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307There Are No Norms of BeliefIn Timothy Chan (ed.), The Aim of Belief, Oxford University Press. 2013.This paper argues that there is no distinctive species of normativity attaching to the adoption of beliefs.
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354Causation is macroscopic but not irreducibleIn Sophie C. Gibb & Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson (eds.), Mental Causation and Ontology, Oxford University Press. pp. 126. 2013.In this paper I argue that causation is an essentially macroscopic phenomenon, and that mental causes are therefore capable of outcompeting their more specific physical realizers as causes of physical effects. But I also argue that any causes must be type-identical with physical properties, on pain of positing inexplicable physical conspiracies. I therefore allow macroscopic mental causation, but only when it is physically reducible
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233In the ZoneRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 73 175-196. 2013.On the Friday afternoon of the 3 rd test at Trent Bridge in 2001, the series was in the balance. The Australians had won the first two tests easily, but England now found themselves in a position of some strength. They had restricted Australia to a first-innings lead of just 5 runs, and had built a lead of 120 with six wickets in hand. Mark Ramprakash was in and had been batting steadily for well over an hour. Even though this Australian side was as strong as any in cricket history, England had …Read more
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28Pure, mixed, and spurious probabilities and their significance for a reductionist theory of causationMinnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 13 307-348. 1989.
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394The poverty of analysisAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 83 (1): 1-30. 2009.I argue that philosophy is like science in three interesting and non-obvious ways. First, the claims made by philosophy are synthetic, not analytic: philosophical claims, just like scientific claims, are not guaranteed by the structure of the concepts they involve. Second, philosophical knowledge is a posteriori, not a priori: the claims established by philosophers depend on the same kind of empirical support as scientific theories. And finally, the central questions of philosophy concern actual…Read more
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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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12Who would have thought it? Poker has become a mass-audience spectator sport. Names like Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson, Phil ‘Unabomber’ Laak, and Dave ‘The Devilfish’ Ulliott may not be familiar to all readers of the TLS, but on any normal night you can see these top poker professionals on the nether reaches of the satellite channels, as they bluff and bully their way to pots worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like their counterparts in tennis and golf, they tour the world, playing in lucrative to…Read more
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46Why is there a cognitive gulf between other animals and humans? Current fashion favours our greater understanding of Theory of Mind as an answer, and Language is another obvious candidate. But I think that analysis of the evolution of means-end cognitive mechanisms suggests that there may be a further significant difference: where animals will only perform those means which they (or their ancestors) have previously used as a route to some end, humans can employ observation to learn that some nov…Read more
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3Review 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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4Methodology: The Elements of the Philosophy of ScienceIn A. C. Grayling (ed.), Philosophy: a guide through the subject, Oxford University Press. 1995.
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50Introduction: Prospects and problems for teleosemanticsIn Graham Macdonald & David Papineau (eds.), Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays, Oxford University Press. pp. 1--22. 2006.
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6Review: Correlations and Causes (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (3). 1991.
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38Explanatory gaps and dualist intuitionsIn Lawrence Weiskrantz & Martin Davies (eds.), Frontiers of consciousness, Oxford University Press. pp. 2008--55. 2008.I agree with nearly everything Martin Davies says. He has written an elegant and highly informative analysis of recent philosophical debates about the mind–brain relation. I particularly enjoyed Davies’ discussion of B.A. Farrell, his precursor in the Oxford Wilde Readership (now Professorship) in Mental Philosophy. It is intriguing to see how closely Farrell anticipated many of the moves made by more recent ‘type-A’ physicalists who seek to show that, upon analysis, claims about conscious state…Read more
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115The 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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412Mental disorder, illness and biological disfunctionPhilosophy 37 73-82. 1994.I shall begin with the "anti-psychiatry" view that the lack of a physical basis excludes many familiar mental disorders from the category of "illness". My response to this argument will be that anti-psychiatrists are probably right to hold that most mental disorders do not involve any physical disorder, but that they are wrong to conclude from this that these mental disorders are not illnesses
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12Causal Powers By R. Harré and E. Madden Basil Blackwell, 1975, viii + 191 pp., £4.75 (review)Philosophy 52 (199): 113-. 1977.
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81Review article: Correlations and causesBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (3): 397-412. 1991.
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235Kripke's proof is ad hominem not two-dimensionalPhilosophical Perspectives 21 (1). 2007.Identity theorists make claims like ‘pain = C-fibre stimulation’. These claims must be necessary if true, given that terms like ‘pain’ and ‘C-fibre stimulation’ are rigid. Yet there is no doubt that such claims appear contingent. It certainly seems that there could have been C-fibre stimulation without pains or vice versa. So identity theorists owe us an explanation of why such claims should appear contingent if they are in fact necessary.
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41Précis of thinking about consciousness (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (1). 2005.
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General Philosophy of Science |
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Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
General Philosophy of Science |