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Folk Psychology and the Explanation of Human BehaviourAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 62 209-254. 1988.
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27The Life of SignsReview of Metaphysics 47 (3). 1994.IN HIS COMMENTARY on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, Garth Hallett records Wittgenstein's extensive reading of Augustine's Confessions. By contrast, he remarks that Wittgenstein never read anything of Aristotle. However, he also reports Rush Rhees as saying that at the time of his death Wittgenstein had in his possession the first two volumes of a German-Latin edition of Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, containing questions 1-26 of the Prima Pars. Question 13 concerns the Divine Names, t…Read more
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30De Consolatione PhilosophiaeRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 32 31-45. 1992.While I was quietly thinking these thoughts [about misfortune] over to myself and giving vent to my sorrow with the help of my pen, I became aware of a woman standing over me. She was of aweinspiring appearance, her eyes burning and keen beyond the usual power of men. She was so full of years that I could hardly think of her as of my own generation, and yet she possessed a vivid colour and undiminished vigour … Her clothes were made of imperishable material, of the finest thread woven with the m…Read more
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14Intuitions and the Value of a PersonJournal of Applied Philosophy 14 (1): 83-86. 1997.In contemporary moral theory and normative ethics there is frequent recourse to ‘intuitions’ of value. One current instance of this is the appeal in reproductive and population ethics to the thought that the existence of a human being is not as such good or bad. Here the status and substance of this assumption are challenged. In addition, doubt is cast on the value of appeals to intuition where these are not related to some philosophical account of the grounds of value.
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4Mind-World Identity and the Anti-Realist ChallengeIn John Haldane & Crispin Wright (eds.), Reality, Representation, and Projection, Oxford University Press. pp. 15--37. 1993.
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15Words and Life (review)Review of Metaphysics 49 (2): 426-427. 1995.In 1990 Harvard produced Realism with a Human Face, a collection of twenty-two of Putnam's essays and lectures introduced by James Conant. Now, in similar format, Harvard presents a further twenty-nine pieces for which Conant has written a seventy-six-page introduction preceded by an epigraph drawn from Putnam himself: "Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs in one." Conant's contribution to both collections is significant, for he offers perspectives on Putnam's work that serve to …Read more
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114Is the Soul the Form of the Body?American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 87 (3): 481-493. 2013.The idea of the soul, though once common in discussions of human nature, is rarely considered in contemporary philosophy. This reflects a general physicalist turn; but besides commitment to various forms of materialism there is the objection that the very idea of the soul is incoherent. The notion of soul considered here is a broadly Aristotelian-Thomistic one according to which it is both the form of a living human being and something subsistent on its own account. Having discussed the conceptu…Read more
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67Rational Souls and the Beginning of Life (A Reply to Robert Pasnau)Philosophy 78 (306). 2003.The present essay takes up matters discussed by Robert Pasnau in his response to our previous criticism of his account of Aquinas's view of when a foetus acquires a human soul. We are mainly concerned with metaphysical and biological issues and argue that the kind of organization required for ensoulment is that sufficient for the full development of a human being, and that this is present from conception. We contend that in his criticisms of our account Pasnau fails clearly to distinguish first,…Read more
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14Analytical ThomismThe Monist 80 (4): 485-486. 1997.Thomism, conceived of as the set of broad doctrines and style of thought expressed in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and of those who follow him, first emerged in the thirteenth century. Aquinas himself was born in 1225 into a religious culture in which the dominant tradition of speculative thought was a version of Christian neoplatonism heavily influenced by St. Augustine. Early in his studies as a Dominican, however, Aquinas came under the direction of Albert the Great, who was to exercise an…Read more
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41The state and fate of contemporary philosophy of mindAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 37 (3): 301-21. 2000.A few years ago philosophy of mind in the main English-language tradition was characterized by marked optimism about progress and by broad agreement that a correct theory would be a version of physicalism that admitted the sui generis nature of psychological descriptions and explanations. Now consensus seems to have given way to chaos supervenient physicalism has become so weak as to be virtually contentless and reductionism has become no more plausible than when it was generally rejected. The e…Read more
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11Philosophy, the silencing of religion and the prospects for religious philosophyRevue Internationale de Philosophie 3 349-368. 2003.
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85Architecture, philosophy and the public worldBritish Journal of Aesthetics 30 (3): 203-217. 1990.
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15Atheism and Theism (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 1996.In this book two philosophers, each committed to unambiguous versions of belief and disbelief, debate the central issues of atheism and theism. Considers one of the oldest and most widely disputed philosophical questions: is there a God? Presents the atheism/theism issue in the form of philosophical debate between two highly regarded scholars, widely praised for the clarity and verve of their work. This second edition contains new essays by each philosopher, responding to criticisms and building…Read more
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37An embarrassing question about reproductionPhilosophical Psychology 5 (4): 427-431. 1992.Standard objections to dualism focus on problems of individuation: what, in the absence of matter, serves to diversify immaterial items? and interaction: how can material and immaterial elements causally affect one another? Given certain ways of conceiving mental phenomena and causation, it is not obvious that one cannot reply to these objections. However, a different kind of difficulty comes into view when one considers the question of the origin of the mental. Here attention is directed upon t…Read more
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31The Modernist Fallacy: philosophy as art's undoing [1]Journal of Applied Philosophy 5 (2): 159-173. 1988.ABSTRACT The essay is concerned with the widely held view that contemporary fine art is obscurantist, shallow and unrewarding of attention. It is argued that the opposition between common opinion and the advocates of modernism rests upon a philosophical disagreement about the nature and value of art. An account of aesthetic experience is then presented and illustrated by reference to Raphael's The School of Athens. This account shows the reasoning implicit in modernism to rest upon a fallacy rel…Read more
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26Notes and commentsHeythrop Journal 26 (1): 41-46. 1985.Two Short Communications:R. A. Markus, Gregory the Great and In I Regum, by Francis ClarkAquinas's Claim ‘Anima Mea Non Est Ego’, by Stephen Priest
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8The Examined Death and the Hope of the FutureProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 74 245-257. 2000.
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18Mind and World (review)Review of Metaphysics 49 (2): 420-422. 1995.This slim volume derives from the John Locke Lectures delivered in Oxford in 1991 and expands and develops the themes presented there and in a series of influential articles published during the last decade and a half. McDowell offers the prospect of "re-enchanting" a world laid bare by reductive "bald" naturalism, drawing support in this effort from Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Wittgenstein, and Sellars. Others who feature prominently are Donald Davidson, Gareth Evans, Richard Rorty, and Sir Peter S…Read more
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47The wonders of ScotlandThe Philosophers' Magazine 42 (42): 80-82. 2008.It is now commonplace to observe that the Scottish enlightenment had an effect on the political and educational institutions of North America, including the Constitution of the United States and early colleges such as Princeton. Less well known is its influence on reforming movements in continental Europe, particularly in France and Spain.