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24Le Spinoziste Malgré Lui?: Malebranche, De Mairan, and Intelligible ExtensionHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 15 (2). 1998.
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138Automata, living and non-living: Descartes' mechanical biology and his criteria for life (review)Biology and Philosophy 13 (2): 179-186. 1998.Despite holding to the essential distinction between mind and body, Descartes did not adopt a life-body dualism. Though humans are the only creatures which can reason, as they are the only creatures whose body is in an intimate union with a soul, they are not the only finite beings who are alive. In the present note, I attempt to determine Descartes'' criteria for something to be ''living.'' Though certain passages associate such a principle with the presence of a properly functioning heart, I s…Read more
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34Newtonian vs. Newtonian: Baxter and MacLaurin on the Inactivity of MatterJournal of Scottish Philosophy 11 (1): 15-23. 2013.In my essay I look at the specifics of the dispute between the Scottish metaphysician Andrew Baxter and the mathematician Colin MacLaurin in an attempt to identify the source or sources of their contradictory, yet in both cases Newtonian, positions regarding occasionalism. After some general introductory remarks about each thinker, I examine the metaphysical implications that Baxter sees as following from Newton's concept of vis inertiæ. Following this, I look at MacLaurin's commitment to the ro…Read more
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100Epistemic vagueness?Think 8 (22): 47-50. 2009.The barn/barn façade thought experiment is familiar to most epistemologists. It is intended to present a counterexample to certain causal theories of knowledge; in it, a father driving through the countryside with his son says, ‘That's a barn’ while pointing to a barn. Unbeknownst to the father, however, a film crew is working in the area, and it has constructed several barn façades. While the father did correctly point to a barn when he made his assertion, he could have just as easily pointed t…Read more
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21Alexander Broadie, Agreeable Connexions: Scottish Enlightenment Links with France. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2012. 230 pp. £25 pb. ISBN 9781906566517 (review)Journal of Scottish Philosophy 13 (2): 123-126. 2015.
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184Why it Matters that I’m Not Insane: The Role of the Madness Argument in Descartes’s First MeditationInternational Philosophical Quarterly 47 (1): 79-89. 2007.Descartes’s First Meditation employs a series of arguments designed to generate the worry that the senses might not provide sufficient evidence to justify one’staking as certain one’s beliefs about the way the world is. As the meditator considers what principle describes the conditions under which it is possible to attain certain knowledge, one after another doubt-generating device is ushered in, until at last he finds himself like someone caught in a whirlpool, able neither to stand firm nor to…Read more
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33Malebranche and Knowledge of the SoulAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 73 (4): 571-581. 1999.
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15Heretics EverywherePhilosophy and Theology 22 (1-2): 49-76. 2010.By carefully considering Galileo’s letters to Castelli and Christina, we argue that his position regarding the relationship between Scripture and science is not only of historical importance, but continues to stand as a perspective worth taking seriously in the context of contemporary philosophical debates. In particular, we contend that there are at least five areas of contemporary concern where Galileo’s arguments are especially relevant: (1) the supposed conflict between science and religion,…Read more