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217Naturalism and intentionalityPhilosophical Studies 76 (2-3): 301-26. 1994.I argue for three principle claims. First, philosophers who seek to integrate the semantic and the intentional into a naturalistic metaphysical worldview need to address a task that they have thus far largely failed even to notice: explaining into- level connections between the physical and the intentional in a naturalistically acceptable way. Second, there are serious reasons to think that this task cannot be carried out in a way that would vindicate realism about intentionality. Third, there i…Read more
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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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44Qualia 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
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102‘Could’, possible worlds, and moral responsibilitySouthern Journal of Philosophy 17 (3): 345-358. 1979.
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7What’s the Point?In David K. Henderson & John Greco (eds.), Epistemic Evaluation: Purposeful Epistemology, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 87-114. 2015.The chapter rehearses the main outlines of gatekeeping contextualism—the view that it is central to the concept of knowledge that attributions of knowledge function in a kind of epistemic gatekeeping for contextually salient communities. The case for gatekeeping contextualism is clarified within an extended discussion of the character of philosophical reflection. The chapter argues that normatively valenced, evaluative concepts constitute a broad class of concepts for which a sociolinguistic poi…Read more
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4Expressivism, yes! Relativism, no!In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics: Volume 1, Clarendon Press. 2006.
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Computation and mental representationIn Stephen P. Stich (ed.), Mental Representation: A Reader, Blackwell. 1994.
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30Relies to our criticsPhilosophical Studies 169 (3): 549-564. 2014.We respond to the central concerns raised by our commentators to our book, The Epistemological Spectrum. Casullo believes that our account of what we term “low-grade a priori” justification provides important clarification of a kind of philosophical reflection. However he objects to calling such reflection a priori. We explain what we think is at stake. Along the way, we comment on his idea of that there may be an epistemic payoff to making a distinction between assumptions and presumptions. In …Read more
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983New 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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14‘Could’, Possible Worlds, and Moral ResponsibilitySouthern Journal of Philosophy 17 (3): 345-358. 1979.
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33Analytic functionalism without representational functionalismBehavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (1): 51-51. 1993.
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31Levels 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
Tucson, Arizona, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Meta-Ethics |