•  20
    Logic, Truth and Inquiry
    Informal Logic 33 (3): 462-469. 2013.
    by Mark Weinstein King’s College London, UK: College Publications, 2013. Pp. viii, 1-232. Softcover. ISBN-13: 978-1-84890-100-1, ISBN-10: 1848901003. US$ 17.00
  •  40
    Cogency and the Validation of Induction
    Argumentation 18 (1): 25-41. 2004.
    I.T. Oakley claims that the cogency of invalid, but cogent, arguments is context independent. Robert Pargetter and John Bigelow claim that the apparent cogency of any cogent, but invalid, argument is to be explained by the existence of a corresponding valid argument. I argue that both claims are incorrect and provide my own account of the cogency of arguments
  •  112
    What exactly is logical pluralism?
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (2). 2002.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  22
    David Hitchcock, in his recent “Informal Logic and the Concept of Argument”, defends a recursive definition of ‘argument.’ I present and discuss several problems that arise for his definition. I argue that refining Hitchcock’s definition in order to resolve these problems reveals a crucial, but minimally explicated, relation that was, at best, playing an obscured role in the original definition or, at worst, completely absent from the original definition.
  •  24
    Contextualists with regard to knowledge argue that the truth of the claim 'x knows that P' is contextually dependent. In doing so, they attempt to articulate the nature of the contextual dependence. Since part of making knowledge claims involves the adequate justification of beliefs, I shall explore whether any epistemic contextualist theories can be modified or adapted to provide an account of the context-dependence of justificatory strength for arguments. I shall conclude that the prospects ar…Read more
  •  148
    Banana peels and time travel
    Dialectica 61 (4). 2007.
    A world in which time travel into the past occurred would seem like a most strange world. Nicholas Smith, however, in his ‘Bananas Enough for Time Travel’, argues that time travel is not so strange as we think. In particular, he argues against what he views as the main reason time travel worlds seem so strange – the claim that time travel entails unusual numbers of coincidences. I shall argue that Smith's argument for rejecting the claim is inadequate. Hence, the debate over the consequences of …Read more
  •  24
    In recent discussions concerning the definition of argument, it has been maintained that the word ‘argument’ exhibits the process-product ambiguity, or an act/object ambi-guity. Drawing on literature on lexical ambiguity we argue that ‘argument’ is not ambiguous. The term ‘argument’ refers to an object, not to a speech act. We also examine some of the important implications of our argument by considering the question: what sort of abstract objects are arguments?
  •  3
    The Reach of Abduction: Insight and Trial (review)
    Informal Logic 25 (3): 289-294. 2005.
  •  88
    More on blameworthiness and alternative possibilities
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 3 (1): 69-75. 2006.
    The derivation of the generally held Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), roughly ‘you are morally responsible only if you could do otherwise’, from an even more generally held moral principle, K (for Kant), that roughly speaking ‘ought implies can’, has recently been the focus of significant debate. In this paper I shall argue that by focusing on PAP interpreted in terms of commissions alone an alternative derivation of PAP interpreted in terms of omissions is being overlooked. The adv…Read more