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938 The evolution of knowledgeIn Peter Carruthers & A. Chamberlain (eds.), Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language and Meta-Cognition, Cambridge University Press. pp. 170. 2000.
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32X*—Is Epistemology Dead?Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 82 (1): 129-142. 1982.David Papineau; X*—Is Epistemology Dead?, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 82, Issue 1, 1 June 1982, Pages 129–142, https://doi.org/10.1093/arist.
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148Teleosemantics: New Philo-sophical Essays (edited book)Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2006.Teleosemantics seeks to explain meaning and other intentional phenomena in terms of their function in the life of the species. This volume of new essays from an impressive line-up of well-known contributors offers a valuable summary of the current state of the teleosemantics debate
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208Representation and explanationPhilosophy of Science 51 (December): 550-72. 1984.Functionalism faces a problem in accounting for the semantic powers of beliefs and other mental states. Simple causal considerations will not solve this problem, nor will any appeal to the social utility of semantic interpretations. The correct analysis of semantic representation is a teleological one, in terms of the biological purposes of mental states: whereas functionalism focuses, so to speak, only on the structure of the cognitive mechanism, the semantic perspective requires in addition th…Read more
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42Can We Reduce Causal Direction to Probabilities?PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992 238-252. 1992.This paper defends the view that the asymmetry of causation can be explained in terms of probabilistic relationships between event types. Papineau first explores three different versions of the "fork asymmetry", namely David Lewis' asymmetry of overdetermination, the screening-off property of common causes, and Spirtes', Glymour's and Scheines' analysis of probabilistic graphs. He then argues that this fork asymmetry is both a genuine phenomenon and a satisfactory metaphysical reduction of causa…Read more
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58Truth and TeleologyIn D. Knowles (ed.), Explanation and its Limits, Cambridge University Press. pp. 21-43. 1990.
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43Mental Disorder, Illness and Biological DisfunctionRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 37 73-82. 1994.This paper will be about the relationship between mental disorder and physical disorder. I shall also be concerned with the connection between these notions and the notion of ‘illness’.
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1Review of T. W. HUTCHISON: Knowledge and Ignorance in Economics (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 31 (1): 98-103. 1980.
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6Objectivity in Social Science By Frank Cunningham University of Toronto Press, 1973, ix + 154 pp., $8.50 (review)Philosophy 50 (193): 364-. 1975.
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47Précis of Thinking about ConsciousnessPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (1): 143-143. 2002.
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113The tyranny of common senseThe Philosophers' Magazine 34 (34): 19-25. 2006.Sometimes I despair of my philosophical colleagues. They are so conservative. I don’t mean this in a political sense. In conventional party-political terms, most professional philosophers are probably well to the left of centre. As a group, they have a strong sense of fairness and little commitment to the social status quo. But this political openmindedness doesn’t normally carry over to their day jobs. When it comes to philosophical ideas, they are congenitally suspicious of intellectual innova…Read more
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2Philosophers like asking questions about knowledge. What is it exactly? Why do we value it so much? And do we have any? Ideally they would like an account of the nature of knowledge that shows sceptical doubts about its existence to be unmotivated. Unfortunately two millenia of effort have not produced much in the way of agreed results.
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2Review of Roy Bhaskar: The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 33 (4): 444-448. 1982.
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86Ideal types and empirical theoriesBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27 (2): 137-146. 1976.
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48In this paper I want to explore the nature of phenomenal concepts by comparing them with perceptual concepts. Phenomenal concepts have been drawn to the attention of philosophers by recent debates in the philosophy of mind. Most obviously, their existence is demonstrated by Frank Jackson’s thought-experiment about Mary, the expert on the science of colour vision who has never had any colour experiences herself. It is widely agreed that, when Mary does first see something red, she acquires a new …Read more
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124Realism, Ramsey sentences and the pessimistic meta-inductionStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41 (4): 375-385. 2010.This paper defends scientific realism from the pessimistic meta-induction from past reference failure. It allows that a descriptive theory of reference implies that scientific terms characteristically fail of determinate reference. But it argues that a descriptive theory of reference also implies an equivalence between scientific theories and quantificational claims in the style of Ramsey. Since these quantificational claims do not use any of the referentially suspect scientific terms, they can …Read more
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69The Philosophical Insignificance of A Priori KnowledgeIn Michael J. Shaffer & Michael Veber (eds.), What Place for the a Priori?, Open Court. pp. 61. 2011.
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74Naturalist Theories of MeaningIn Ernest Lepore & Barry C. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, Oxford: Oup. pp. 175-188. 2006.To begin with the former, representation is as familiar as it is puzzling. The English sentence ‘ Santiago is east of Sacramento’ represents the world as being a certain way. So does my belief that Santiago is east of Sacramento. In these examples, one item—a sentence or a belief—lays claim to something else, a state of affairs, which may be far removed in space and time. This is the phenomenon that naturalist theories of meaning aim to explain. How is it possible for one thing to stand for some…Read more
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13It is widely supposed that the Everettian account of quantum mechanics has difficulties with probability. In this paper I shall argue that those who argue against the Everettian interpretation on this basis are employing a double standard. It is certainly true that there are philosophical puzzles about probability within the Everettian theory. But I shall show that orthodox metaphysics has even worse problems with probability than Everettianism. From this perspective, orthodox metaphysicians who…Read more
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91The Cultural Origins of Cognitive AdaptationsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 56 24-25. 2005.According to an influential view in contemporary cognitive science, many human cognitive capacities are innate. The primary support for this view comes from ‘poverty of stimulus’ arguments. In general outline, such arguments contrast the meagre informational input to cognitive development with its rich informational output. Consider the ease with which humans acquire languages, become facile at attributing psychological states (‘folk psychology’), gain knowledge of biological kinds (‘folk biolog…Read more
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4Review of J. Manninen and R. Tuomela: Essays on Explanation and Understanding (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 29 (3): 304-310. 1978.
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