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89A Priori Principles and Action-ExplanationAnalysis 46 (1). 1986.This paper is a defence of the view that action explanation deploys (relatively) a priori principles. The argument is that this is so because action explanation succeeds, Not just through revealing regularity, But through exhibiting the presence of an expected and privileged pattern. Its job is to 'normalise' action, Not just 'regularise' it
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344Making Up Your Mind: How Language Enables Self‐Knowledge, Self‐Knowability and PersonhoodEuropean Journal of Philosophy 24 (1): 3-26. 2016.If language is to serve the basic purpose of communicating our attitudes, we must be constructed so as to form beliefs in those propositions that we truthfully assert on the basis of careful assent. Thus, other things being equal, I can rely on believing those things to which I give my careful assent. And so my ability to assent or dissent amounts to an ability to make up my mind about what I believe. This capacity, in tandem with a similar capacity in respect of other attitudes, supports three …Read more
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51Two Sources of MoralitySocial Philosophy and Policy 18 (2): 102. 2001.This essay emerges from consideration of a question in the epistemology of ethics or morality. This is not the common claim-centered question as to how moral claims are confirmed and whether their mode of confirmation gives us grounds to be confident about the prospects for ethical discourse. Instead, I am concerned with the less frequently posed concept-centered question of where in human experience moral terms or concepts are grounded — that is, where in experience the moral becomes salient to…Read more
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103Functional explanation and virtual selectionBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (2): 291-302. 1996.Invoking its social function can explain why we find a certain functional trait or institution only if we can identify a mechanism whereby the playing of the function connects with the explanandum. That is the main claim in the missing-mechanism critique of functionalism. Is it correct? Yes, if functional explanation is meant to make sense of the actual presence of the trait or institution. No, if it is meant to make sense of why the trait or institution is resilient: why we can rely on it to su…Read more
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Liberty and LibertiesIn Matthew Kramer, Claire Grant, Ben Colburn & Antony Hatzistavrou (eds.), The Legacy of H.L.A. Hart: Legal, Political and Moral Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2008.
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15Theory and Understanding: A Critique of Interpretive Social SciencePhilosophical Review 98 (2): 266. 1989.
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8Chapter five. Using words to incorporateIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 70-83. 2009.
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Philosophy and the Human Sciences an Inaugural Lecture Delivered at the University of Bradford on 23 January 1979University of Bradford. 1979.
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The power of a democratic publicIn Reiko Gotoh & Paul Dumouchel (eds.), Against Injustice: The New Economics of Amartya Sen, Cambridge University Press. 2009.
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Democracia y evaluaciones compartidasIsonomía. Revista de Teoría y Filosofía Del Derecho 23 51-58. 2005.
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23Action and interpretation: studies in the philosophy of the social sciences (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 1977.Whether the interpretations made by social scientists of the thoughts, utterances and actions of other people, including those from an alien culture or a ...
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141Substantive moral theorySocial Philosophy and Policy 25 (1): 1-27. 2008.Philosophy can serve two roles in relation to moral thinking: first, to provide a meta-ethical commentary on the nature of moral thought, as the methodology or the philosophy of science provides a commentary on the nature of scientific thought; and second, to build on the common presumptions deployed in people's moral thinking about moral issues, looking for a substantive moral theory that they might support. The present essay addresses the nature of this second role; illustrates it with substan…Read more
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111On rule-following, folk psychology, and the economy of esteem: A reply to Boghossian, Dreier and Smith (review)Philosophical Studies 124 (2): 233-259. 2005.
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182The Instability of Freedom as Noninterference: The Case of Isaiah BerlinEthics 121 (4): 693-716. 2011.In Hobbes, freedom of choice requires nonfrustration: the option you prefer must be accessible. In Berlin, it requires noninterference: every option, preferred or unpreferred, must be accessible—every door must be open. But Berlin’s argument against Hobbes suggests a parallel argument that freedom requires something stronger still: that each option be accessible and that no one have the power to block access; the doors should be open, and there should be no powerful doorkeepers. This is freedom …Read more
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2BackmatterIn Philip Pettit & Christopher Hookway (eds.), Handlung Und Interpretation: Studien Zur Philosophie der Sozialwissenschaften, De Gruyter. pp. 225-226. 1982.
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4Chapter two. Minds with wordsIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 24-41. 2009.
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34Esteem, Identifiability, and the Internet1In M. J. van den Joven & J. Weckert (eds.), Information Technology and Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 175. 2008.
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184Groups with minds of their ownIn Alvin I. Goldman & Dennis Whitcomb (eds.), Social Epistemology: Essential Readings, Oxford University Press. 2011.
Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |