•  797
    Assembling the emotions
    In Luc Faucher & Christine Tappolet (eds.), The Modularity of Emotions, University of Calgary Press. pp. 185-212. 2008.
    In this article, we discuss the modularity of the emotions. In a general methodological section, we discuss the empirical basis for the postulation of modularity. Then we discuss how certain modules -- the emotions in particular -- decompose into distinct anatomical and functional parts.
  •  776
    The Holistic Presuppositions of Aristotle's Cosmology
    Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 20 171-199. 2001.
    Argues that Aristotle regarded the universe, or Totality, as a single substance with form and matter, and that he regarded this substance together with the Prime Mover as a self-mover
  •  20
    R. M. Dancy, "Sense and Contradiction" (review)
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 16 (3): 345. 1978.
  •  2233
    Aristotle's Theory of Potentiality
    In John P. Lizza (ed.), Potentiality: Metaphysical and Bioethical Dimensions, Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 29-48. 2014.
    In this paper, I examine Aristotle's notion of potentiality as it applies to the beginning of life. Aristotle’s notion of natural kinēsis implies that we should not treat the entity at the beginning of embryonic development as human, or indeed as the same as the one that is born. This leads us to ask: When does the embryo turn into a human? Aristotle’s own answer to this question is very harsh. Bracketing the views that lead to this harsh answer, his theory of kinēsis still gives us reason for s…Read more
  •  157
    Review: Action in Perception (review)
    Mind 115 (460): 1160-1166. 2006.
    This a review of Alva Noë's Action in Perception. It argues that a distinction should be made between the proposition that sensorimotor feedback is used in sensory perception and that perception is of sensorimotor features of the world. Noë fails to make this distinction.
  •  894
    Millikan's Historical Kinds
    In Dan Ryder, Justine Kingsbury & Kenneth Williford (eds.), Millikan and Her Critics, Wiley. pp. 135-154. 2012.
    This chapter contains section titles: Introduction: Russell's Natural Kinds Is Biological Homeostasis Historical? Intrinsic Properties Redux Population Structure Conclusion: Are Species Duplicable?
  •  476
    Visual Concepts
    Philosophical Topics 33 (1): 207-233. 2005.
    Perceptual content is conceptual. In this paper, some arguments against this thesis are examined and rebutted. The Richness argument, that we could not have concepts for all the colours, is queried: Doesn't the Munsell system give us such concepts? The argument that we can perceive colours and shapes without possessing the relevant concepts is rebutted: we cannot do this, but the kind of concept-possession that is relevant here is not intellectual but perceptual
  •  564
    Comments on Gauker's Word and Image
    Analysis 75 (1): 83-99. 2015.
    Christopher Gauker argues that no concept can be extracted from perceptual experience and that imagistic thought cannot draw boundaries between one kind and another. Here, it is argued, on the contrary, that images have extension and are consequently Fregean concepts. Hume’s theory of abstraction as indifference is offered as an account of extra-sensory concepts. Finally, it is argued that modern theories of sensory data processing run parallel to Kant’s idea of synthesis as a pre-condition for …Read more
  •  22
    In Mendel’s Mirror (review)
    Journal of Philosophy 102 (4): 206-216. 2005.
  •  1510
    How many senses do humans possess? Five external senses, as most cultures have it—sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste? Should proprioception, kinaesthesia, thirst, and pain be included, under the rubric bodily sense? What about the perception of time and the sense of number? Such questions reduce to two. 1. How do we distinguish a sense from other sorts of information-receiving faculties? 2. By what principle do we distinguish the senses? Aristotle discussed these questions in the De Ani…Read more
  •  19
    Biological Functions and Perceptual Content
    Journal of Philosophy 85 (1): 5-27. 1988.
  •  1762
    How Things Look (And What Things Look That Way)
    In Bence Nanay (ed.), Perceiving the World, Oxford University Press. pp. 226. 2010.
    What colour does a white wall look in the pinkish light of the late afternoon? Philosophers disagree: they hold variously that it looks pink, white, both, and no colour at all. A new approach is offered. After reviewing the dispute, a reinterpretation of perceptual constancy is offered. In accordance with this reinterpretation, it is argued that perceptual features such as color must always be predicated of perceptual objects. Thus, it might be that in pinkish light, the wall looks white and the…Read more
  • Tad Brennan, Ethics and Epistemology in Sextus Empiricus (review)
    Philosophy in Review 21 237-239. 2001.
  •  181
    On the Diversity of Auditory Objects
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 1 (1): 63-89. 2010.
    This paper defends two theses about sensory objects. The more general thesis is that directly sensed objects are those delivered by sub-personal processes. It is shown how this thesis runs counter to perceptual atomism, the view that wholes are always sensed indirectly, through their parts. The more specific thesis is that while the direct objects of audition are all composed of sounds, these direct objects are not all sounds—here, a composite auditory object is a temporal sequence of sounds (wh…Read more
  •  45
    Review of Thomas Natsoulas, Consciousness and Perceptual Experience (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2014. 2014.
    A review of Thomas Natsoulas's "Consciousness and Perceptual Experience."
  •  68
    Review of Alva Noe, Strange Tools (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2016. 2016.
  •  590
    Greek Ontology and the 'Is' of Truth
    Phronesis 28 (2). 1983.
    The author investigates greek ontologies that apparently rely on a conflation of "binary" (x is f) and "monadic" (x is) uses of 'is'. He uses Aristotelian and other texts to support his proposal that these ontologies are explained by the Greeks using two alternative semantic analyses for 'x is F'. The first views it as asserting a relation between x and F, the second as asserting that a "predicative complex" exists, where a predicative complex is a complex consisting of x and F. The article conc…Read more
  •  12
    A main point of my article, as I see it, is that we can solve Putnam's problem, as articulated in the first paragraph of section three, without recourse to the definition of “natural-kind term” as “rigid designator of a natural kind”. I had three main objections to this definition: It makes the classification of a term as a natural-kind term dependent on one's metaphysics, i.e., on the status given to natural kinds. However, Putnam's argument seems to be independent of such metaphysical consider…Read more
  •  1381
    What is a Hand? What is a Mind?
    Revue Internationale de Philosophie (214): 653-672. 2000.
    Argues that biological organs, including mental capacities, should be identified by homology (not function).
  •  41
    Discussion. Evolution, Wisconsin style: selection and the explanation of individual traits
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (1): 143-150. 1999.
    natural selection may show why all (most, some) humans have an opposable thumb, but cannot show why any particular human has one, Karen Neander ([1995a], [1995b]) argues that this is false because natural selection is 'cumulative'. It is argued here, on grounds independent of its cumulativity, that selection can explain the characteristics of individual organisms subsequent to the event. The difference of opinion between Sober and his critics turns on an ontological dispute about how organisms a…Read more
  •  644
    Perception is the ultimate source of our knowledge about contingent facts. It is an extremely important philosophical development that starting in the last quarter of the twentieth century, philosophers have begun to change how they think of perception. The traditional view of perception focussed on sensory receptors; it has become clear, however, that perceptual systems radically transform the output of these receptors, yielding content concerning objects and events in the external world. Adequ…Read more
  •  384
    Two ways of thinking about fitness and natural selection
    Journal of Philosophy 99 (2): 55-83. 2002.
    How do fitness and natural selection relate to other evolutionary factors like architectural constraint, mode of reproduction, and drift? In one way of thinking, drawn from Newtonian dynamics, fitness is one force driving evolutionary change and added to other factors. In another, drawn from statistical thermodynamics, it is a statistical trend that manifests itself in natural selection histories. It is argued that the first model is incoherent, the second appropriate; a hierarchical realization…Read more
  •  25
    Biological Universals and the Nature of Fear
    Journal of Philosophy 95 (3): 105. 1998.
  •  685
    Image Content
    In Berit Brogaard (ed.), Does Perception Have Content?, Oxford University Press. pp. 265-290. 2014.
    The senses present their content in the form of images, three-dimensional arrays of located sense features. Peacocke’s “scenario content” is one attempt to capture image content; here, a richer notion is presented, sensory images include located objects and features predicated of them. It is argued that our grasp of the meaning of these images implies that they have propositional content. Two problems concerning image content are explored. The first is that even on an enriched conception, image …Read more
  •  14
    Teleology, Error, and the Human Immune System
    with Edwin Levy
    Journal of Philosophy 81 (7): 351. 1984.
  •  191
    It is argued that according to Aristotle the universe is a single substance with its own form and matter.