quarterly (March 2006)
    • "The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions," Noûs, Vol. 35, No. 4 (December 2001): 477-514 (.pdf)
    • "Testimony, Simulation, and the Limits of Inductivism," Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 78, No. 2 (June 2000): 269-274 (.pdf)
    • "Conventional Wisdom," Analysis, Vol. 60, No. 1 (January 2000): 78-83 (.pdf)
    • "Reid's (Mis)Characterization of Judgment," Reid Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Autumn 1999): 63-68 (.pdf)

    Books Reviewed

    • Knowledge and Presuppositions, by Michael Blome-Tillmann (Oxford University Press, 2014): The Philosophical Review, Vol. 126, No. 1 (2017): 126-132 (.pdf)
    • Assurance: An Austinian View of Knowledge and Knowledge Claims, by Krista Lawlor (Oxford University Press, 2013): International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, Vol. 6, Issue 1 (2016): 65-72 (.pdf)
    • Thomas Reid's Theory of Perception, by Ryan Nichols (Oxford University Press, 2007): Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 46, No. 4 (October 2008): 645-646 (.pdf)
    • Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth, edited by Gerhard Preyer and Georg Peter (Oxford University Press, 2005): Mind, Vol. 116, No. 464 (October 2007): 1154-1158 (.pdf)
    • Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning, by William P. Alston (Cornell, 2000): The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 212 (July 2003): 465-468 (.pdf)
    • Intellectual Trust in Oneself and Others, by Richard Foley (Cambridge, 2002): Philosophy in Review, Vol. 23, No. 3 (June 2003): 178-180 (.pdf)
    • Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology, by Nicholas Wolterstorff (Cambridge, 2001): Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 40, No. 2 (April 2002): 260-261 (.pdf)
    • Implicature, by Wayne A. Davis (Cambridge, 1998): Mind, Vol. 109, No. 435 (July 2000): 573-579 (.pdf)

    Editorial

    • Editor, New Essays on Reid, special volume of Canadian Journal of Philosophy,41, sup1 (dated 2011; published 2014).
      • reprinted as stand-alone book: New Essays on Thomas Reid (London and New York: Routledge, 2015).
    • Guest editor, special issue of Philosophical Studies: selected papers and sessions, 2013 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association: Vol. 171, Issue 1 (October 2014).
    • Editoral Board, Canadian Journal of Philosophy (2007-present).
    • Supervising editor, Thoemmes' Dictionary of Twentieth Century British Philosophers. General Editor, Stuart Brown (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005).

    Links