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261Comments on Galen Strawson: Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails PanpsychismJournal of Consciousness Studies 13 (10-11): 100-109. 2006.Galen Strawson (2006) thinks it is 'obviously' false that 'the terms of physics can fully capture the nature or essence of experience' (p. 4). He also describes this view as 'crazy' (p. 7). I think that he has been carried away by first impressions. It is certainly true that 'physicSalism', as he dubs this view, is strongly counterintuitive. But at the same time there are compelling arguments in its favour. I think that these arguments are sound and that the contrary intuitions are misbegotten. …Read more
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263Teleosemantics and indeterminacyAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (1): 1-14. 1998.The aim of this paper is to defend the teleological theory of representation against an objection by Jerry Fodor. I shall argue that previous attempts to answer this objection fail to recognize the importance of belief-desire structure for the teleological theory of representation
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3REVIEW ARTICLE1: Correlations and Causes (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (3): 397-412. 1991.
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29My first university was in my home town, Durban, in the mid-1960s. I was doing a mathematics degree but most of my friends were doing arts subjects. Sartre and Marx were the thinkers of the moment and my friends would press their (mostly illegal) writings on me. Ideologically I was entirely sympathetic, but intellectually they didn’t do much for me—too obscure, too difficult, too dogmatic. In my final year I chanced on Ayer’s The Problem of Knowledge. It wasn’t exactly relevant to apartheid Sout…Read more
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10How does thought latch onto reality? Our minds have the ability to reach out and refer to items in the external world. I can think about the tree outside my study window, say, or about Margaret Thatcher, or about solar neutrinos. But how is the trick done? How can my thoughts refer to things beyond themselves? We tend to take the mind's referential powers for granted, but they are enormously difficult to explain. Whole philosophical systems have foundered on the problem of understanding mental r…Read more
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2A Scandal of Probability TheoryIn Simon Saunders, Jonathan Barrett, Adrian Kent & David Wallace (eds.), Many Worlds?: Everett, Quantum Theory & Reality, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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31Human MindsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 53 159-183. 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 ofthe 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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210 The rise of physicalismIn M. W. F. Stone & Jonathan Wolff (eds.), Proper Ambition of Science, Routledge. pp. 2--174. 2000.
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1The vis viva controversyIn Roger Stuart Woolhouse (ed.), Leibniz, Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science, Oxford University Press. 1981.
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2Russell’s place in the public eye was maintained by a steady stream of writing for the general reader. He no longer held any academic position, and needed to support himself and his family by his pen. While he continued to do some technical work in philosophy, more of his energies were devoted to journalism and other popular writings. He was in great demand. His distinctive prose and dry wit enabled him to puncture the fusty assumptions of contemporary thinking, and his rationalist alternatives …Read more
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17Explanation 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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32The Evolution of Means-End ReasoningRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 49 145-178. 2001.When I woke up a few days ago, the following thoughts ran through my mind. ‘I need a haircut. If I don't get it first thing this morning, I won't have another chance for two weeks. But if I go to the barber down the road, he'll want to talk to me about philosophy. So I'd better go to the one in Camden Town. The tube will be very crowded, though. Still, it's a nice day. Why don't I just walk there? It will only take twenty minutes. So I'd better put on these shoes now, have breakfast straight awa…Read more
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229The status of teleosemantics, or how to stop worrying about swampmanAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (2): 279-89. 2001.This Article does not have an abstract
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345I_– _David PapineauAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 73 (1): 17-43. 1999.It is widely assumed that the normativity of conceptual judgement poses problems for naturalism. Thus John McDowell urges that 'The structure of the space of reasons stubbornly resists being appropriated within a naturalism that conceives nature as the realm of law' (1994, p 73). Similar sentiments have been expressed by many other writers, for example Robert Brandom (1994, p xiii) and Paul Boghossian (1989, p 548)
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132The new nativism: a commentary on Gary Marcus’s The birth of the mind (review)Biology and Philosophy 21 (4): 559-573. 2006.Gary Marcus has written a very interesting book about mental development from a nativist perspective. For the general readership at which the book is largely aimed, it will be interesting because of its many informative examples of the development of cognitive structures and because of its illuminating explanations of ways in which genes can contribute to these developmental processes. However, the book is also interesting from a theoretical point of view. Marcus tries to make nativism compatibl…Read more
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4The Baldwin Effect and Genetic AssimilationIn Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 2--102. 2005.
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67Choking and The YipsPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (2): 295-308. 2015.IntroductionSporting skills divide contemporary theorists into two camps. Let us call them the habitualists and the intellectualists. The habitualists hold that thought is the enemy of sporting excellence. In their view, skilled performers need to let their bodies take over; cognitive effort only interferes with skill. The intellectualists retort that sporting performance depends crucially on mental control. As they see it, the exercise of skill is a matter of agency, not brute reflex; the tailo…Read more
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General Philosophy of Science |
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Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
General Philosophy of Science |