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538Concept possessionPhilosophical Issues 9 331-338. 1998.This paper answers critical responses to the author’s “A Theory of Concepts and Concept Possession.” The paper begins with a discussion of candidate counterexamples to the proposed analysis of concept possession -- including, e.g., a discussion of its relationship to Frank Jackson’s Mary example. Second, questions concerning the author’s general methodological approach are considered. For instance, it is shown that -- contrary to the critics’ suggestions -- an analysis of concept possession cann…Read more
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1035The origins of modal errorDialectica 58 (1): 11-42. 2004.Modal intuitions are the primary source of modal knowledge but also of modal error. According to the theory of modal error in this paper, modal intuitions retain their evidential force in spite of their fallibility, and erroneous modal intuitions are in principle identifiable and eliminable by subjecting our intuitions to a priori dialectic. After an inventory of standard sources of modal error, two further sources are examined in detail. The first source - namely, the failure to distinguish bet…Read more
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691A priori knowledge: Replies to William Lycan and Ernest SosaPhilosophical Studies 81 (2-3): 163-174. 1996.This paper contains replies to comments on the author's paper "A Priori Knowledge and the Scope of Philosophy." Several points in the argument of that paper are given further clarification: the notion of our standard justificatory procedure, the notion of a basic source of evidence, and the doctrine of modal reliabilism. The reliability of intuition is then defended against Lycan's skepticism and a response is given to Lycan's claim that the scope of a priori knowledge does not include philosoph…Read more
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275Review: Terence Parsons, Nonexistent Objects (review)Journal of Symbolic Logic 49 (2): 652-655. 1984.
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478Property TheoriesIn D. Gabbay & F. Guenther (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic Vol. 10, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 143-248. 2003.Revised and reprinted; originally in Dov Gabbay & Franz Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Volume IV. Kluwer 133-251. -- Two sorts of property theory are distinguished, those dealing with intensional contexts property abstracts (infinitive and gerundive phrases) and proposition abstracts (‘that’-clauses) and those dealing with predication (or instantiation) relations. The first is deemed to be epistemologically more primary, for “the argument from intensional logic” is perhaps th…Read more
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1945Modal Epistemology and the Rationalist RenaissanceIn Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Conceivability and Possibility, Oxford University Press. pp. 71-125. 2002.The paper begins with a clarification of the notions of intuition (and, in particular, modal intuition), modal error, conceivability, metaphysical possibility, and epistemic possibility. It is argued that two-dimensionalism is the wrong framework for modal epistemology and that a certain nonreductionist approach to the theory of concepts and propositions is required instead. Finally, there is an examination of moderate rationalism’s impact on modal arguments in the philosophy of mind -- for exam…Read more
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618IntuitionIn Donald M. Borchert (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Supplement, Simon and Schuster Macmillan. pp. 262-264. 1996.
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467The self-consciousness argument: Why Tooley's criticisms failPhilosophical Studies 105 (3): 281-307. 2001.Ontological functionalism's defining tenet is that mental properties can be defined wholly in terms of the general pattern of interaction of ontologically prior realizations. Ideological functionalism's defining tenet is that mental properties can only be defined nonreductively, in terms of the general pattern of their interaction with one another. My Self-consciousness Argument establishes: ontological functionalism is mistaken because its proposed definitions wrongly admit realizations into th…Read more
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1153A Theory of the a PrioriPhilosophical Perspectives 13 29-55. 1999.The topic of a priori knowledge is approached through the theory of evidence. A shortcoming in traditional formulations of moderate rationalism and moderate empiricism is that they fail to explain why rational intuition and phenomenal experience count as basic sources of evidence. This explanatory gap is filled by modal reliabilism -- the theory that there is a qualified modal tie between basic sources of evidence and the truth. This tie to the truth is then explained by the theory of concept po…Read more
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482The boundary between philosophy and cognitive scienceJournal of Philosophy 84 (10): 553-55. 1987.Abstract of a paper to be presented in an APA symposium on Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind, December 28, 1987, commenting on papers by Alvin I. Goldman and Patricia Smith Churchland.
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223Review: David Greenwood, Truth and Meaning (review)Journal of Symbolic Logic 40 (4): 579-580. 1975.
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901An inconsistency in functionalismSynthese 38 (July): 333-372. 1978.This paper demonstrates that there is an inconsistency in functionalism in psychology and philosophy of mind. Analogous inconsistencies can be expected in functionalisms in biology and social theory. (edited).
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1305PropositionsMind 107 (425): 1-32. 1998.Recent work in philosophy of language has raised significant problems for the traditional theory of propositions, engendering serious skepticism about its general workability. These problems are, I believe, tied to fundamental misconceptions about how the theory should be developed. The goal of this paper is to show how to develop the traditional theory in a way which solves the problems and puts this skepticism to rest. The problems fall into two groups. The first has to do with reductionism, s…Read more
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977Mind and anti-mind: Why thinking has no functional definitionMidwest Studies in Philosophy 9 (1): 283-328. 1984.Functionalism would be mistaken if there existed a system of deviant relations (an “anti-mind”) that had the same functional roles as the standard mental relations. In this paper such a system is constructed, using “Quinean transformations” of the sort associated with Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation. For example, a mapping m from particularistic propositions (e.g., that there exists a rabbit) to universalistic propositions (that rabbithood is manifested). Using m, a deviant re…Read more
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1315IntroductionIn Robert C. Koons & George Bealer (eds.), The waning of materialism, Oxford University Press. 2010.In this introduction, before summarizing the contents of the volume, the authors characterize materialism as it is understood within the philosophy of mind, and they identify three respects in which materialism is on the wane.
