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36The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical Realism (review)Analysis 69 (2): 370-372. 2009.Many materialist ontologies characterize the existence of everyday, middle-sized objects as reducible to collections or mereological sums of smaller, more fundamental particle constituents. Baker would have it otherwise and has set out a defence of her Constitution View of ontology that takes everyday objects to be irreducibly real and of a vast array of kinds.Motivating an interest in the metaphysics of everyday objects is not obviously straightforward when contemporary metaphysics is filled wi…Read more
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31Comments on Hubert L. Dreyfus âIntelligence without representationâPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1 (4): 411-412. 2002.My main reaction to “Intelligence without representation” is to applaud. Dreyfus’s use of Merleau-Ponty is a refreshing new breeze in philosophy of psychology. About twenty or so years ago, philosophers struck an unfortunate course dictated by a pair of dubious assumptions: (1) that ordinary psychological attributions were at risk unless vindicated by some science; and (2) that the only possible scientific vindication required that intentional content be represented in the brain. Thus did repres…Read more
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28Naturalism and the First-Person PerspectiveOxford University Press USA. 2013.Science and its philosophical companion, Naturalism, represent reality in wholly nonpersonal terms. How, if at all, can a nonpersonal scheme accommodate the first-person perspective that we all enjoy? In this volume, Lynne Rudder Baker explores that question by considering both reductive and eliminative approaches to the first-person perspective. After finding both approaches wanting, she mounts an original constructive argument to show that a non-Cartesian first-person perspective belongs in th…Read more
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23The Nature of True Minds (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (2): 475-478. 1995.
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23Brief Reply to Rosenkrantz's Comments on my “The Ontological Status of Persons”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2): 394-396. 2002.Chisholm held that persons are essentially persons. The Constitution View affords a non-Chisholmian way to defend the thesis that persons are essentially persons. The Constitution View shows how persons are constituted by---but not identical to---human animals. On the Constitution View, being a person determines a person’s persistence conditions. On the Animalist View, being an animal determines a person’s persistence conditions.Things of kind K have ontological significance if their persistence…Read more
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20What Am I?The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 9 185-193. 2000.Eric T. Olson has argued that any view of personal identity in terms of psychological continuity has a consequence that he considers untenable—namely, that I was never an early-term fetus. I have several replies. First, the psychological-continuity view of personal identity does not entail the putative consequence; the appearance to the contrary depends on not distinguishing between de re and de dicto theses. Second, the putative consequence is not untenable anyway; the appearance to the contrar…Read more
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197. The Threat of Cognitive SuicideIn Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism, Princeton University Press. pp. 134-148. 1987.
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17Brief Reply to Rosenkrantz's Comments on my “The Ontological Status of Persons”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2): 394-396. 2002.Chisholm held that persons are essentially persons. The Constitution View affords a non-Chisholmian way to defend the thesis that persons are essentially persons. The Constitution View shows how persons are constituted by---but not identical to---human animals. On the Constitution View, being a person determines a person’s persistence conditions. On the Animalist View, being an animal determines a person’s persistence conditions.Things of kind K have ontological significance if their persistence…Read more
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16Materialism with a human faceIn Kevin Corcoran (ed.), Soul, body, and survival: essays on the metaphysics of human persons, Cornell University Press. 2001.
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15Instrumentalism: Back from the Brink?In Saving Belief, Princeton University Press. pp. 149-166. 1987.
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12Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism (edited book)Princeton University Press. 1987.This stimulating book critically examines a wide range of physicalistic conceptions of mind in the works of Jerry A. Fodor, Stephen P. Stich, Paul M. Churchland, Daniel C. Dennett, and others. Part I argues that intentional concepts cannot be reduced to nonintentional concepts; Part II argues that intentional concepts are nevertheless indispensable to our cognitive enterprises and thus need no foundation in physicalism. As a sustained challenge to the prevailing interpretation of cognitive scien…Read more
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10"Thought and Object: Essays on Intentionality" edited by Andrew Woodfield (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45 (1): 137. 1984.
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9Reply to OaklanderManuscrito 40 (1): 67-73. 2017.ABSTRACT In September, 2016, I replied to an earlier draft of Oaklander’s Critique of my view of time for Manuscrito. Now he has published an extremely complex 50-page expanded version. There is no way that a reply in a journal could cover all the topics Oaklander discusses. So, I will stick mainly to my own view to which Oaklander was responding. My reply is in two parts. In the first, directed at Oaklander’s earlier draft, I say what I want to do in philosophy in general, and in the philosophy…Read more
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8ConstitutionalismIn Jonathan J. Loose, Angus John Louis Menuge & J. P. Moreland (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, Wiley-blackwell. 2018.This chapter deals with a brief word about the Christian doctrine of Incarnation. The doctrine of the Incarnation, which takes Jesus Christ to be a person fully human and fully divine, requires a slight modification of constitutionalism. Constitutionalism seems to have an advantage over mind‐body dualism about Christ's nature: his human nature is wholly material and his divine nature is wholly immaterial. The chapter also focuses on Christian doctrines of resurrection of the dead. Next, it discu…Read more
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83. Mind and the Machine AnalogyIn Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism, Princeton University Press. pp. 43-62. 1987.
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8Book Reviews (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (4): 597-598. 2003.Book Information Objects and Persons. Objects and Persons Trenton Merricks. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001, pp. xii + 203, £30, £14.99. By Trenton Merricks. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pp. xii + 203. £30, £14.99
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81. Common Sense and PhysicalismIn Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism, Princeton University Press. pp. 1-20. 1987.
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76. How High the Stakes?In Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism, Princeton University Press. pp. 113-133. 1987.
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5Thought and Object: Essays on IntentionalityPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 45 (1): 137-142. 1984.
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4Ontology and Ordinary ObjectsIn Christian Kanzian, Winfried Löffler & Josef Quitterer (eds.), The Ways Things Are: Studies in Ontology, Ontos. pp. 167-180. 2011.
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45. The Elusiveness of ContentIn Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism, Princeton University Press. pp. 85-110. 1987.
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Saint Mary's College of CaliforniaRegular Faculty
Moraga, California, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |