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155Intralevel mental causationFrontiers of Philosophy in China 6 (3): 402-425. 2011.This paper identifies and critiques a theory of mental causation defended by some proponents of nonredutive physicalism that I call “intralevelism.” Intralevelist theories differ in their details. On all versions, the causal outcome of the manifestation of physical properties is physical and the causal outcome of the manifestation of mental properties is mental. Thus, mental causation on this view is intralevel mental to mental causation. This characterization of mental causation as intralevel i…Read more
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143Escaping hell but not heavenInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 77 (3): 247-253. 2015.Benjamin Matheson has recently critiqued the escapist account of hell that we have defended. In this paper we respond to Matheson. Building on some of our work in defense of escapism that Matheson does not discuss we show that the threat posed by Matheson’s critique is chimerical. We begin by summarizing our escapist theory of hell. Next, we summarize both Matheson’s central thesis and the main arguments offered in its defense. We then respond to those arguments
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63Bruno Verbeek (ed.), Reasons and Intentions (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2008), 243 pages. ISBN: 9780754660040 (hbk.). Hardback: £65.00 (review)Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (2): 308-310. 2012.
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302Acceptance and deciding to believeJournal of Philosophical Research 29 173-190. 2004.ABSTRACT: Defending the distinction between believing and accepting a proposition, I argue that cases where agents allegedly exercise direct voluntary control over their beliefs are instances of agents exercising direct voluntary control over accepting a proposition. The upshot is that any decision to believe a proposition cannot result directly in one’s acquiring the belief. Accepting is an instrumental mental action the agent performs that may trigger belief. A model of the relationship betwee…Read more
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158The Primacy of the Mental in the Explanation of Human ActionDisputatio 3 (26). 2009.The mentalistic orthodoxy about reason-explanations of action in the philosophy of mind has recently come under renewed attack. Julia Tanney is among those who have critiqued mentalism. The alternative account of the folk practice of giving reason-explanations of actions she has provided affords features of an agent’s external environment a privileged role in explaining the intentional behaviour of agents. The authors defend the mentalistic orthodoxy from Tanney’s criticisms, arguing that Tanney…Read more
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176Mental overpopulation and mental action: Protecting intentions from mental birth controlCanadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (1): 49-65. 2007.Many philosophers of action afford intentions a central role in theorizing about action and its explanation. Furthermore, current orthodoxy in the philosophy of action has it that intentions play a causal role with respect to the etiology and explanation of action. But action theory is not without its heretics. Some philosophers have challenged the orthodox view. In this paper I examine and critique one such challenge. I consider David-Hillel Ruben's case against the need for intentions to …Read more
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213Doxastic decisions and controlling beliefActa Analytica 21 (1): 102-114. 2006.I critique Matthias Steupâs account of exercising direct voluntary control over coming to have doxastic attitudes via doxastic decisions. I show that the sort of agency Steup argues is exercised in doxastic decision-making is not sufficient for agents to exercise direct voluntary control over their doxastic attitudes. This counts against such putative decisions being the locus of direct control in doxastic agency. Finally, I briefly consider what, if any, consequences the failure of Steupâs …Read more
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234How (not) to think about mental actionPhilosophical Explorations 8 (1): 83-89. 2005.I examine Galen Strawson's recent work on mental action in his paper, 'Mental Ballistics or The Involuntariness of Spontaneity'. I argue that his account of mental action is too restrictive. I offer a means of testing tokens of mental activity types to determine if they are actional. The upshot is that a good deal more mental activity than Strawson admits is actional.
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93Causalisms ReconsideredDialogue 43 (1): 147-. 2004.We reply to Andrew Sneddon’s recent criticism of the causal theory of action (CTA) and critically examine Sneddon’s preferred alternative, minimal causalism. We show that Sneddon’s criticism of CTA is problematic in several respects, and therefore his conclusion that “the prospects for CTA look poor” is unjustified. Moreover, we show that the minimal causalism that Sneddon advocates looks rather unpromising and its merits that Sneddon mentions are untenable.
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352Acceptance Does Not Entail BeliefInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 18 (2): 255-261. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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234Causing Human Actions: New Perspectives on the Causal Theory of Action (edited book)Bradford. 2010.The causal theory of action is widely recognized in the literature of the philosophy of action as the "standard story" of human action and agency -- the nearest approximation in the field to a theoretical orthodoxy. This volume brings together leading figures working in action theory today to discuss issues relating to the CTA and its applications, which range from experimental philosophy to moral psychology. Some of the contributors defend the theory while others criticize it; some draw from hi…Read more
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512Escapism, religious luck, and divine reasons for actionReligious Studies 45 (1): 63-72. 2009.In our paper, ‘Escaping hell: divine motivation and the problem of hell’, we defended a theory of hell that we called ‘escapism’. We argued that given God’s just and loving character it would be most rational for God to maintain an open door policy to those who are in hell, allowing them an unlimited number of chances to be reconciled with God and enjoy communion with God. In this paper we reply to two recent objections to our original paper. The first is an argument from religious luck offered …Read more
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142Can agent-causation be rendered intelligible?: an essay on the etiology of free actionDissertation, Texas A&M University. 1999.The doctrine of agent-causation has been suggested by many interested in defending libertarian theories of free action to provide the conceptual apparatus necessary to make the notion of incompatibility freedom intelligible. In the present essay the conceptual viability of the doctrine of agent-causation will be assessed. It will be argued that agent-causation is, insofar as it is irreducible to event-causation, mysterious at best, totally unintelligible at worst. First, the arguments for agent-…Read more
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204Action-Individuation and Doxastic AgencyTheoria 77 (4): 312-332. 2011.In this article, I challenge the dominant view of the importance of the debate over action-individuation. On the dominant view, it is held that the conclusions we reach about action-individuation make little or no difference for other debates in the philosophy of action, much less in other areas of philosophy. As a means of showing that the dominant view is mistaken, I consider the implications of accepting a given theory of action-individuation for thinking about doxastic agency. In particular,…Read more
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Yujin Nagasawa, God and Phenomenal Consciousness: A Novel Approach to Knowledge ArgumentsPhilosophy in Review 29 (3): 208. 2009.
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592Omniscience, the Incarnation, and Knowledge de seEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (4): 59--71. 2012.A knowledge argument is offered that presents unique difficulties for Christians who wish to assert that God is essentially omniscient. The difficulties arise from the doctrine of the incarnation. Assuming that God the Son did not necessarily have to become incarnate, then God cannot necessarily have knowledge de se of the content of a non-divine mind. If this is right, then God’s epistemic powers are not fixed across possible worlds and God is not essentially omniscient. Some options for Christ…Read more
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1043Deciding to Believe ReduxIn Jonathan Matheson Rico Vitz (ed.), The Ethics of Belief: Individual and Social, Oxford University Press. pp. 33-50. 2014.The ways in which we exercise intentional agency are varied. I take the domain of intentional agency to include all that we intentionally do versus what merely happens to us. So the scope of our intentional agency is not limited to intentional action. One can also exercise some intentional agency in omitting to act and, importantly, in producing the intentional outcome of an intentional action. So, for instance, when an agent is dieting, there is an exercise of agency both with respect to the ag…Read more
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57Helen Steward , A Metaphysics for Freedom . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 33 (6): 493-495. 2013.
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30Can the Agency Theory Be Salvaged?Philosophia Christi 3 (1): 217-224. 2001.Some of the most salient features of Randolph Clarke's causal agent-causal theory of free action are explicated and his theory critiqued. It is shown that invoking agent-causation is unnecessary and makes his theory cumbersome. For insofar as Clarke seeks to render the agency theory more intelligible by appealing to event-causation as contributing to the generation of basic actions, his theory gravitates closer to a causal indeterminist theory of free action.
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70An Essay on Doxastic AgencyDissertation, University of Rochester. 2005.The problem of doxastic agency concerns what sort of agency humans can exercise with regard to forming doxastic attitudes such as belief. In this essay I defend a version of what James Montmarquet calls "The Asymmetry Thesis": Coming to believe and action are asymmetrical with respect to direct voluntary control. I argue that normal adult human agents cannot exercise direct voluntary control over the acquisition of any of their doxastic attitudes in the same way that they exercise such control o…Read more
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41New waves in philosophy of action (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2011.Andrei A. Buckareff is Assistant Professor at Marist College, USA --
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48Maria Alvarez , Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 31 (4): 245-247. 2011.
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49Escapism, religious luck, and divine reasons for action: Andrei A. Buckareff & Allen plugReligious Studies 45 (1): 63-72. 2009.In our paper, ‘Escaping hell: divine motivation and the problem of hell’, we defended a theory of hell that we called ‘escapism’. We argued that, given God's just and loving character, it would be most rational for Him to maintain an open-door policy to those who are in hell, allowing them an unlimited number of chances to be reconciled with God and enjoy communion with Him. In this paper we reply to two recent objections to our original paper. The first is an argument from religious luck offere…Read more
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137Compatibilism and doxastic controlPhilosophia 34 (2): 143-152. 2006.Sharon Ryan has recently argued that if one has compatibilist intuitions about free action, then one should reject the claim that agents cannot exercise direct voluntary control over coming to believe. In this paper I argue that the differences between beliefs and actions make the expectation of direct voluntary control over coming to believe unreasonable. So Ryan's theory of doxastic agency is untenable.
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57Action and Doxastic Control: The Asymmetry Thesis RevisitedEuropean Journal of Analytic Philosophy 4 (1): 5-12. 2008.
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152Reasons explanations and pure agencyPhilosophical Studies 112 (2): 135-145. 2003.We focus on the recent non-causal theory of reasons explanationsof free action proffered by a proponent of the agency theory, Timothy O'Connor. We argue that the conditions O'Connor offersare neither necessary nor sufficient for a person to act for a reason. Finally, we note that the role O'Connor assigns toreasons in the etiology of actions results in further conceptual difficulties for agent-causalism.
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92Pantheism and Saving GodSophia 55 (3): 347-355. 2016.In this paper, I examine Mark Johnston’s panentheistic account of the metaphysics of the divine developed in his recent book, Saving God: Religion After Idolatry. On Johnston’s account, God is the ‘Highest One’ and is identified with ‘the outpouring of Being by way of its exemplification in ordinary existents for the sake of the self-disclosure of Being’. Johnston eschews supernaturalism and takes his position to be consistent with what he calls ‘legitimate naturalism’ which he takes to be some …Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
PhilPapers Editorships
Action Theory |
Causal Theory of Action |
Pantheism |
Panentheism |