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60The root delusion enshrined in common sense and languageAsian Philosophy 14 (1). 2004.This paper is a critique of certain arguments given by the Milindapanha and Jay Garfield for the conventional nature of reality or existence. These arguments are of interest in their own right. They also are significant if they are presumed to attack an obstacle we all face in achieving non-attachment, namely, our belief in the inherent or substantial existence of ourselves and the familiar objects of our world. The arguments turn on a distinction between these objects, and some other way of con…Read more
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63The Case of the Missing PremiseInformal Logic 17 (1). 1995.This paper suggests that the flaw in the enthymeme approach to argument analysis is in the requirement, as I come to formulate it, that an argument be restated as a premises-and-conclusion sequence. The paper begins by investigating how logicians show that there are problems with the enthymeme approach. That investigation reveals a failure on the part of logicians to appreciate the importance of the rhetorical context of an argument. This failure, it is argued, is a consequence of what I refer t…Read more
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54Ebersole's philosophical treasure huntPhilosophy 79 (2): 299-318. 2004.Frank Ebersole's extraordinary investigations of certain key philosophical ideas behind problems in epistemology and metaphysics are the subject of this article-review. I have resisted providing what many readers will expect me to provide, namely, a critical examination of his philosophical methodology. I do question his unwilligness to say why his investigations only yield I negative results, and I do have something to say about classifying him as an ordinary language philosopher. However, my m…Read more
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60The Zen of Argument Analysis: Reflections on Informal Logic's Argument Evaluation ContestInformal Logic 16 (2). 1994.An argumentative passage that might appear to be an instance of denying the antecedent will generally admit of an alternative interpretation, one on which the conditional contained by the passage is a preface to the argument rather than a premise of it. On this interpretation. which generally is a more charitable one, the conditional plays a certain dialectical role and, in some cases, a rhetorical role as welL Assuming only a very weak principle of exigetical charity, I consider what it would t…Read more
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69The Gettier Problem and the Parable of the Ten CoinsPhilosophy 70 (271). 1995.‘Where have you been?’ I expect philosophers to ask me this when I tell them that this paper is on the Gettier Problem. I found it difficult to participate in the discussion of the problem until now because instead of wanting to consider what could be done to revive the project of identifying necessary and conditions for knowledge after the apparent damage done to it by Gettier counter-examples, I wanted to question the legitimacy of the project itself
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73The Limits of Critical ThinkingInformal Logic 14 (2). 1992.This paper examines Robert Fogelin's suggestion that there may be deep disagreements, where no argument can address what is at issue. A number of possible bases for Fogelin's position are considered and rejected: people sometimes do not have enough in common for reasons to count as reasons; doubt is possible only against the background of framework propositions; key premises may be inarguable; argument must occur within a conceptual framework. The paper concludes by reflecting on why it is impor…Read more
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47Reviews the concealed art of the soul by Jonardon Ganeri oxford university press, 2007. 258 pp. dollar;70 (review)Philosophy 84 (4): 610-615. 2009.
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63Determinism as a Thesis about the State of the World from Moment to MomentPhilosophy 82 (3): 399-419. 2007.Determinism, as the thesis that given the state of the world at a moment there is only one way it can be at the next moment, is problematic. After explaining why the thesis is defined as it is, the paper goes on to raise questions about the terms in which it is defined. Is the ‘world’ to be understood as constituted by whatever figures in our talk or thought, or to what is reconstituted by an ontology seemingly derived from the sciences? Either way of understanding it is shown to be inadequate.
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43A Champion for Ordinary Language Philosophy - "When Words Are Called For" by Avner BazNordic Wittgenstein Review 3 (2): 187-190. 2014.Review of Avner Baz: When Words Are Called For: A Defense of Ordinary Language Philosophy , Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012
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19The Trouble with HarryNordic Wittgenstein Review 3 (1): 91-111. 2014.The Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), according to which we are responsible for what we did only if we could have done otherwise, is relied upon in the argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. Compatibilists, like Harry Frankfurt, attack PAP with stories that they devise as counter-examples; why are their stories, and the stories devised by defenders of PAP, so bad? Answers that suggest themselves are that these philosophers do not try to imagine how things actu…Read more
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60The Fallacy of Treating the Ad Baculum as a FallacyInformal Logic 19 (2). 1999.The ad baculum is not a fallacy in an argument, but is offered instead of an argument to put an end to further argument. This claim is the basis for criticizing Michael Wreen's "neo-traditionalism," which yields misreadings of supposed cases of the ad baculum because of its rejection of any consideration of what the person using the ad baculum, or someone who refers to that use as an "argument," is doing. The paper concludes with reflections on the values that should inform talk of a fallacy in …Read more