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116Recognitional concepts and the compositionality of concept possessionPhilosophical Issues 9 27-33. 1998.
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34Analytic functionalism without representational functionalismBehavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (1): 51-51. 1993.
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32Levels of Description in Nonclassical Cognitive ScienceRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 34 159-188. 1993.David Marr provided an influential account of levels of description in classical cognitive science. In this paper we contrast Marr'ent with some alternatives that are suggested by the recent emergence of connectionism. Marr's account is interesting and important both because of the levels of description it distinguishes, and because of the way his presentation reflects some of the most basic, foundational, assumptions of classical AI-style cognitive science. Thus, by focusing on levels of descri…Read more
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69From Moral Realism to Moral Relativism in One Easy StepCritica 28 (83): 3-39. 1996.In recent years, defenses of moral realism have embraced what we call new wave moral semantics', which construes the semantic workings of moral terms like good' and right' as akin to the semantic workings of natural-kind terms in science and also takes inspiration from functionalist themes in the philosophy of mind. This sort of semantic view which we find in the metaethical views of David Brink, Richard Boyd, Peter Railton, is the crucial semantical underpinning of a naturalistic brand of moral…Read more
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75The Epistemological Spectrum: At the Interface of Cognitive Science and Conceptual AnalysisOxford University Press. 2011.Henderson and Horgan set out a broad new approach to epistemology. They defend the roles of the a priori and conceptual analysis, but with an essential empirical dimension. 'Transglobal reliability' is the key to epistemic justification. The question of which cognitive processes are reliable depends on contingent facts about human capacities.
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729New Wave Moral Realism Meets Moral Twin EarthJournal of Philosophical Research 16 447-465. 1991.There have been times in the history of ethical theory, especially in this century, when moral realism was down, but it was never out. The appeal of this doctrine for many moral philosophers is apparently so strong that there are always supporters in its corner who seek to resuscitate the view. The attraction is obvious: moral realism purports to provide a precious philosophical good, viz., objectivity and all that this involves, including right answers to (most) moral questions, and the possibi…Read more
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61Humean Causation and Kim’s Theory of EventsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (4). 1980.In recent years Jaegwon Kim has propounded and elaborated an influential theory of events. He takes an event to be the exemplification of an empirical property by a concrete object at a time. He also has proposed and endorsed a version of the “Humean” tradition concerning causation: the view that causal relations between concrete events depend upon general "covering laws." But although his explication of the covering-law conception of causation seems quite natural within the framework of his the…Read more
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46Braving the Perils of an Uneventful WorldGrazer Philosophische Studien 31 (1): 179-186. 1988.Philosophers who advocate an ontology without events must show how sentences containing apparent reference to events can be systematically paraphrased, or "regimented," into sentences which avoid ontological commitment to these putative entities. Two alternative proposals are set forth for regimenting statements containing putatively event-denoting definite descriptions. Both proposals eliminate the apparent reference to events, while still preserving the validity of inferences sanctioned by the…Read more
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75Analytical moral functionalism meets moral twin earthIn Ian Ravenscroft (ed.), Minds, Ethics, and Conditionals: Themes from the Philosophy of Frank Jackson, Oxford University Press. pp. 221--236. 2009.
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26Pr cis of connectionism and the philosophy of psychologyPhilosophical Psychology 10 (3). 1997.Connectionism was explicitly put forward as an alternative to classical cognitive science. The questions arise: how exactly does connectionism differ from classical cognitive science, and how is it potentially better? The classical “rules and representations” conception of cognition is that cognitive transitions are determined by exceptionless rules that apply to the syntactic structure of symbols. Many philosophers have seen connectionism as a basis for denying structured symbols. We, on the ot…Read more
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2Phenomenology, Intentionality, and the Unity of the MindIn Brian P. McLaughlin, Ansgar Beckermann & Sven Walter (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind, Oxford University Press. pp. 512--537. 2007.
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106Metaphysical realism and psychologistic semanticsErkenntnis 34 (3): 297--322. 1991.I propose a metaphysical position I call 'limited metaphysical realism', and I link it to a position in the philosophy of language I call 'psychologistic semantics'. Limited metaphysical realism asserts that there is a mind-independent, discourse-independent world, but posits a sparse ontology. Psychologistic semantics construes truth not as direct word/world correspondence, and not as warranted assertibility (or Putnam's "ideal" warranted assertibility), but rather as 'correct assertibility'. I…Read more
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21From supervenience to superdupervenienceIn Jaegwon Kim (ed.), Supervenience, Ashgate. pp. 113--144. 2002.
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Abundant Truth in an Austere WorldIn Patrick Greenough & Michael P. Lynch (eds.), Truth and realism, Clarendon Press. 2006.
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4Internal-World Skepticism and the Self-Presentational Nature of Phenomenal ConsciousnessIn Kriegel Uriah & Kenneth Williford (eds.), Self-representational Approaches to Consciousness, Bradford. 2006.
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3Braving the Perils of an Uneventful WorldGrazer Philosophische Studien 31 (1): 179-186. 1988.Philosophers who advocate an ontology without events must show how sentences containing apparent reference to events can be systematically paraphrased, or "regimented," into sentences which avoid ontological commitment to these putative entities. Two alternative proposals are set forth for regimenting statements containing putatively event-denoting definite descriptions. Both proposals eliminate the apparent reference to events, while still preserving the validity of inferences sanctioned by the…Read more
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45Qualia Realism, Its Phenomenal Contents and DiscontentsIn Edmond Wright (ed.), The Case for Qualia, Mit Press. pp. 89--107. 2008.
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23Nonrigid event-designators and the modal individuation of eventsPhilosophical Studies 37 (4). 1980.
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69Generalized Conditionalization and the Sleeping Beauty Problem, IIErkenntnis. forthcoming.In “Generalized Conditionalization and the Sleeping Beauty Problem,” Anna Mahtani and I offer a new argument for thirdism that relies on what we call “generalized conditionalization.” Generalized conditionalization goes beyond conventional conditionalization in two respects: first, by sometimes deploying a space of synchronic, essentially temporal, candidate-possibilities that are not “prior” possibilities; and second, by allowing for the use of preliminary probabilities that arise by first brac…Read more
Tucson, Arizona, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Meta-Ethics |