John Pittard

Professor Pittard is a philosopher specializing in epistemology and the philosophy of religion. A number of his publications focus on questions concerning the rational significance of disagreement with informed and intelligent interlocutors. His book, Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment (Oxford University Press, 2019), assesses the challenge that religious disagreement poses to confident religious (or irreligious) commitment. Other topics he has explored in published work include the problem of evil, the nature of God, skepticism, and the meaning of normative terms. He has published articles in numerous journals including Mind, Noûs, Philosophical Studies, Ergo, Synthese, Inquiry, Philosophical Quarterly, and Faith and Philosophy.

Much of Prof. Pittard’s work in progress focuses on arguments that purport to show that some worldview or metaphysical outlook is rationally incompatible with epistemic self-trust. Other work in progress explores ethical concerns posed by the prospect of artificial general intelligence.