Penn Arts & Sciences Logo

Paul Silva

Visiting Faculty

I was a lecturer in philosophy at Monash University from 2013-2016 and I am presently a visiting faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. I completed my PhD in 2013 at the University of Connecticut. My current research is primarily in epistemology, but I also work in metaphysics and ethics. My website is here.

Research Interests

epistemology, metaphysics, ethics

Selected Publications

  1. “How To Be Conservative: A Partial Defense of Epistemic Conservatism,” 2013, Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

  2. “Ordinary Objects and Series-Style Answers to the Special Composition Question,” 2013, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.

  3. “Epistemically Self-Defeating Arguments and Skepticism About Intuition,” 2013, Philosophical Studies.

  4. “Does Doxastic Justification Have a Basing Requirement?” 2015, Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

  5. “On Doxastic Justification and Properly Basing One’s Beliefs,” 2015, Erkenntnis.

  6. “The Composite Nature of Epistemic Justification,” 2016, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.

  7. “Why Worry About Epistemic Circularity?” with M.P. Lynch, Journal of Philosophical Research, 2016 (invited contribution).

  8. “Etiological Information and Diminishing Justification,” forthcoming, Inquiry.

  9. “Knowing How to Put Knowledge First in The Theory of Justification,” forthcoming, Episteme.

  10. “How Doxastic Justification Helps Us Solve the Puzzle of Misleading Higher-Order Evidence,” forthcoming, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.

  11. “Justification: Propositional, Doxastic, Personal” to appear in The Routledge Companion to Evidence, edited by Maria Lasonen-Aarnio & Trent Dougherty (invited contribution).