By looking at the ways we use truth in social epistemic practices, I have developed a pragmatist version of alethic pluralism (pluralism about truth). A version of this view can be found in my article “Alethic Pluralism for Pragmatists.” While this paper adopts a fairly traditional approach to pluralism about truth, my paper “Truth and Its Uses” offers a more radical version of pragmatist alethic pluralism by arguing that truth is a dual-purpose tool. My newest article on truth, “Conceptually Engineering the Post-Truth Crisis,” uses my theory of truth to explain political threats to the concept of truth, by interpreting them as unwitting conceptual engineering attempts.

I apply my thoughts on truth and epistemic cooperation to my own inquiry: philosophy. I argue that the discipline of philosophy isn’t, and shouldn’t be, a form of epistemic cooperation, and that it therefore doesn’t aim for truth. Though controversial, this metaphilosophical move helps explain why there’s so much disagreement in philosophy, why philosophers may rationally believe their theories despite this disagreement, and how there can be a sense of philosophical progress that is more attainable but also a lot more personal than the one we get from trying to emulate science. I’ve applied some of these thoughts to the practice of peer review in my satirical “Reply to the Reviewers.”