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57Characterizing Non-existentsGrazer Philosophische Studien 51 (1): 163-193. 1996.Consider predicates like 'is a fictional character' and 'is a mythical object'. Since their ascription entails a corresponding Negative Existential claim, call these 'NE-characterizing predicates'. Objectualists such as Parsons, Sylvan, van Inwagen, and Zalta think that NE-characterizing properties are genuine properties of genuinely non-existent objects. But how, then, to make room for statements like 'Vulcan is a failed posit' and 'that little green man is a trick of the light'? The predicates…Read more
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30Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob FregePhilosophical Studies (Dublin) 29 290-291. 1982.
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2A Realistic Theory of Categories (review)Dialogue 38 (2): 417-419. 1999.Roderick Chisholm’s Essay looks beguilingly simple. It is a short work, written in a simple, unaffected style. There is, of course, the usual crop of technical definitions, but these should not daunt the reader. Chisholm makes it easy enough, for the most part, to see what motivates his formulations, and he makes it easy for his readers to see how his concerns and solutions compare with those of some other important philosophers.
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79Quantified negative existentialsDialectica 57 (2). 2003.This paper suggests that quantified negative existentials about fiction—statements of the form “There are some / many / etc. Fs in work W who don't exist”—offer a serious challenge to the theorist of fiction: more serious, in a number of ways, that singular negative existentials. I argue that the temptation to think that only a realist semantics of such statements is plausible should be resisted. There are numerous quantified negative existentials found in other areas that seem equally “true” bu…Read more
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35Mind, Ethics, and Conditionals: Themes from the Philosophy of Frank JacksonAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (2). 2011.Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 89, Issue 2, Page 367-370, June 2011
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86Imaginative motivationUtilitas 21 (2): 181-196. 2009.This article argues for a certain picture of the rational formation of conditional intentions, in particular deterrent intentions, that stands in sharp contrast to accounts on which rational agents are often not able to form such intentions because of what these enjoin should their conditions be realized. By considering the case of worthwhile but hard-to-form deterrent intentions (the threat to leave a cheating partner, say), the article argues that rational agents may be able to form such inten…Read more
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153Descriptivism, Pretense, and the Frege-Russell ProblemsPhilosophical Review 113 (1): 1-30. 2004.Contrary to frequent declarations that descriptivism as a theory of how names refer is dead and gone, such a descriptivism is, to all appearances, alive and well. Or rather, a descendent of that doctrine is alive and well. This new version—neo-descriptivism, for short—is supposedly immune from the usual arguments against descriptivism, in large part because it avoids classical descriptivism’s emphasis on salient, first-come-to-mind properties and holds instead that a name’s reference-fixing cont…Read more
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71The semantics of 'things in themselves': A deflationary accountPhilosophical Quarterly 51 (203): 165-181. 2001.Kant's distinction between things in themselves and things as they appear, or appearances, is commonly attacked on the ground that it delivers a radical and incoherent ‘two world’ picture of what there is. I attempt to deflect this attack by questioning these terms of dismissal. Distinctions of the kind Kant draws on are in fact legion, and they make perfectly good sense. The way to make sense of them, however, is not by buying into a profligate ontology but by using some rather different tools …Read more
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64Beyond rigidity: The unfinished semantic agenda of Naming and Necessity (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (3). 2005.This Article does not have an abstract
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88Philosophical explanations and sceptical intuitionsPhilosophical Quarterly 36 (144): 391-395. 1986.
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135A-intensions and communicationPhilosophical Studies 118 (1-2): 279-298. 2004.In his 'Why We Need A-Intensions', Frank Jackson argues that "representational content [is] how things are represented to be by a sentence in the communicative role it possesses in virtue of what it means," a type of content Jackson takes to be broadly descriptive. I think Jackson overstates his case. Even if we agree that such representational properties play a crucial reference-fixing role, it is much harder to argue the case for a crucial communicative role. I articulate my doubts about Jacks…Read more
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46Much Ado About Nothing: Priest and the Reinvention of NoneismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (1): 199-207. 2008.
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39God's BlindspotDialogue 35 (4): 721-734. 1996.God, by definition, is all-powerful, all-good, all-wise, and all-knowing. Therein lies a problem for the theist, of course, for every one of these attributes has been the subject of fierce debate. In this paper I want to return to the debate by introducing a new problem for the idea that anyone could have the kind of perfect knowledge God is supposed to have. What distinguishes my problem from others is that the sort of knowledge it focuses on is self-knowledge, hence knowledge of a particularly…Read more
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99The Nonexistent, by Anthony Everett: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, viii + 246, £40 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (1): 185-187. 2015.
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2Realism and DialetheismIn Graham Priest, Jc Beall & Bradley P. Armour-Garb (eds.), The law of non-contradiction : new philosophical essays, Oxford University Press. 2004.
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33On a Moorean solution to instability puzzlesAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 68 (4). 1990.This Article does not have an abstract
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69Intentional Objects, Pretence, and the Quasi-Relational Nature of Mental Phenomena: A New Look at Brentano on IntentionalityInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 21 (3): 377-393. 2013.Brentano famously changed his mind about intentionality between the 1874 and 1911 editions of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (PES). The 1911 edition repudiates the 1874 view that to think about something is to stand in a relation to something that is within in the mind, and holds instead that intentionality is only like a relation (it is ‘quasi-relational’). Despite this, Brentano still insists that mental activity involves ‘the reference to something as an object’, much as he did in th…Read more
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University of AucklandDepartment of Philosophy
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
General Philosophy of Science |