-
311A Theory of Secondary QualitiesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (3): 568-591. 2006.The secondary qualities are those qualities of objects that bear a certain relation to our sensory powers: roughly, they are those qualities that we can readily detect only through a certain distinctive phenomenal experience. Contrary to what is sometimes supposed, there is nothing about the world itself (independent of our minds) that determines the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Instead, a theory of the secondary qualities must be grounded in facts about how we conceive o…Read more
-
50Review of Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Being (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2003 (12). 2003.
-
45Questiones super Physicam (Books I-VII) by Nicole Oresme (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 52 (3): 610-611. 2014.A review of the Latin text of Oresme's important work.
-
44Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy: Volume 3 (edited book)Oxford University Press UK. 2015.Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy showcases the best scholarly research in this flourishing field. The series covers all aspects of medieval philosophy, including the Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew traditions, and runs from the end of antiquity into the Renaissance. It publishes new work by leading scholars in the field, and combines historical scholarship with philosophical acuteness. The papers will address a wide range of topics, from political philosophy to ethics, and logic to metaphysics. O…Read more
-
77On Efficient Causality (review)Philosophical Review 105 (4): 533-535. 1996.A quick scan of the leading figures in western philosophy reveals that relatively few have made a name for themselves by defending intuitive, natural, and sensible positions. Aristotle is one, and perhaps Aquinas is another. Francisco Suarez, the sixteenth-century Spanish scholastic, would be a third. His invariable working procedure is to give copious consideration to the various ancient and medieval views, and then to find some sensible compromise position. But today Suarez can hardly claim to…Read more
-
213The event of colorPhilosophical Studies 142 (3). 2009.When objects are illuminated, the light they reflect does not simply bounce off their surface. Rather, that light is entirely reabsorbed and then reemitted, as the result of a complex microphysical event near the surface of the object. If we are to be physicalists regarding color, then we should analyze colors in terms of that event, just as we analyze heat in terms of molecular motion, and sound in terms of vibrations. On this account, colors are not standing properties of objects, but events, …Read more
-
74LanguageReview of Metaphysics 49 (3): 650-651. 1996.If ever a case is to be made that ancient philosophy is just an early species of analytic philosophy, this is the volume to do it. Everson has assembled eleven essays, mostly by Oxford scholars, that range widely over ancient theories of language from Parmenides to Augustine. Some of the essays will prove more useful to advanced scholars, others to students and nonspecialists. The quality of the essays, in every case, is extremely high.
-
163Snatching Hope from the Jaws of Epistemic DefeatJournal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (2): 257--275. 2015.Reflection on the history of skepticism shows that philosophers have often conjoined as a single doctrine various theses that are best kept apart. Some of these theses are incredible – literally almost impossible to accept – whereas others seem quite plausible, and even verging on the platitudinous. Mixing them together, one arrives at a view – skepticism – that is as a whole indefensible. My aim is to pull these different elements apart, and to focus on one particular strand of skepticism that …Read more
-
109Aquinas on Human Self-Knowledge, by Therese Scarpelli CoryMind 124 (494): 623-626. 2015.A review of Cory's book.
-
114Veiled DisagreementJournal of Philosophy 111 (11): 608-630. 2014.A theory of how rationally to respond to disagreement requires a clear account of how to measure comparative reliability. Such an account faces a Generality Problem analogous to the well-known problem that besets reliabilist theories of knowledge. But whereas the problem for reliabilism has proved recalcitrant, I show that a solution in the case of disagreement is available. That solution is to measure reliability in the most fine-grained way possible, in light of all the circumstances of the pr…Read more
-
281Medieval Social Epistemology: Scientia for Mere MortalsEpisteme 7 (1): 23-41. 2010.Medieval epistemology begins as ideal theory: when is one ideally situated with regard to one's grasp of the way things are? Taking as their starting point Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, scholastic authors conceive of the goal of cognitive inquiry as the achievement of scientia, a systematic body of beliefs, grasped as certain, and grounded in demonstrative reasons that show the reason why things are so. Obviously, however, there is not much we know in this way. The very strictness of this ide…Read more
-
3The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2010.The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy comprises over fifty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of this period. Starting in the late eighth century, with the renewal of learning some centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, a sequence of chapters takes the reader through developments in many and varied fields, including logic and language, natural philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and theology. Close attention is paid to the context of medieval philosophy, with d…Read more
-
Human NatureIn Arthur Stephen McGrade (ed.), The Cambridge companion to medieval philosophy, Cambridge University Press. 2003.
