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33The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher: Discussions and Replies (review)Philosophical Review 91 (3): 481-483. 1982.
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33Is Goodness Without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and EthicsRowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2008.Is Goodness Without God Good Enough contains a lively debate between William Lane Craig and Paul Kurtz on the relationship between God and ethics, followed by seven new essays that both comment on the debate and advance the broader discussion of this important issue. Written in an accessible style by eminent scholars, this book will appeal to students and academics alike.
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32Against Amelioration, or: Don't Hire Any Conceptual Engineers Without Talking to Me FirstProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 96 168-85. 2022.ABSTRACT There is currently a great deal of enthusiasm for projects known sometimes as “amelioration” and sometimes as “conceptual engineering.” Such projects advocate either the revision of existing concepts, or the intentional creation of new concepts. It is held by advocates of amelioration that projects of this sort are necessary for the accomplishment of a variety of social justice goals. So, for example, many feminist theorists hold that the concept WOMAN must be revised if we are to pr…Read more
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32Feeling Fine About the MindPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (2): 381-387. 1997.The article presents a critique of John Searle’s attack on computationalist theories of mind in his recent book, The Rediscovery of the Mind. Searle is guilty of caricaturing his opponents, and of ignoring their arguments. Moreover, his own positive theory of mind, which he claims “takes account of” subjectivity, turns out to offer no discernible advantages over the views he rejects.
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29Naturalizing radical translationIn A. Orenstein & Petr Kotatko (eds.), Knowledge, Language and Logic: Questions for Quine, Kluwer Academic Print On Demand. pp. 141--150. 2000.
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29Never not the best: LoT and the explanation of person-level psychologyBehavioral and Brain Sciences 46. 2023.As Quilty-Dunn et al. observe, the language-of-thought hypothesis (LoTH) has fallen out of favor in philosophy. I will support the arguments made for its rehabilitation by Quilty-Dunn et al. by reviewing old, but still potent arguments for LoTH, and briefly criticizing recent proposed alternatives to LoT, such as Frances Egan's deflationism and Eric Schwitzgebel's dispositionalism, revealing inadequacies in such antirepresentational, antisyntactic theories.
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27Because I Said So: Toward a Feminist Theory of AuthorityHypatia 20 (4): 59-79. 2000.Feminism is an antiauthoritarian movement that has sought to unmask many traditional “authorities” as ungrounded. Given this, it might seem as if feminists are required to abandon the concept of authority altogether. But, we argue, the exercise of authority enables us to coordinate our efforts to achieve larger social goods and, hence, should be preserved. Instead, what is needed and what we provide for here is a way to distinguish legitimate authority from objectionable authoritarianism.
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26The ‘Faith’ of an AtheistPhilosophic Exchange 32 (1). 2002.For many religious believers, belief in God is as fundamental as my belief in my own body. That is because the believer thinks that belief in God is a necessary condition for living a meaningful life. This paper argues that belief in God is not necessary for living a meaningful life. Morality, meaning, and love are all independent of God. All that is required for a meaningful life is a sustaining belief that humankind is worth something. This kind of faith is available to an atheist.
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26Only natural: gender, knowledge, and humankindOxford University Press. 2022.This volume brings together sixteen essays by Louise Antony that reflect her distinctive approach to issues at the intersections of feminist theory, epistemology, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. Antony proceeds from the Quinean precept that we treat knowledge as a natural phenomenon. This approach, Antony argues, offers feminists and other progressive theorists vital tools with which to expose and dismantle ideological conceptions of knowledge, human nature, and objectivity. She a…Read more
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21Be What I Say: Authority vs. Power in PornographyIn Beyond Speech: Pornography and Analytic Philosophy. pp. 59-87. 2017.In a series of influential articles, Rae Langton has argued that Austinian speech-act theory can illuminate the way in which pornography contributes to the subordination of women. I will argue that Langton’s application of Austin is incorrect. In earlier work, I have argued against Langton’s view on the grounds that being subordinated is not the sort of condition that can be brought about through an illocutionary act. In this paper, however, I will set aside that objection and focus instead o…Read more
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20IntroductionIn Louise M. Antony & Norbert Hornstein (eds.), Chomsky and His Critics, Blackwell. 2003.This chapter contains section titled: References.
