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633Identity and IndiscernibilityMind 118 (469): 101-119. 2009.Putative counterexamples to the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) are notoriously inconclusive. I establish ground rules for debate in this area, offer a new response to such counterexamples for friends of the PII, but then argue that no response is entirely satisfactory. Finally, I undermine some positive arguments for PII
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467Temporal PartsStanford Encylopedia of Philosophy. 2004/2010.Material objects extend through space by having different spatial parts in different places. But how do they persist through time? According to some philosophers, things have temporal parts as well as spatial parts: accepting this is supposed to help us solve a whole bunch of metaphysical problems, and keep our philosophy in line with modern physics. Other philosophers disagree, arguing that neither metaphysics nor physics give us good reason to believe in temporal parts.
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243Trivial Truthmaking MattersPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 83 (1). 2011.This is a contribution to a symposium on Trenton Merricks' book Truth and Ontology. The symposium includes contributions by Karen Bennett and Kris McDaniel, with précis and replies by Trenton Merricks. I argue that even the very weak truthmaking principle he is willing to endorse is nevertheless useful for some philosophical purposes.
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380Testimony and knowing howStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41 (4): 397-404. 2010.Much of what we learn from talking and listening does not qualify as testimonial knowledge: we can learn a great deal from other people without simply accepting what they say as being true. In this article, I examine the ways in which we acquire skills or knowledge how from our interactions with other people, and I discuss whether there is a useful notion of testimonial knowledge how.Keywords: Knowledge how; Practical knowledge; Tacit knowledge; Testimony; Skills; Assertion.
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360Persistence and non-supervenient relationsMind 108 (429): 53-67. 1999.I claim that, if persisting objects have temporal parts, then there are non-supervenient relations between those temporal parts. These are relations which are not determined by intrinsic properties of the temporal parts. I use the Kripke-Armstrong 'rotating homogeneous disc' argument in order to establish this claim, and in doing so I defend and develop that argument. This involves a discussion of instantaneous velocity, and of the causes and effects of rotation. Finally, I compare alternative r…Read more
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246Knowing How and Epistemic InjusticeIn John Bengson & Marc A. Moffett (eds.), Knowing How: Essays on Knowledge, Mind, and Action, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 283-99. 2011.In this chapter I explore how epistemic injustice (as discussed by Miranda Fricker) can arise in connection with knowledge how. I attempt to bypass the question of whether knowledge how is a type of propositional knowledge, and instead focus on some distinctive ways in which knowledge how is sometimes sought, identified or ignored.
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67‘Fusion’ is a philosophical term of art, with a variety of uses. First, it is often a synonym for ‘sum’. In this sense, a is a fusion of b, c and d iff b, c and d are parts of a, and every part of a shares a part with b, c or d. So a cat is a fusion of the cells which compose it, and the same cat is a fusion of the molecules which compose it. Relatedly, ‘fusion’ can refer to the occurrence of such composition: philosophers disagree about whether fusion is widespread, about whether it can be a va…Read more
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354Weak discernibilityAnalysis 66 (4). 2006.Simon Saunders argues that, although distinct objects must be discernible, they need only be weakly discernible (Saunders 2003, 2006a). I will argue that this combination of views is unmotivated: if there can be objects which differ only weakly, there can be objects which don’t differ at all.
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412Merricks on whether being conscious is intrinsicMind 107 (428): 841-843. 1998.This is a short response to a paper by Trenton Merricks in which he argues against the following doctrine: Microphysical Supervenience (MS) Necessarily, if atoms A1 through An compose an object that exemplifies intrinsic qualitative properties Q1 through Qn, then atoms like A1 through An (in all their respective intrinsic qualitative properties), related to one another by all the same restricted atom-to-atom relations as A1 through An, compose an object that exemplifies Q1 through Qn.
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57Thomas S. Kuhn's mysterious worldsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 27 (2): 291-300. 1996.An essay review of two books about Kuhn and Kuhnian ideas.
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261Review. The possibility of metaphysics; substance, identity and time. E J LoweBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (3): 478-482. 1999.
St Andrews, FIfe, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
| Epistemology |
| Metaphysics |