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13Is Representation Rife?Ratio 16 (2): 107-123. 2003.This paper applies a teleosemantic perspective to the question of whether there is genuine representation outside the familiar realm of belief‐desire psychology. I first explain how teleosemantics accounts for the representational powers of beliefs and desires themselves. I then ask whether biological states which are simpler than beliefs and desires can also have representational powers. My conclusion is that such biologically simple states can be ascribed representational contents, but only in…Read more
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Philosophical problems of biologyIn Ted Honderich (ed.), The Oxford companion to philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 97. 1995.
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41Ll The poverty of conceptual analysisIIn Matthew C. Haug (ed.), Philosophical Methodology: The Armchair or the Laboratory?, Routledge. pp. 166. 2013.
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71Can we be harmed after we are dead?Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (5): 1091-1094. 2012.
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Pysicalism and the human sciencesIn Chrysostomos Mantzavinos (ed.), Philosophy of the social sciences: philosophical theory and scientific practice, Cambridge University Press. 2009.
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442Mind the gapPhilosophical Perspectives 12 373-89. 1998.On the first page of The Problem of Consciousness , Colin McGinn asks "How is it possible for conscious states to depend on brain states? How can technicolour phenomenology arise from soggy grey matter?" Many philosophers feel that questions like these pose an unanswerable challenge to physicalism. They argue that there is no way of bridging the "explanatory gap" between the material brain and the lived world of conscious experience , and that physicalism about the mind can therefore provide no …Read more
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150Reply to Kirk and MelnykSWIF Philosophy of Mind 4 (1). 2003.I am lucky to have two such penetrating commentators as Robert Kirk and Andrew Melnyk. It is also fortunate that they come at me from different directions, and so cover different aspects of my book. Robert Kirk has doubts about the overall structure of my enterprise, and in particular about my central commitment to a distinctive species of phenomenal concepts. Andrew Melnyk, by contrast, offers no objections to my general brand of materialism. Instead he focuses specifically on my discussion of …Read more
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5Introducing ConsciousnessTotem Books. 2000.This title is now available in a new format. Refer to Consciousness: A Graphic Guide 9781848311718.
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324Theories of consciousnessIn Quentin Smith & Aleksandar Jokić (eds.), Consciousness: New Philosophical Essays, Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 353. 2003.My target in this paper is "theories of consciousness". There are many theories of consciousness around, and my view is that they are all misconceived. Consciousness is not a normal scientific subject, and needs handling with special care. It is foolhardy to jump straight in and start building a theory, as if consciousness were just like electricity or chemical valency. We will do much better to reflect explicitly on our methodology first. When we do this, we will see that theories of consciousn…Read more
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1Laws and AccidentsIn Graham Macdonald & Crispin Wright (eds.), Fact, Science and Morality: Essays on A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic, Blackwell. 1987.
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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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38Précis of Thinking about ConsciousnessPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (1): 143-143. 2002.
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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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3Review 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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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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53Realism, 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
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 |