In the heat of debate with my niece.

I am an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. I recently completed my Ph.D. at NYU.

My email address is my first and last names, separated by a period, followed by “@gmail.com”. My name is Turkish. Most people pronounce my first name by using the two English words “sin” and “on”. The last name is pronounced “dor-uh-mudge-uh”.

Abstract: What accounts for how we know that certain rules of reasoning, such as reasoning by Modus Ponens, are valid? If our knowledge of validity must be based on some reasoning, then we seem to be committed to the legitimacy of rule-circular arguments for validity. This paper raises a new difficulty for the rule-circular account for our knowledge of validity. The source of the problem is that, contrary to traditional wisdom, a universal generalization cannot be inferred just on the basis of reasoning about an arbitrary object. I argue in favor of a more sophisticated constraint on reasoning by universal generalization, one which undermines the rule-circular account of our knowledge of validity.

Knowledge of Validity updated March 17th, 09

(forthcoming in Nous.)

Abstract: Hume gave us what we today call the problem of induction. In this paper, I explore a question about deductive reasoning: why am I in a position to immediately infer some deductive consequences of what I know, but not others? I show why the question cannot be answered in the most natural ways of answering it, in particular in Descartes’s way of answering it. I then go on to introduce a new approach to answering the question, an approach inspired by Hume’s own solution to his problem of induction.

The Problem of Deduction

(draft of July 5th, 10)

There Is No Theory of Epistemic Rationality

(draft of June 14th, 10)

Rough and Temporary Abstract: I propose that the function of our epistemically evaluative language is to promote a certain kind of coordination among our belief-forming rules. Following the model of the deflationists’ argument that there is no theory of truth, I use my proposal to argue there is no theory of rationality.

Sinan Dogramaci