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20Synchronic Bayesian updating and the generalized Sleeping Beauty problemAnalysis 67 (1): 50-59. 2007.
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28Austere Realism: Contextual Semantics Meets Minimal OntologyMIT Press. 2008.A provocative ontological-cum-semantic position asserting that the right ontology is austere in its exclusion of numerous common-sense and scientific posits and that many statements employing such posits are nonetheless true. The authors of Austere Realism describe and defend a provocative ontological-cum-semantic position, asserting that the right ontology is minimal or austere, in that it excludes numerous common-sense posits, and that statements employing such posits are nonetheless true, whe…Read more
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30Materialism, minimal emergentism, and the hard problem of consciousnessIn Robert C. Koons & George Bealer (eds.), The waning of materialism, Oxford University Press. 2010.This chapter formulates and motivates the current favored articulation of the metaphysical doctrine of materialism. It describes an alternative metaphysical position called minimal emergentism, which has two versions; and then contrasts it with stronger kinds of emergentism. Minimal emergentism posits certain inter-level necessitation relations — either nomically necessary connections, or metaphysically necessary connections — that are metaphysically brute. The chapter sets forth what it takes t…Read more
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53The phenomenology of agency and the Libet resultsIn Walter Sinnott-Armstrong & Lynn Nadel (eds.), Conscious Will and Responsibility: A Tribute to Benjamin Libet, Oup Usa. pp. 159. 2010.
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287The A Priori Isn’t All That It Is Cracked Up to Be, But It Is SomethingPhilosophical Topics 29 (1/2): 219-250. 2001.Alvin Goldman’s contributions to contemporary epistemology are impressive—few epistemologists have provided others so many occasions for reflecting on the fundamental character of their discipline and its concepts. His work has informed the way epistemological questions have changed (and remained consistent) over the last two decades. We (the authors of this paper) can perhaps best suggest our indebtedness by noting that there is probably no paper on epistemology that either of us individually o…Read more
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90Epistemological Skepticism, Semantic Blindness, and Competence-Based Performance ErrorsActa Analytica 28 (2): 161-177. 2013.The semantic blindness objection to contextualism challenges the view that there is no incompatibility between (i) denials of external-world knowledge in contexts where radical-deception scenarios are salient, and (ii) affirmations of external-world knowledge in contexts where such scenarios are not salient. Contextualism allegedly attributes a gross and implausible form of semantic incompetence in the use of the concept of knowledge to people who are otherwise quite competent in its use; this b…Read more
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39Kim on the Mind—Body Problem (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (4): 579-607. 1996.For three decades the writings of Jaegwon Kim have had a major influence in philosophy of mind and in metaphysics. Sixteen of his philosophical papers, together with several new postscripts, are collected in Kim [1993]. The publication of this collection prompts the present essay. After some preliminary remarks in the opening section, in Section 2 I will briefly describe Kim's philosophical 'big picture' about the relation between the mental and the physical. In Section 3 I will situate Kim's ap…Read more
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219Nondescriptivist Cognitivism: Framework for a New MetaethicPhilosophical Papers 29 (2): 121-153. 2000.Abstract We propose a metaethical view that combines the cognitivist idea that moral judgments are genuine beliefs and moral utterances express genuine assertions with the idea that such beliefs and utterances are nondescriptive in their overall content. This sort of view has not been recognized among the standard metaethical options because it is generally assumed that all genuine beliefs and assertions must have descriptive content. We challenge this assumption and thereby open up conceptual s…Read more
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145Expressivism and contrary-forming negationPhilosophical Issues 19 (1): 92-112. 2009.No Abstract
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98Morality without Moral FactsIn James Lawrence Dreier (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 6--220. 2006.
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9Transvaluationism: The Benign Logical Incoherence of VaguenessThe Harvard Review of Philosophy 14 (1): 20-35. 2006.
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42Causal Compatibilism and the Exclusion ProblemTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 16 (1): 95-115. 2001.Causal compatibilism claims that even though physics is causally closed, and even though mental properties are multiply realizable and are not identical to physical causal properties, mental properties are causal properties nonetheless. This position asserts that there is genuine causation at multiple descriptive/ontological levels; physics-level causal claims are not really incompatible with mentalistic causal claims. I articulate and defend a version of causal compatibilism that incorporates t…Read more
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184Metaphysical Naturalism, Semantic Normativity, and Meta-Semantic IrrealismPhilosophical Issues 4. 1993.
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Kim on mental causation and causal exclusion: Mental causation, reduction and superveniencePhilosophical Perspectives 11 165-184. 1997.
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209Transvaluationism about vagueness: A progress reportSouthern Journal of Philosophy 48 (1): 67-94. 2010.The philosophical account of vagueness I call "transvaluationism" makes three fundamental claims. First, vagueness is logically incoherent in a certain way: it essentially involves mutually unsatisfiable requirements that govern vague language, vague thought-content, and putative vague objects and properties. Second, vagueness in language and thought (i.e., semantic vagueness) is a genuine phenomenon despite possessing this form of incoherence—and is viable, legitimate, and indeed indispensable.…Read more
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161Facing Up to the Sorites ParadoxThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 6 99-111. 2000.The ancient sorites paradox has important implications for metaphysics, for logic, and for semantics. Metaphysically, the paradox can be harnessed to produce a powerful argument for the claim that there cannot be vague objects or vague properties. With respect to logic, the paradox forces a choice between the highly counterintuitive ‘epistemic’ account of vagueness and the rejection of classical two-valued logic. Regarding semantics, nonclassical approaches to the logic of vagueness lead natural…Read more
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34Replies to papersGrazer Philosophische Studien 63 (1): 302-340. 2002.Jaegwon Kim argues that one should distinguish naturalism from materialism, and that both should be construed as ontological rather than epistemological. I agree, on both counts. Although I have sometimes tended to slur together materialism and naturalism in of my writings (as is done in much recent philosophy), I do think that it is important to distinguish them. It is a serious philosophical task to get clearer about how each position is best articulated, and about ways that one could embrace …Read more
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31Phenomenal Intentionality and Content DeterminacyIn Richard Schantz (ed.), Prospects for Meaning, Walter De Gruyter. pp. 321-344. 2012.
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32Multiple reference, multiple realization, and the reduction of mindIn Gerhard Preyer & Frank Siebelt (eds.), Reality and Humean Supervenience: Essays on the Philosophy of David Lewis, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 205--221. 2001.
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120Abundant truth in an austere worldIn Patrick Greenough & Michael Patrick Lynch (eds.), Truth and realism, Oxford University Press. pp. 137--167. 2006.What is real? Less than you might think. We advocate austere metaphysical realism---a form of metaphysical realism claiming that a correct ontological theory will repudiate numerous putative entities and properties that are posited in everyday thought and discourse, and also will even repudiate numerous putative objects and properties that are posited by well confirmed scientific theories. We have lately defended a specific version of austere metaphysical realism which asserts that there is real…Read more
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74Materialism: Matters Of Definition, Defense, and DeconstructionPhilosophical Studies 131 (1): 157-183. 2006.How should the metaphysical hypothesis of materialism be formulated? What strategies look promising for defending this hypothesis? How good are the prospects for its successful defense, especially in light of the infamous "hard problem" of phenomenal consciousness? I will say something about each of these questions
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Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Meta-Ethics |