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104What is x-phi good for?The Philosophers' Magazine 52 (52): 83-88. 2011.When philosophers study knowledge, consciousness, free will, moral value, and so on, their first concern is with these things themselves, rather than with what people think about them. So why exactly is it so important to philosophy to discover experimentally that people differ in their views on these matters? We wouldn’t expect physicists to throw up their hands in excitement just because somebody shows that different cultures have different views about the origin of the universe
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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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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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27Book chapter (revised)
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392The 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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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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44Why 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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4Methodology: The Elements of the Philosophy of ScienceIn A. C. Grayling (ed.), Philosophy 1: A Guide Through the Subject, Oxford University Press. 1998.
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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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80Review article: Correlations and causesBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (3): 397-412. 1991.
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404Mental 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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40Précis of thinking about consciousness (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (1). 2005.
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130Can any sciences be special?In Graham Macdonald & Cynthia Macdonald (eds.), Emergence in Mind, Oxford University Press. pp. 179--197. 2010.
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28Salmon, Statistics, and Backwards CausationPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1978 302-313. 1978.In order to explain why falling barometers don't cause rain, a "no-eclipsing" requirement needs to be added to the regularity account of causation. This refinement of the regularity account allows us to see how conclusions about deterministic causes can be based on statistical premises, and thus indicates a criticism of Wesley Salmon 's "statistical relevance" account of causation. The refinement also casts some light on the problem of backwards causation
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224Why you don’t want to get in the box with schrödinger's catAnalysis 63 (1). 2003.By way of an example, Lewis imagines your being invited to join Schrödinger’s cat in its box for an hour. This box will either fill up with deadly poison fumes or not, depending on whether or not some radioactive atom decays, the probability of decay within an hour being 50%. The invitation is accompanied with some further incentive to comply (Lewis sets it up so there is a significant chance of some pretty bad but not life-threatening punishment if you don’t get in the box). Lewis argues that t…Read more
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228Kripke'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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16An unnatural anti-realismStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 20 (1): 133-138. 1989.
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270Reply to Lewis: Metaphysics versus epistemologyAnalysis 69 (1): 89-91. 2009.Peter J. Lewis argued that the Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics implies the unpopular halfer position in the Sleeping Beauty debate. We retorted that it is perfectly coherent to be an Everettian and an ordinary thirder. In a recent reply to our paper Lewis further clarifies the basis for his thinking. We think this brings out nicely where he goes wrong: he underestimates the importance of metaphysical considerations in determining rational credences.
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107Uncertain Decisions and the Many-Minds Interpretation of Quantum MechanicsThe Monist 80 (1): 97-117. 1997.Imagine you are faced with a quantum mechanical device which will display either H or T when it is operated. You know that the single-case probability, or chance, of H is 0.8, and the chance of T is 0.2.
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 |