Philosophy Papers
by Matthew Pike
Ph.D. Student
Welcome to the philosophy page of the not-quite-famous philosopher Matthew Pike (1978-?)! This page is intended to be a forum for discussing all of the various philosophy papers I have written in my journey, both earning a B.A. degree in philosophy at the University of Colorado, Denver and now currently in graduate school at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Philosophy is the only discipline that serves to unite everything- all subjects, all possibilities, and all areas of experience into one realm of discourse, and is therefore, in my humble opinion, the greatest sphere of study.
Current Project
Most proponents of a naturalistic approach to epistemology find themselves forced to endorse a reliabilist notion of justification to forestall charges that their views can only yield a descriptive account of belief that is devoid of normative force. This reliabilist approach depends upon an externalist grounding, holding that processes are reliable because they generally produce beliefs that are objectively true. This externalism, however, faces numerous problems, because it seems to depend upon objective access to the independent states of the world, that no subject can possibly have, in order to ascertain whether the process is in fact reliable. As Quine has pointed out, the impossibility of this access forces us to restrict the grounding of our web of beliefs to internally accessible measures, such as the coherence between our beliefs (as well as other theoretical virtues). I am in the process of developing an alternate approach to epistemic justification in my dissertation, one heavily grounded in the recent results and theories of neuroscience and cognitive psychology, which I hope will successfully avoid these worries...Publications
2010 "Sextus Empiricus: Ancient Epistemology and the Fuzziness of Truth" CU Humanities Third Annual Cross-Disciplinary Consortium, April 16, 2010
2009 Pike, Matthew, "Can Metal Be Mental?" in Transformers and Philosophy (Open Court, Popular Culture and Philosophy series) http://www.opencourtbooks.com/books_n/transformers.htm .
2006 Shelby, Candice and Matthew Pike, "The Addicted Mind", Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. XXVII, No. 1 & 2, pp. 76-84.
2003 Pike, Matthew, "Strong Ethics, Right Training Can Boost The Bottom Line", Denver Business Journal, August 29, 2003.
Presentations
2010 "Sextus Empiricus: Ancient Epistemology and the Fuzziness of Truth"
CU Humanities Third Annual Cross-Disciplinary Consortium, April 16, 2010
2010 "Aikido, War, and the Role of the New Warrior"
Pacific APA
San Francisco, April 1 2010
2010 "Aikido: a martial arts approach to international relations?"
CU Philosophy Club- Invited Speaker Series
University of Colorado at Boulder, April 17, 2010
2008 "Neuroscience and the Philosophy of Time"
CU Philosophy Club- Invited Speaker Series
University of Colorado at Boulder, November 19, 2008
2008 "Epistemology, Certainty, and Technology"
CU Philosophy Club- Invited Speaker Series
University of Colorado at Boulder, March 12, 2008
2006 "The Addicted Mind"
New Directions in the Humanities International Conference
Athens, Greece, May 30, 2006
2003 "Ethics Beyond Compliance" (Invited Presentation)
Japha Symposium on Business and Professional Ethics
Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado at Boulder, October 23, 2003
Finally got the website updated a bit. It still needs quite a bit of work, but hey, this is how transitions go, right? I'll be continuing work on it, adding content and improvements as time allows, so stay tuned! Please let me know if you encounter any errors or problems viewing the site. Thanks.
Office Hours: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: Buchanan’s Coffee on the hill.
Please feel free to drop by with any questions, or simply to chat about philosophy, life, the universe and everything...