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166Does Knowledge Depend on Truth?Acta Analytica 28 (2): 139-144. 2013.That knowledge does not depend on truth is a consequence of a basic principle concerning dependence applied to the case of knowledge: that A depends on C, and that B depends on C, do not mean that A depends on B. This is a standard causal scenario, where two things with a common cause are not themselves causally dependent. Similarly, knowledge that p depends in part on some combination of the belief that p, the fact that p and the proposition that p, and perhaps other facts or even objects. Trut…Read more
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702Normativity and the Metaphysics of MindAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (1). 2010.I consider the metaphysical consequences of the view that propositional attitudes have essential normative properties. I argue that realism should take a weak rather than a strong form. I argue that expressivism cannot get off the ground. And I argue that eliminativism is self-refuting
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195Moral SupervenienceMidwest Studies in Philosophy 20 (1): 240-262. 1995.morality? I want to pursue these questions by examining an argument against moral realism that Simon Blackburn has developed.' In parts 1 and 2, I consider..
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380Besires and the Motivation DebateTheoria 74 (1): 50-59. 2008.Abstract: This article addresses a number of difficulties and complications in the standard formulations of motivational internalism, and considers what besires might be in the light of those difficulties and complications. Two notions of besire are then distinguished, before considering how different kinds of motivational internalism and different conceptions of besire fare against the significant argument that we may be indifferent to the demands of morality without irrationality.
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91Music, Essential Metaphor, and Private LanguageAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 48 (1): 1. 2011.Music is elusive. describing it is problematic. In particular its aesthetic properties cannot be captured in literal description. Beyond very simple terms, they cannot be literally described. In this sense, the aesthetic description of music is essentially nonliteral. An adequate aesthetic description of music must have resort to metaphor or other nonliteral devices. I maintain that this is because of the nature of the aesthetic properties being described. I defend this view against an apparentl…Read more
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32Scruton's Aesthetics (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2012.Scruton's Aesthetics is a comprehensive critical evaluation of one of the major aestheticians of our age. The lead essay by Scruton is followed by fourteen essays by international commentators plus Scruton's reply. All discuss matters of enduring importance.
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13Science and Ethics: Demarcation, Holism and Logical ConsequencesEuropean Journal of Philosophy 18 (1): 126-138. 2010.I argue that attempts to demarcation ethics from science are not jeopardized by the fact that conjunctions of moral claims may have empirically verifiable logical consequences.
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169A Priori Knowledge that I ExistAnalytic Philosophy 54 (2): 189-208. 2013.I exist. That is something I know. Most philosophers think that Descartes was right that each of us knows that we exist. Furthermore most philosophers agree with Descartes that there is something special about how we know it. Agreement ends there. There is little agreement about exactly what is special about this knowledge. I shall present an account that is in some respects Cartesian in spirit, although I shall not pursue interpretive questions very far. On this account, I know that I exist a p…Read more
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123Listening to Music TogetherBritish Journal of Aesthetics 52 (4): 379-389. 2012.I discuss the social dimension of musical experience. I focus on the question of whether there is joint musical listening. One reason for this focus is that Adorno and those in his tradition give us little in the way of an understanding of what the social dimension of musical experience might be. We need a proper clear conception of the issue, which the issue of joint experience yields. I defend a radically individualistic view, while conceding that such a view, inspired by Hanslick, may have po…Read more
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122I shall be concerned with the metaphysical issues that Aesthetic Functionalism raises, and I shall here leave aside questions about whether the theory is extensionally adequate. Aesthetic Functionalism applies to a great many works of art (for example, it applies to most paintings and most music). It may or may not apply to all works of art. If it does not, then I can be taken to be providing a theory of those works that have aesthetic aspirations. To have given an account of their nature would …Read more
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303In Defence of Moderate Aesthetic FormalismPhilosophical Quarterly 50 (201): 476-493. 2000.Most of the debate for and against aesthetic formalism in the twentieth century has been little more than a sequence of assertions, on both sides. But there is one discussion that stands out for its argumentative subtlety and depth, and that is Kendall Walton’s paper ‘Categories of Art’.1 In what follows I shall defend a certain version of formalism against the antiformalist arguments which Walton deploys. I want to show that while Walton’s arguments do indeed create insurmountable difficulties fo…Read more
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261Against analytic moral functionalismRatio 13 (3). 2000.I argue against the analytic moral functionalist view propounded by Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit. I focus on the ‘input’ clauses of our alleged ‘folk moral theory’. I argue that the examples they give of such input clauses cannot plausibly be interpreted as analytic truths. They are in fact substantive moral claims about the moral ‘domain’. It is a substantive claim that all human beings have equal moral standing. There are those who have rejected this, such as Herman Göring. He was loyal to …Read more
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20Concepts: What Moral Philosophy Can Learn from AestheticsIn Simon Kirchin (ed.), Thick Concepts, Oxford University Press. pp. 197. 2013.