-
51Review of John Cottingham, Peter Hacker (eds.), Mind, Method, and Morality: Essays in Honour of Anthony Kenny (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (6). 2010.
-
36Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Volume 4 (edited book)Oxford University Press UK. 2016.Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy showcases the best scholarly research in this flourishing field. The series covers all aspects of medieval philosophy, including the Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew traditions, and runs from the end of antiquity into the Renaissance. It publishes new work by leading scholars in the field, and combines historical scholarship with philosophical acuteness. The papers will address a wide range of topics, from political philosophy to ethics, and logic to metaphysics. O…Read more
-
69The Philosophy of William of Ockham in the Light of Its Principles (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 38 (4): 590-591. 2000.
-
109On Efficient Causality: Metaphysical Disputations 17, 18, and 19Philosophical Review 105 (4): 533. 1996.A quick scan of the leading figures in western philosophy reveals that relatively few have made a name for themselves by defending intuitive, natural, and sensible positions. Aristotle is one, and perhaps Aquinas is another. Francisco Suarez, the sixteenth-century Spanish scholastic, would be a third. His invariable working procedure is to give copious consideration to the various ancient and medieval views, and then to find some sensible compromise position. But today Suarez can hardly claim to…Read more
-
100Theories of cognition in the later Middle AgesCambridge University Press. 1997.This book is a major contribution to the history of philosophy in the later medieval period (1250-1350). It focuses on cognitive theory, a subject of intense investigation during these years. In fact many of the issues that dominate philosophy of mind and epistemology today - intentionality, mental representation, scepticism, realism - were hotly debated in the later medieval period. The book offers a careful analysis of these debates, primarily through the work of Thomas Aquinas, John Olivi, an…Read more
-
106Life’s Form: Late Aristotelian Conceptions of the SoulPhilosophical Review 111 (2): 308-310. 2002.Perhaps the most lively area of historical research in philosophy today concerns the scholastic antecedents of modern philosophy. As studies of modern philosophy have become more historically rigorous, over the past twenty years, they have become increasingly concerned with understanding the antecedents to figures such as Descartes and Locke. Of course, inasmuch as these authors were notoriously and proudly ignorant of scholastic thought, it is not to be expected that a better understanding of m…Read more
-
294Sensible qualities: The case of soundJournal of the History of Philosophy 38 (1): 27-40. 2000.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.1 (2000) 27-40 [Access article in PDF] Sensible Qualities: The Case of Sound Robert Pasnau University of Colorado 1. Background The Aristotelian tradition distinguishes the familiar five external senses from the less familiar internal senses. Aristotle himself did not in fact use this terminology of 'external' and 'internal,' but the division became common in the work of Arab and Hebrew philoso…Read more
-
294Epistemology IdealizedMind 122 (488): 987-1021. 2013.Epistemology today centrally concerns the conceptual analysis of knowledge. Historically, however, this is a concept that philosophers have seldom been interested in analysing, particularly when it is construed as broadly as the English language would have it. Instead, the overriding focus of epistemologists over the centuries has been, first, to describe the epistemic ideal that human beings might hope to achieve, and then go on to chart the various ways in which we ordinarily fall off from tha…Read more
-
143Aquinas on Thought’s Linguistic NatureThe Monist 80 (4): 558-575. 1997.Thomas Aquinas gives us many reasons to think that conceptual thought is linguistic in nature. Most notably, he refers to a mental concept as a verbum or word. He further says that such concepts may be either simple or complex, and that complex concepts are formed out of simple ones, through composition or division. These complex concepts may either affirm or deny a predicate of a subject. All of these claims suggest that conceptual thought is somehow language-like. Moreover, Aquinas would have …Read more
-
121Philosophy of mind and human natureIn Brian Davies & Eleonore Stump (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Aquinas, Oxford University Press. 2011.A theory of human nature must consider from the start whether it sees human beings in fundamentally biological terms, as animals like other animals, or else in fundamentally supernatural terms, as creatures of God who are like God in some special way, and so importantly unlike other animals. Many of the perennial philosophical disputes have proved so intractable in part because their adherents divide along these lines. The friends of materialism, seeing human beings as just a particularly comple…Read more
-
43Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Volume 1 (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2013.Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy showcases the best new scholarly work on philosophy from the end of antiquity into the Renaissance. OSMP combines historical scholarship with philosophical acuteness, and will be an essential resource for anyone working in the area
Boulder, Colorado, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
| Epistemology |
| Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
| 17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
| Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
| Epistemology |
| 17th/18th Century Philosophy |