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19Everybody has got it: A defense of non-reductive materialismIn Brian P. McLaughlin & Jonathan D. Cohen (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. 2007.
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18On the proper treatment of the connection between connectionism and symbolismBehavioral and Brain Sciences 11 (1): 23-24. 1988.
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18How Naturalists Can Give Internalists What They Really Want (or Need!)In Luis R. G. Oliveira (ed.), Externalism about Knowledge, Oxford University Press. pp. 332-50. 2023.Epistemological internalists have a problem about perceptual knowledge: how can perceptual experience both provide faithful information about the external world and justification for empirical belief? This is Sellars’s famous problem about “the given.” Chapter 12 argues, first, that this problem is not just for internalists—a version of it arises for naturalistic externalists. But, second, it argues that the problem can be solved within naturalistic bounds, by appealing to a category of causal r…Read more
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18Review of Diana tietjens Meyers, Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery and Women's Agency (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2002 (9). 2002.
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14Conceptual Connection and the Observation/Theory DistinctionGrazer Philosophische Studien 46 (1): 135-161. 1993.Fodor and LePore's reconstruction of the semantic holism debate in terms of "atomism" and "anatomism" is inadequate: it fails to highlight the important issue of how intentional contents are individuated, and excludes or obscures several possible positions on the metaphysics of content. One such position, "weak sociabilism" is important because it addresses concerns of Fodor and LePore's molecularist critics about conditions for possession of concepts, without abandoning atomism about content in…Read more
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13Holism: A Consumer UpdateGrazer Philosophische Studien 46 135-161. 1993.Fodor and LePore's reconstruction of the semantic holism debate in terms of "atomism" and "anatomism" is inadequate: it fails to highlight the important issue of how intentional contents are individuated, and excludes or obscures several possible positions on the metaphysics of content. One such position, "weak sociabilism" is important because it addresses concerns of Fodor and LePore's molecularist critics about conditions for possession of concepts, without abandoning atomism about content in…Read more
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13Not rational, but not brutely causal eitherTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 35 (1): 45-57. 2020.Jerry Fodor has argued that concept acquisition cannot be a psychological or “rational-causal” process, but can only be a “brute-causal” process of acquisition. This position generates the “doorknob → DOORKNOB” problem: why are concepts typically acquired on the basis of experience with items in their extensions? I argue that Fodor’s taxonomy of causal processes needs supplementation, and characterize a third type: what I call “intelligible-causal processes.” Armed with this new category I prese…Read more
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7Naturalized Epistemology, Morality, and the Real WorldCanadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 26 (sup1): 103-137. 2000.“Our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and demerit, which none of us ever saw.” -George Eliot, Middlemarch,book 4, chap. 40, 1871.Naturalized epistemology, as I understand it, is the practice of treating knowledge – human or otherwise – as a natural phenomenon, susceptible of investigation by the methods of empirical science. A naturalized approach to the study of knowledge differs saliently from more traditional forms of epistemology in taking the existence of knowledge for granted. Natur…Read more
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6Rabbit-pots and supernovas : On the relevance of psychological data to linguistic theoryIn Alex Barber (ed.), Epistemology of Language, Oxford University Press. 2003.
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5Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life (edited book)Oxford University Press USA. 2010.Atheists are frequently demonized as arrogant intellectuals, antagonistic to religion, devoid of moral sentiments, advocates of an "anything goes" lifestyle. Now, in this revealing volume, nineteen leading philosophers open a window on the inner life of atheism, shattering these common stereotypes as they reveal how they came to turn away from religious belief. These highly engaging personal essays capture the marvelous diversity to be found among atheists, providing a portrait that will surpris…Read more
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5Degraded conditions: Confounds in the study of decision making – ERRATUMBehavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (1): 43. 2014.
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4Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life (edited book)Oxford University Press USA. 2007.In this revealing volume, nineteen leading philosophers open a window on the inner life of atheism, shattering common stereotypes as they reveal how they came to turn away from religious belief. These highly engaging personal essays capture the marvellous diversity to be found among atheists, providing a portrait that will surprise most readers. Many of the authors express great affection for particular religious traditions, even as they explain why they cannot embrace them. Philosophers Without…Read more
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