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404Representation and explanationPhilosophy of Science 51 (December): 550-72. 1984.Functionalism faces a problem in accounting for the semantic powers of beliefs and other mental states. Simple causal considerations will not solve this problem, nor will any appeal to the social utility of semantic interpretations. The correct analysis of semantic representation is a teleological one, in terms of the biological purposes of mental states: whereas functionalism focuses, so to speak, only on the structure of the cognitive mechanism, the semantic perspective requires in addition th…Read more
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98Causes and mixed probabilitiesInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 4 (1): 79-88. 1990.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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268The Case for MaterialismIn Brie Gertler & Lawrence Shapiro (eds.), Arguing About the Mind, Routledge. pp. 4--125. 2007.
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199Uncertain 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.
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2Philosophers like asking questions about knowledge. What is it exactly? Why do we value it so much? And do we have any? Ideally they would like an account of the nature of knowledge that shows sceptical doubts about its existence to be unmotivated. Unfortunately two millenia of effort have not produced much in the way of agreed results.
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1Arguments for supervenience and physical realizationIn Elias E. Savellos & Ümit D. Yalçin (eds.), Supervenience: New Essays, Cambridge University Press. 1995.
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13Does your dog know when it is time for walkies, even if you are in a different room when you decide to take it out? Can you sometimes tell that you are being stared at, even when your kibitzer is some distance away and completely hidden? If so, Rupert Sheldrake (www.sheldrake.org) would like to hear from you. He has compiled a database of over 5,000 such cases, and would be glad to learn of any more.
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202Phenomenal Concepts and the Private Language ArgumentAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 48 (2): 175. 2011.In this paper I want to consider whether the 'phenomenal concepts' posited by many recent philosophers of mind are consistent with Wittgenstein’s private language argument. The paper will have three sections. In the first I shall explain the rationale for positing phenomenal concepts. In the second I shall argue that phenomenal concepts are indeed inconsistent with the private language argument. In the last I shall ask whether this is bad for phenomenal concepts or bad for Wittgenstein.
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8Science and TruthIdeas Y Valores 46 (105): 3-16. 1997.Philosophy of science and mainstream epistemology have much to leam from each other. Most twentienth\century philosophers of science set absurdly high standards for knowledge, and so succumb to naive sceptical arguments. They would do well to learn from mainstream epistemology that reliability is a more sensible standard for knowledge than certainty. At the same time, mainstream epistemologists would do well to learn from philosophers of science that intuitions about the everyday concept of know…Read more
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35The Paradox of InstrumentalismPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986 269-276. 1986.Instrumentalism seems less plausible than realism, yet at the same time to be logically weaker. This paper explores the possibility of resolving this apparent paradox by switching to an anti-Humean view of laws. Although in the end this suggestion turns out to be only a part of the solution, it does help to clarify what is at issue in the debate about instrumentalism
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83Reuniting (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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Does the sociology of science discredit science?In Robert Nola (ed.), Relativism and Realism in Science, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 37-57. 1988.
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546Mental 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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446Causation is macroscopic but not irreducibleIn Sophie Gibb, E. J. Lowe & 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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1368 The evolution of knowledgeIn Peter Carruthers & Andrew Chamberlain (eds.), Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language and Meta-Cognition, Cambridge University Press. pp. 170. 2000.
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51An unnatural anti-realismStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 20 (1): 133-138. 1989.
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74Truth and TeleologyIn Dudley Knowles (ed.), Explanation and its Limits, Cambridge University Press. pp. 21-43. 1990.
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324The virtues of randomizationBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (2): 437-450. 1994.Peter Urbach has argued, on Bayesian grounds, that experimental randomization serves no useful purpose in testing causal hypothesis. I maintain that he fails to distinguish general issues of statistical inference from specific problems involved in identifying causes. I concede the general Bayesian thesis that random sampling is inessential to sound statistical inference. But experimental randomization is a different matter, and often plays an essential role in our route to causal conclusions.
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 |