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544Fregean equivocation and ramsification on sparse theories: Response to McCullaghMind and Language 15 (5): 500-510. 2000.This paper begins with a brief summary of the Self-consciousness Argument, developed in the author’s paper “Self-consciousness.” (This argument is designed to refute the extant versions of functionalism -- American functionalism, Australian functionalism, and language-of-thought functionalism.) After this summary is given, two thesis are defended. The first is that the Self-consciousness Argument is not guilty of a Fregean equivocation regarding embedded occurrences of mental predicates, as has …Read more
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864Theories of properties, relations, and propositionsJournal of Philosophy 76 (11): 634-648. 1979.This is the only complete logic for properties, relations, and propositions (PRPS) that has been formulated to date. First, an intensional abstraction operation is adjoined to first-order quantifier logic, Then, a new algebraic semantic method is developed. The heuristic used is not that of possible worlds but rather that of PRPS taken at face value. Unlike the possible worlds approach to intensional logic, this approach yields a logic for intentional (psychological) matters, as well as modal ma…Read more
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214A Priori KnowledgeThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 5 1-12. 2000.This paper is a condensed version of the author’s “A Theory of the A Priori” (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2000) for the evidential status of intuitions, the incoherence of radical empiricism. the thesis of modal reliabilism, and the Autonomy of Philosophy Thesis (according to which the a priori disciplines are autonomous from empirical science).
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952Self-consciousnessPhilosophical Review 106 (1): 69-117. 1997.Self-consciousness constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to functionalism. Either the standard functional definitions of mental relations wrongly require the contents of self-consciousness to be propositions involving “realizations” rather than mental properties and relations themselves. Or else these definitions are circular. The only way to save functional definitions is to expunge the standard functionalist requirement that mental properties be second-order and to accept that they are first-…Read more
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931Property TheoriesIn Dov M. Gabbay & Franz Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 133-251. 1983.Revised and reprinted in Handbook of Philosophical Logic, volume 10, Dov Gabbay and Frans Guenthner (eds.), Dordrecht: Kluwer, (2003). -- Two sorts of property theory are distinguished, those dealing with intensional contexts property abstracts (infinitive and gerundive phrases) and proposition abstracts (‘that’-clauses) and those dealing with predication (or instantiation) relations. The first is deemed to be epistemologically more primary, for “the argument from intensional logic” is perhaps t…Read more
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1178Intensional EntitiesIn Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Genealogy to Iqbal, Routledge. pp. 803-7. 1996.
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1089Mental propertiesJournal of Philosophy 91 (4): 185-208. 1994.It is argued that, because of scientific essentialism, two currently popular arguments against the mind-body identity thesis -- the multiple-realizability argument and the Nagel-Jackson knowledge argument -- are unsatisfactory as they stand and that their problems are incurable. It is then argued that a refutation of the identity thesis in its full generality can be achieved by weaving together two traditional Cartesian arguments -- the modal argument and the certainty argument. This argument es…Read more
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IntentionalityIn Hans Burkhardt & Barry Smith (eds.), Handbook of metaphysics and ontology, Philosophia Verlag. pp. 400-404. 1991.
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399The self-consciousness argument : Functionalism and the corruption of intentional contentIn Robert C. Koons & George Bealer (eds.), The waning of materialism, Oxford University Press. 2010.In this chapter I argue that there is such a barrier created by self-conscious intentional states—conscious intentional states that are about one’s own conscious intentional states. As we will see, however, this result is entirely compatible with a scientific theory of mind, and, in fact, there is an elegant non-reductive framework in which just such a theory may be pursued.
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311ConceptIn Jaegwon Kim, Ernest Sosa & Gary S. Rosenkrantz (eds.), A Companion to Metaphysics, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 89-90. 1994.
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2295The incoherence of empiricismAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 66 (1): 99-138. 1992.Radical empiricism is the view that a person's experiences (sensory and introspective), or a person's observations, constitute the person's evidence. This view leads to epistemic self-defeat. There are three arguments, concerning respectively: (1) epistemic starting points; (2) epistemic norms; (3) terms of epistemic appraisal. The source of self-defeat is traced to the fact that empiricism does not count a priori intuition as evidence (where a priori intuition is not a form of belief but rather…Read more
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13743Intuition and the Autonomy of PhilosophyIn Michael Raymond DePaul & William M. Ramsey (eds.), Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and its Role in Philosophical Inquiry, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 201-240. 1998.The phenomenology of a priori intuition is explored at length (where a priori intuition is taken to be not a form of belief but rather a form of seeming, specifically intellectual as opposed to sensory seeming). Various reductive accounts of intuition are criticized, and Humean empiricism (which, unlike radical empiricism, does admit analyticity intuitions as evidence) is shown to be epistemically self-defeating. This paper also recapitulates the defense of the thesis of the Autonomy and Authori…Read more
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739An inconsistency in direct reference theoryJournal of Philosophy 101 (11). 2004.Direct reference theory faces serious prima facie counterexamples which must be explained away (e.g., that it is possible to know a priori that Hesperus = Phosphorus). This is done by means of various forms of pragmatic explanation. But when those explanations that provisionally succeed are generalized to deal with analogous prima facie counterexamples concerning the identity of propositions, a fatal dilemma results. Either identity must be treated as a four-place relation (contradicting what ju…Read more
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174PropertyIn Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 657-658. 1995.
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1136Materialism and the logical structure of intentionalityIn Howard Robinson (ed.), Objections to Physicalism, Oxford University Press. 1993.After a brief history of Brentano's thesis of intentionality, it is argued that intentionality presents a serious problem for materialism. First, it is shown that, if no general materialist analysis (or reduction) of intentionality is possible, then intentional phenomena would have in common at least one nonphysical property, namely, their intentionality. A general analysis of intentionality is then suggested. Finally, it is argued that any satisfactory general analysis of intentionality must sh…Read more
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Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
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Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |