•  520
    This paper responds to Kathleen Stock’s attempt to explain a puzzling fact, at least from her standpoint: widespread assertions that some people who are biologically male are women and some people who are biologically female are men. She regards these assertions as made while immersed in a fiction. Stock rejects an alternative explanation – that a lot of these people have read Judith Butler or 1970s feminism. Clarifying that explanation reveals it to be not so easy to dismiss.
  •  183
    This paper is an imitative response to Kathleen Stock’s book Material Girls, another faux chapter. This effort may be fractionally closer by some measures than my previous effort. I include an appendix with my own response to the essayist targeted: Alain Robbe-Grillet.
  •  206
    This is a one-page handout which responds to Kathleen Stock's 2021 book Material Girls. It considers how analytic philosophy can be introduced into this area, and specifies five kinds of argument for the claim that the sexes are socially constructed.
  •  322
    This is a one page handout outlining an interpretation of Simone de Beauvoir which draws heavily upon material from the analytic tradition of philosophy.
  •  310
  •  185
    This paper is a response to Kathleen Stock’s book Material Girls, by way of imitation. I have attempted to write a faux chapter in the book’s style, identifying four moments in overcoming the low-high culture divide in responses to the arts.
  •  369
    I argue that Kathleen Stock omits crucial information in her 2021 book Material Girls, when she debates with Thomas Laqueur, information which enables readers to appreciate the excitement in relation to his historical discovery. I argue further that this is more than just a communicational problem. I then present a reason for rejecting the theory Laqueur uncovers: the initially strange theory that there is just one sex. But I argue that the one sex theory is unlikely to be killed off by this rea…Read more
  •  222
    An objection to John Rawls’s original position is that it faces a problem of inconsistent features: the individuals in this hypothetical situation are not supposed to know where they are in history, but they have knowledge of general social science, from which they can infer at which point in time they are. In this paper, I consider two solutions. One of these solutions depends on extending a solution to another well-known objection: that readers cannot imagine lacking the knowledge that these i…Read more
  •  201
    In this paper, I present an outline of a paradox which is a variation on the lottery paradox and concerns whether we can ignore hesitant moral judgments.
  •  518
    Joe Horton’s all-or-nothing problem concerns a situation in which it is morally permissible to do nothing and to save two people but not to save only one. This description seems to entail that we should do nothing rather than save only one. I object to Horton’s solution and challenge a principle he draws attention to, which is required to generate the problem but which Horton regards as beyond dispute.
  •  369
    Do anthropologists use rational actor models? The case of Marilyn Strathern
    IJRDO - Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research 7 (3). 2022.
    Economics uses rational actor models, but what about anthropology? I present an interpretation of the influential anthropologist Marilyn Strathern according to which she engages in a kind of rational actor modelling, but a kind that is different from economic modelling.
  •  255
    The economist David K. Levine claims that if a government of a country makes torture legal, the inevitable result will be torture that is out of control. I point out an inconsistency in his approach to torture. I then argue that we should be open to rare counterexamples to his claim and describe a kind of counterexample.
  •  449
    When can we know our assumptions?
    Philosophical Pathways 208 1-4. 2017.
    The expression “The owl of Minerva flies at dusk” is used to convey that philosophers are only able to identify the assumptions that are made within a period of history, a period of which they are part, when that period is coming to an end and those assumptions will soon no longer be made. In this paper, I support a rival view according to which those involved in a historical period can know their assumptions earlier, given appropriate talent and effort.
  •  187
    In this paper, I object to Michael Rush’s definitions of targeted and propositional gratitude.
  •  3631
    This paper disputes a common definition of token identity theory. It also observes that within the philosophical literature there are two significantly different definitions of token identity theory that are commonly used.
  •  362
    Political philosophers sometimes write of liberal democracies, but which societies, if any, are liberal democracies? John Rawls says that in the public political culture of a liberal democracy, we find the principle that this society should be a fair system of cooperation between free and equal individuals. In this paper, I draw attention to how, if we grant Rawls’s definition, a society can easily be mistaken for a liberal democracy when it is not. I then argue that Andrew March, Gabrielle Bada…Read more
  •  260
    I present a paradox concerning a person who desires to fail to achieve the goal that matters most to them. I recently encountered a similar paradox, but radical solipsism is a solution to it. This is not a solution to the paradox that I present.
  •  336
    Does the debate between Rawlsians and liberal perfectionists boil down to the following: for liberal perfectionists, the government should fund aesthetic projects that are in good taste; for Rawlsians, the government should be neutral on the aesthetic value of anything? If so, liberal perfectionists are committed to the view that there is objective aesthetic value. In this paper, I argue that within the Rawlsian system is a thesis that is difficult to reconcile with objectivity about aesthetics.
  •  302
    Philosophers and logicians talk of arguments for conclusions. In a recent paper, Jeffrey Goodman identifies a common way of thinking about what an argument is. I propose a definition that is quite different to this common way. I also make two objections to Goodman’s proposed definition.
  •  462
    John Rawls’s difference principle says that we should change our economy if doing so is better for the worst-off group, on the condition that certain basic rights are secured. This paper presents a kind of case that challenges the principle. If we modify the principle to cope with the challenge, we open the way to a Sorites paradox.
  •  369
    The surprise exam paradox: a note on formulating it and a solution to it
    Ethos: Dialogues in Philosophy and Social Sciences 12 (2): 181-186. 2019.
    Some formulations of the surprise paradox involve a pair of unnecessary and controversial assumptions. After casting doubt on these assumptions, I propose a solution to the paradox.
  •  437
    Artefacts as Mere Illustrations of a Worldview
    Symposion: Theoretical and Applied Inquiries in Philosophy and Social Sciences 4 (2): 241-244. 2017.
    This paper responds to an argument against a kind of anthropology. According to the argument, if the aim of anthropology is to describe the different worldviews of different groups, then anthropologists should only refer to material artefacts in order to illustrate a worldview; but the interest of artefacts to anthropology goes beyond mere illustration. This argument has been endorsed by key members of the ontological movement in anthropology, who found at least one of its premises in Marilyn St…Read more
  •  481
    John Rawls recommends a reflective equilibrium method for evaluating which principles institutions should abide by. In this paper, I identify and challenge three assumptions that he makes.
  •  311
    There are some premise-by-premise reconstructions in political philosophy which are flawed, because they omit at least one premise or misword at least one premise. This paper focuses on a reconstruction by Richard Child. The original argument is by Andrea Sangiovanni and is about whether egalitarian values of distributive justice apply both within a state and globally. Child’s reconstruction has been reproduced in a paper by Ian Davis, who approves of it. But I point out five logical problems wi…Read more
  •  1329
    Traditional literary interpretation versus subversive interpretation
    Asian Journal of Advances in Research 16 (3): 34-39. 2022.
    I present some objections to traditional literary interpretation and consider subversive interpretation as a solution to these problems. Subversive interpretation may seem more scientific and more democratic than traditional interpretation, but it is open to doubt that it is more democratic.
  •  751
    This paper discusses an explanation, offered by Tim Ingold, for why social and cultural anthropologists have so far paid little attention to the materials from which artefacts are composed. The explanation is that these anthropologists accept a certain argument. According to the argument, what an anthropologist should focus on when examining an artefact is the quality that makes it part of a culture, and this is not the materials from which the artefact is composed. I show that Ingold has not ma…Read more
  •  442
    From an analysis of the notion of organization to limits on conceptual diversity
    Ethos: Dialogues in Philosophy and Social Sciences 6 (1): 86-94. 2013.
    This paper evaluates an argument from Donald Davidson against alternative conceptual schemes. The argument can be divided into two stages. In the first stage it is argued that only pluralities can be organized. In the second stage it is argued that if our conceptual scheme organizes a plurality and someone else’s scheme also organizes that plurality, there must be a set of common concepts, hence someone else’s scheme can never be an alternative scheme to ours. I object to the first stage of the …Read more
  •  264
    A value-based solution to the surprise exam paradox
    Philosophical Pathways (221): 1-2. 2018.
    I identify an assumption that the students should not rely on: if the teacher believes that the exam would not be a surprise on a certain day, the teacher will not give the exam on that day. The reason I present for not making this assumption does not involve doubting the moral goodness of the teacher. But it does involve making a value judgment.
  •  648
    Nagel on Conceivability
    Abstracta 5 (1): 16-29. 2009.
    In the sixth chapter of The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel aims to identify a form of idealism, to isolate the argument for it and to counter this argument. The position that Nagel takes to be idealist is that what there is must be possibly conceivable by us. In this paper, I show that Nagel has not made a convincing case against this position. I then present an alternative case. In light of this alternative case, we have reason to reject an important example that Nagel offers of a contemporary…Read more
  •  382
    Avia Pasternak argues for a right that democracies have to sanction other democracies. This paper reconstructs her argument and objects to one of its premises.