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29Reuniting (scene) phenomenology with (scene) accessBehavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (5-6): 521-521. 2007.Block shows that we can consciously see a scene without being able to identify all the individual items in it. But in itself this fails to drive a wedge between phenomenology and access. Once we distinguish scene phenomenology from item phenomenology, the link between phenomenology and access is restored
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7Friendly thoughts on the evolution of cognition (critical discussion of Kim Sterelny, Thought in a Hostile World: The Evolution of Human Cognition, 2003)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (3): 491-502. 2004.
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117The philosophy of science (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1996.The newest addition to the successful Oxford Readings in Philosophy series, this collection contains the most important contributions to the recent debate on the philosophy of science. The contributors crystallize the often heated arguments of the last two decades, assessing the skeptical attitudes within philosophy of science and the counter-challenges of the scientific realists. Contributors include Nancy Cartwright, Brian Ellis, Arthur Fine, Clark Glymour, Larry Laudan, Peter Lipton, Alan Mus…Read more
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1Arguments for supervenience and physical realizationIn Elias E. Savellos & U. Yalcin (eds.), Supervenience: New Essays, Cambridge University Press. 1995.
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650What 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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25A reduction of causation to probabilities would be a great achievement, if it were possible.  In this paper I want to defend this reductionist ambition against some recent criticisms from Gurol Irzik (1996) and Dan Hausman (1998). In particular, I want to show that the reductionist programme can be absolved of a vice which is widely thought to disable it--the vice of infidelity
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45Theory 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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64Must 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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19Social learning and the Baldwin effectIn Antonio Zilhao (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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101Response to Ehring's 'papineau on causal asymmetry'British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (4): 521-525. 1988.
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1Irreducibility and teleologyIn David Charles & Kathleen Lennon (eds.), Reduction, Explanation and Realism, Oxford University Press. 1992.
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206Physicalism, consciousness and the antipathetic fallacyAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 71 (2): 169-83. 1993.This Article does not have an abstract
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289A 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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241Many Minds are No Worse than OneBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (2): 233-241. 1996.
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36There 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
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 |