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42Theory and meaningOxford University Press. 1979.This book is concerned with those aspects of the theory of meaning for scientific terms that are relevant to questions about the evaluation of scientific theories. The contemporary debate about theory choice in science is normally presented as a conflict between two sets of ideas. On the one hand are notions of objectivity, realism, rationality, and progress in science. On the other is the view that meanings depend on theory, with associated claims about the theory dependence of observation, the…Read more
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72Must a physicalist be a microphysicalist?In Jakob Hohwy & Jesper Kallestrup (eds.), Being Reduced: New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation, Oxford University Press. 2008.This chapter challenges the entailment from physicalism to microphysicalism — the view that all facts metaphysically supervene on the microphysical facts. It observes that physicalists can avoid microphysicalism by rejecting physical microscopism. Humean supervenience is a strong version of microphysicalism, and it is false if a non-Humean view of laws is true. But such a view is consistent with physicalism. A weaker form of microphysicalism adds microphysical non-Humean laws to get a broader mi…Read more
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37Scientific realism without referenceIn Michele Marsonet (ed.), The Problem of Realism, Ashgate. pp. 174--189. 2002.
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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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19Social learning and the Baldwin effectIn António Zilhão (ed.), Evolution, rationality, and cognition: a cognitive science for the twenty-first century, Routledge. 2005.Article
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8Response to Ehring’s ’Papineau on Causal Asymmetry’British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (4): 521-525. 1988.
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13Causes and mixed probabilitiesInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 4 (1). 1990.Abstract In Section 1 I examine the use of probabilistic data to establish causal conclusions in non?experimental research. In Section 2 I show that the probabilities involved in such research are inhomogeneous ?mixed? probabilities. Section 3 then argues that such mixed probabilities are responsible for the way common causes screen off correlations between their joint effects. Section 4 concludes that mixed probabilities are therefore crucial for the nature of the causal relation itself
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1Irreducibility and teleologyIn K. Lennon & D. Charles (eds.), Reduction, Explanation, and Realism, Oxford University Press. 1992.
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374The rise of physicalismIn Carl Gillett & Barry Loewer (eds.), Physicalism and its Discontents, Cambridge University Press. 2001.
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214Physicalism, consciousness and the antipathetic fallacyAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 71 (2): 169-83. 1993.This Article does not have an abstract
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305A thirder and an Everettian: A reply to Lewis's 'Quantum Sleeping Beauty'Analysis 69 (1): 78-86. 2009.Since the publication of Elga's seminal paper in 2000, the Sleeping Beauty paradox has been the source of much discussion, particularly in this journal. Over the past few decades the Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics 1 has also been much debated. There is an interesting connection between the way these two topics raise issues about subjective probability assignments.This connection is often alluded to, but as far as we know Peter J. Lewis's ‘Quantum Sleeping Beauty’ is the first att…Read more
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104Response to Ehring's 'papineau on causal asymmetry'British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (4): 521-525. 1988.
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37There is No Trace of Any Soul Linked to the BodyIn Keith Augustine & Michael Martin (eds.), The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 369-376. 2015.This paper argues that all apparently special forces characteristically reduce to a few fundamental physical forces which conserve energy and operate throughout nature. Consequently, there are probably no special mental forces originating from souls and acting upon bodies and brains in addition to the basic, energy-conserving physical forces. Moreover, physiological and biochemical research have failed to uncover any evidence of forces over and above the basic physical forces acting on living bo…Read more
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9Normativity and JudgementAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 73 17-61. 1999.[David Papineau] This paper disputes the common assumption that the normativity of conceptual judgement poses a problem for naturalism. My overall strategy is to argue that norms of judgement derive from moral or personal values, particularly when such values are attached to the end of truth. While there are philosophical problems associated with both moral and personal values, they are not special to the realm of judgement, nor peculiar to naturalist philosophies. This approach to the normativi…Read more
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657What Exactly is the Explanatory Gap?Philosophia 39 (1): 5-19. 2011.It is widely agreed among contemporary philosophers of mind that science leaves us with an ‘explanatory gap’—that even after we know everything that science can tell us about the conscious mind and the brain, their relationship still remains mysterious. I argue that this agreed view is quite mistaken. The feeling of a ‘explanatory gap’ arises only because we cannot stop ourselves thinking about the mind–brain relation in a dualist way
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149Many Minds are No Worse than OneBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (2): 233-241. 1996.
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4The Causal Closure of the Physical and NaturalismIn Brian P. McLaughlin, Ansgar Beckermann & Sven Walter (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind, Oxford University Press. 2007.
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60Mathematical fictionalismInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 2 (2). 1988.No abstract
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10The Structure of Social Science. A Philosophical Introduction By Michael Lessnoff London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974, 173 pp., £3.60 cloth, £1.85 paperback (review)Philosophy 50 (193): 364-. 1975.
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Does the sociology of science discredit science?In Robert Nola (ed.), Relativism and Realism in Science, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 37-57. 1988.
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 |