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Mind, health, and biological purposeIn A. Phillips Griffiths (ed.), Philosophy, Psychology and Psychiatry, Cambridge University Press. 1994.
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209Theory-dependent termsPhilosophy of Science 63 (1): 1-20. 1996.The main puzzle about theoretical definitions is that nothing seems to decide which assumptions contribute to such definitions and which do not. I argue that theoretical definitions are indeed imprecise, but that this does not normally matter, since the definitional imprecision does not normally produce indeterminacy of referential value. Sometimes, however, the definitional imprecision is less benign, and does generate referential indeterminacy. In these special cases, but not otherwise, it is …Read more
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46Comments on François Recanati’s Mental Files: Doubts about IndexicalityDisputatio 5 (36): 159-175. 2013.Papineau-David_Doubts-about-indexicality
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7The antipathetic fallacy and the boundaries of consciousnessIn Thomas Metzinger (ed.), Conscious Experience, Ferdinand Schoningh. 1995.
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27Materialism is the view that mental states are one and the same as physical states. (This is different from saying they are caused by physical states, or eliminated by physical states.) Dualism in the view that mental states are extra to the physical realm. Kripke’s metaphor: if materialism were true, not even God could make a world physically just like ours but with no sensations, feelings or thoughts.
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43Consciousness has suddenly become an extremely fashionable topic in certain scientific circles. Many thinkers are now touting consciousness as the last unconquered region of science, and theorists from many different disciplines are racing to find a "theory of consciousness" which will unlock this final secret of nature. I am suspicious about all this enthusiasm. I think that much of the brouhaha is generated by philosophical confusion. In the end, I fear, there is no special secret of conscious…Read more
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26Social Facts and Psychological FactsIn Gregory Currie & Alan Musgrave (eds.), Popper and the human sciences, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 43-52. 1985.
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27Introduction to Thinking About ConsciousnessIn Thinking About Consciousness, Oxford University Press Uk. 2002.
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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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247Against 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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150Human mindsIn Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Minds and Persons, Cambridge University Press. pp. 159-183. 2003.Humans are part of the animal kingdom, but their minds differ from those of other animals. They are capable of many things that lie beyond the intellectual powers of the rest of the animal realm. In this paper, I want to ask what makes human minds distinctive. What accounts for the special powers that set humans aside from other animals?
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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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69Western philosophy: an illustrated guide (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2004.What does it mean for someone to exist? What is truth? Are we free to choose to think or act? What is consciousness? Is human cloning justifiable? These are just some of the questions philosophers have attempted to answer, striking right at the heart of what it means to be human. This important new books shows that philosophy need not be dry or intimidating. Its highly original treatment, combining philosophical analysis, historical and biographical background and thought-provoking illustrations…Read more
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149Teleosemantics: 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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260Reliabilism, 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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948 The evolution of knowledgeIn Peter Carruthers & Andrew Chamberlain (eds.), Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language and Meta-Cognition, Cambridge University Press. pp. 170. 2000.
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97The virtues of randomizationBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (2): 437-450. 1994.Peter Urbach has argued, on Bayesian grounds, that experimental randomization serves no useful purpose in testing causal hypothesis. I maintain that he fails to distinguish general issues of statistical inference from specific problems involved in identifying causes. I concede the general Bayesian thesis that random sampling is inessential to sound statistical inference. But experimental randomization is a different matter, and often plays an essential role in our route to causal conclusions.
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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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210Representation 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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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 Dudley 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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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.
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
General Philosophy of Science |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Areas of Interest
Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
General Philosophy of Science |