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67The mad scientist meets the robot cats: Compatibilism, kinds, and counterexamplesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (2): 333-37. 1996.In 1962 Hilary Putnam forced us to face the possibility of robot cats. More than twenty years later Daniel Dennett found himself doing battle with mad scientists and other “bogeymen.” Though these two examples are employed in different philosophical arena, there is an important connection between them that has not been emphasized. Separating the concept associated with a kind term from the extension of that term, as Putnam and others have urged, raises the possibility of accepting counterexample…Read more
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73The best candidate approach to diachronic identityAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 65 (4). 1987.This Article does not have an abstract
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55Might-counterfactuals and gratuitous differencesAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 73 (1). 1995.This Article does not have an abstract
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60Metaphysical boundaries: A question of independenceAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 67 (3). 1989.This Article does not have an abstract
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420Temporal parts of four dimensional objectsPhilosophical Studies 46 (3). 1984.I offer a clear conception of a temporal part that does not make the existence of temporal parts implausible. This can be done if (and only if) we think of physical objects as four dimensional, The fourth dimension being time. Unless we are willing to deny the existence of most spatial parts, Or willing to accept the possibility of coincident entities, Or accept something even more implausible, We should accept the existence of temporal parts
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226The Donkey ProblemPhilosophical Studies 140 (1): 83-101. 2008.The Donkey Problem (as I am calling it) concerns the relationship between more and less fundamental ontologies. I will claim that the moral to draw from the Donkey Problem is that the less fundamental objects are merely conventional. This conventionalism has consequences for the 3D/4D debate. Four-dimensionalism is motivated by a desire to avoid coinciding objects, but once we accept that the non-fundamental ontology is conventional there is no longer any reason to reject coincidence. I therefor…Read more
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70Painted Mules and the Cartesian CircleCanadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (1). 1996.René Descartes, one of the dominant figures in the history of philosophy, has been accused of one of the most obvious mistakes in the history of philosophy — the so-called cartesian circle. It is my goal in this paper to arrive at an understanding of Descartes's work that attributes to him a theory that should be of philosophical interest to contemporary epistemologists, is consistent with, and suggested by, the actual text, and avoids the circle.I begin with a brief explanation of the supposed …Read more
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19The Mad Scientist Meets the Robot CatsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (2): 333-337. 1996.In 1962 Hilary Putnam forced us to face the possibility of robot cats. More than twenty years later Daniel Dennett found himself doing battle with mad scientists and other “bogeymen.” Though these two examples are employed in different philosophical arena, there is an important connection between them that has not been emphasized. Separating the concept associated with a kind term from the extension of that term, as Putnam and others have urged, raises the possibility of accepting counterexample…Read more
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76Non-backtracking Counterfactuals and the Conditional AnalysisCanadian Journal of Philosophy 15 (1): 75-85. 1985.The conditional analysis of ability statements has many versions. In this paper I will deal with the version which claims that ‘x can do y’ is equivalent to ‘if x were to choose to do y, then x would do y.’ However, my comments should be equally applicable to any analysis of ability statements that can properly be called a version of the conditional analysis. The intuition behind the conditional analysis is that what it is for one to be able to do something is for one's choice to be effective. T…Read more
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177Anti-Essentialism and Counterpart TheoryThe Monist 88 (4): 600-618. 2005.Anti-essentialism holds that no thing has any modal properties except relative to a conceptualization—for instance, relative to a description. One and the same thing might be essentially rational relative to the description “mathematician” but only accidentally rational relative to the description “bicyclist.” Anti-essentialism was dominant in pre-Kripkean days. The old description theory of names made room for anti-essentialism by reducing apparently true de re modal attributions to de dicto on…Read more
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540The proper role for contextualism in an anti-luck epistemologyPhilosophical Perspectives 13 115-129. 1999.
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1Hunks: An Ontology of Physical ObjectsDissertation, Syracuse University. 1984.This text is devoted to arguing for the thesis that our standard ontology of physical objects is not correct, and to offering a replacement for that ontology. None of the things that we normally take to exist really do exist. There are no animals, vegetables, or minerals. Nothing that I say against the specific physical objects of our standard ontology counts against the general claim that there are physical objects. In fact, I propose an ontology of physical objects that does not suffer from th…Read more
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169Varieties of four dimensionalismAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 71 (1). 1993.This Article does not have an abstract
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94Temporal Overlap is Not CoincidenceThe Monist 83 (3): 362-380. 2000.The best reason to believe in temporal parts is to avoid commitment to coincidence—roughly, two objects occupying exactly the same space at exactly the same time. Most anti-coincidence arguments for temporal parts are fission arguments. Gaining some notice, however, are vagueness arguments. One goal of this paper is to clarify the way a temporal-parts ontology avoids coincidence, and another is to clarify the vagueness argument, highlighting the fact that it too is an anti-coincidence argument. …Read more