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14The Paradox of InstrumentalismPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986 269-276. 1986.Instrumentalism seems less plausible than realism, yet at the same time to be logically weaker. This paper explores the possibility of resolving this apparent paradox by switching to an anti-Humean view of laws. Although in the end this suggestion turns out to be only a part of the solution, it does help to clarify what is at issue in the debate about instrumentalism
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448Phenomenal and perceptual conceptsIn Torin Andrew Alter & Sven Walter (eds.), Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism, Oxford University Press. pp. 111--144. 2006.1 Introduction 2 Perceptual Concepts 2.1 Perceptual Concepts are not Demonstrative 2.2 Perceptual Concepts as Stored Templates 2.3 Perceptual Semantics 2.4 Perceptually Derived Concepts 3 Phenomenal Concepts.
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239Against representationalismInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 24 (3): 324-347. 2016.It is very natural to suppose that conscious sensory experience is essentially representational. However this thought gives rise to any number of philosophical problems and confusions. I shall argue that it is quite mistaken. Conscious phenomena cannot be constructed out of representational materials.
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27Book chapter (revised)
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259Reliabilism, induction and scepticismPhilosophical Quarterly 42 (166): 1-20. 1992.Book chapter
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22Explanation in Psychology: Truth and TeleologyRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 27 21-43. 1990.A number of recent writers have argued that we should explain mental representation teleologically, in terms of the biological purposes of beliefs and other mental states.A rather older idea is that the truth condition of a belief is that condition which guarantees that actions based on that belief will succeed.What I want to show in this paper is that these two ideas complement each other. The teleological theory is inadequate unless it incorporates the thesis that truth is the guarantee of suc…Read more
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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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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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43Can 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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59Truth and TeleologyIn D. Knowles (ed.), Explanation and its Limits, Cambridge University Press. pp. 21-43. 1990.
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44Mental 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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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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209Representation 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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47Précis of Thinking about ConsciousnessPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (1): 143-143. 2002.
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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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226Why you don’t want to get in the box with schrödinger's catAnalysis 63 (1). 2003.By way of an example, Lewis imagines your being invited to join Schrödinger’s cat in its box for an hour. This box will either fill up with deadly poison fumes or not, depending on whether or not some radioactive atom decays, the probability of decay within an hour being 50%. The invitation is accompanied with some further incentive to comply (Lewis sets it up so there is a significant chance of some pretty bad but not life-threatening punishment if you don’t get in the box). Lewis argues that t…Read more
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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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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.
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
General Philosophy of Science |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
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Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
General Philosophy of Science |