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21Moral RealismPhilosophical Quarterly 42 (169): 514. 1992.'...the book is very dense with ideas...arguments concerning innumerable interesting points are always worth pondering.'-THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW
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57Groundrules in the Philosophy of ArtPhilosophy 70 (274). 1995.What are the groundrules in the philosophy of art? What criteria of adequacy should we use for assessing theories of art?
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28Skin Deep or in the Eye of the Beholder?: The Metaphysics of Aesthetic and Sensory PropertiesPhilosophical and Phenomenological Research 61 (3): 595-618. 2000.I begin this paper by describing and making attractive a physicalist aesthetic realist view of aesthetic properties. I then argue against this view on the basis of two premises. The first premise is thesis of aesthetic/sensory dependence that I have defended elsewhere. The second premise is the denial of a mind-independence thesis about sensory properties. I give an argument for that denial. Lastly, I put these two premises together and conclude that physicalist aesthetic realism is false. I art…Read more
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233Against the Sociology of the AestheticCultural Values 6 (4): 443-452. 2002.I defend traditional aesthetics against sociological criticism. I argue that “historicist” approaches are not supported by arguments and are intrinsically implausible. Hence the traditional ahistorical philosophical approach to the judgment of taste is justified. Many Marxist, feminist and postmodernist writers either eliminate aesthetic value or reduce it to their favourite political value. Others say that they merely want to give a historical explanation of the culturally local phenomenon of t…Read more
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21onald Dworkin says he does not believe in the metaphysics of morality. He is a 'quietist' about this issue. He thinks that there are no coherent 'external' or 'archimedian' questions that we can raise about the whole discipline of moral thought and talk, and that the only questions we can raise are 'internal' ones about what moral thoughts we should think. Dworkin thinks that some metaphysical debates can go ahead, it is just the metaphysics of morality that is ill-gotten. This is because those …Read more
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131Aesthetic judgmentThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2003.Beauty is an important part of our lives. Ugliness too. It is no surprise then that philosophers since antiquity have been interested in our experiences of and judgments about beauty and ugliness. They have tried to understand the nature of these experiences and judgments, and they have also wanted to know whether these experiences and judgments were legitimate. Both these projects took a sharpened form in the twentieth century, when this part of our lives came under a sustained attack in both E…Read more
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1L’irrilevanza dell’avanguardiaRivista di Estetica 35 (35): 387-395. 2007.1 Arte d’avanguardia e teorie estetiche dell’arte L’arte d’avanguardia ha una particolare rilevanza per la filosofia dell’arte? Naturalmente una parte dell’arte d’avanguardia può essere intrinsecamente interessante. Forse i filosofi possono riflettere sul significato e il valore di queste opere; alcune possono addirittura sollevare delle questioni filosofiche; tuttavia, molti filosofi, sulla scorta di Arthur Danto, hanno ritenuto che da esse si possano trarre degli insegnamenti di portata piu...
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Meta-Ethics |
Aesthetics |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
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Meta-Ethics |
Aesthetics |
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Metaphysics |
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