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97Response to Alter and BennettPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (3): 775-784. 2009.The paper responds to criticisms of *Ignorance and Imagination* offered by Torin Alter and Karen Bennett
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104Précis of ignorance and imaginationPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (3): 748-755. 2009.
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301The Semantics of ‘What it’s like’ and the Nature of ConsciousnessMind 125 (500): 1161-1198. 2016.This paper defends a novel view of ‘what it is like’-sentences, according to which they attribute certain sorts of relations—I call them ‘affective relations’—that hold between events and individuals. The paper argues in detail for the superiority of this proposal over other views that are prevalent in the literature. The paper further argues that the proposal makes better sense than the alternatives of the widespread use of Nagel’s definition of conscious states and that it also shows the mista…Read more
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103ConsciousnessIn Sahotra Sarkar & Jessica Pfeifer (eds.), The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, Routledge. pp. 158-163. 2005.Consciousness is extremely familiar yet it is at the limits—beyond the limits, some would say—of what one can sensibly talk about or explain. Perhaps this is the reason its study has drawn contributions from many fields including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, anthropology, cultural and literary theory, artificial intelligence, physics, and others. The focus of this entry is on: the varieties of consciousness, different problems that have been raised about these varieties, and prospects f…Read more
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190The argument from revelationIn Robert Nola & David Braddon Mitchell (eds.), Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, Mit Press. 2009.1. Introduction The story of Canberra, the capital of Australia, is roughly as follows. In 1901, when what is called
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57Review of Colin McGinn, Consciousness and its Objects (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2005 (2). 2005.
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150Introspection and NecessityNoûs 52 (2): 389-410. 2018.What is the connection between being in a conscious mental state and believing that you yourself are currently in that state? On the one hand, it is natural to think that this connection is, or involves, a necessary connection of some sort. On the other hand, it is hard to know what the nature of this necessary connection is. For there are plausible arguments according to which this connection is not metaphysically necessary, not rationally necessary, and not merely naturally necessary. If these…Read more
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101Distinctions in distinctionIn Jesper Kallestrup & Jakob Hohwy (eds.), Being Reduced: New Essays on Causation and Explanation in the Special Sciences, Oxford University Press. 2007.This chapter begins with a putative puzzle between non-reductive physicalism according to which psychological properties are distinct from, yet metaphysically necessitated by, physical properties, and Hume's dictum according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. However, the puzzle dissolves once care is taken to distinguish between distinct kinds of distinction: numerical distinctness, mereological distinctness, and what the chapter calls ‘weak modal distinctn…Read more
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189The Consequences Of IntentionalismErkenntnis 66 (1-2): 247-270. 2007.This article explores two consequences of intentionalism. My first line of argument focuses on the impact of intentionalism on the 'hard problem' of phenomenal character. If intentionalism is true, the phenomenal supervenes on the intentional. Furthermore, if physicalism about the intentional is also true, the intentional supervenes on the physical. Therefore, if intentionalism and physicalism are both true, then, by transitivity of supervenience, physicalism about the phenomenal is true. I argu…Read more
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209Is there a Lockean argument against expressivism?Analysis 63 (1): 76-86. 2003.It is sometimes suggested that expressivism in meta-ethics is to be criticized on grounds which do not themselves concern meta-ethics in particular, but which rather concern philosophy of language more generally. Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit (1998; see also Jackson and Pettit 1999, and Jackson 2001) have recently advanced a novel version of such an argument. They begin by noting that expressivism in its central form makes two claims—that ethical sentences are not truth evaluable, and that to …Read more
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75Should Moore Have Followed His Own Method?Philosophical Studies 129 (3): 609-618. 2006.I discuss Soames’s proposal that Moore could have avoided a central problem in his moral philosophy if he had utilized a method he himself pioneered in epistemology. The problem in Moore’s moral philosophy concerns what it is for a moral claim to be self-evident. The method in Moore’s epistemology concerns not denying the obvious. In review of the distance between something’s being self-evident and its being obvious, it is suggested that Soames’s proposal is mistaken.
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6Précis of Ignorance and ImaginationPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (3): 748-755. 2009.
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98On Biological and Cognitive NeuroscienceMind and Language 13 (1): 110-131. 1998.Many philosophers and neuroscientists defend a view we express with the slogan that mental science is neuroscience. We argue that there are two ways of interpreting this view, depending on what is meant by ‘neuroscience’. On one interpretation, the view is that mental science is cognitive neuroscience, where this is the science that integrates psychology with the biology of the brain. On another interpretation, the view is that mental science is biological neuroscience, where this is the investi…Read more
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27IntroductionIn Peter Ludlow, Yujin Nagasawa & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), There's Something About Mary, Mit Press. 2003.Mary is confined to a black-and-white room, is educated through black-and-white books and through lectures relayed on black-and white television. In this way she learns everything there is to know about the physical nature of the world. She knows all the physical facts about us and our environment, in a wide sense of 'physical' which includes everything in completed physics, chemistry, and neurophysiology, and all there is to know about the causal and relational facts consequent upon all this, i…Read more
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59Uriah Kriegel: The Varieties of Consciousness (review)Journal of Philosophy 112 (12): 678-682. 2015.This is a review of Kriegel's *The Varieties of Consciousness*.
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70Consciousness and the Limits of Objectivity: The Case for Subjective Physicalism, by Robert J. Howell (review)Mind 125 (498): 608-611. 2016.Review of Howell's *Consciousness and the Limits of Objectivity: The Case for Subjective Physicalism*.
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14Comments on Galen Strawson 'Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism'Journal of Consciousness Studies 13 (10-11): 170-176. 2006.
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752There's Something About Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument (edited book)MIT Press. 2004.The arguments presented in this comprehensive collection have important implications for the philosophy of mind and the study of consciousness.
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34Review of Christopher S. hill, Consciousness (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (9). 2010.This is a review of Christopher Hill's *Consciousness*.
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766PhysicalismRoutledge. 2010.Physicalism, the thesis that everything is physical, is one of the most controversial problems in philosophy. Its adherents argue that there is no more important doctrine in philosophy, whilst its opponents claim that its role is greatly exaggerated. In this superb introduction to the problem Daniel Stoljar focuses on three fundamental questions: the interpretation, truth and philosophical significance of physicalism. In answering these questions he covers the following key topics: (i)A brief hi…Read more
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145Four Kinds of Russellian MonismIn Uriah Kriegel (ed.), Current Controversies in Philosophy of Mind, Routledge. pp. 17. 2014.“Russellian Monism” is a name given to a family of views in philosophy of mind. The family is exciting because it seems to present an alternative both to materialism and to dualism. After briefly setting out the need for this alternative, I distinguish four different kinds of Russellian Monism (RM), and assess their pros and cons. My own feeling, as will emerge in the final section of the paper, is that only the fourth of these represents a viable version of the view. But my main aim is less t…Read more
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216The deflationary theory of truthStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.According to the deflationary theory of truth, to assert that a statement is true is just to assert the statement itself. For example, to say that ‘snow is white’ is true, or that it is true that snow is white, is equivalent to saying simply that snow is white, and this, according to the deflationary theory, is all that can be said significantly about the truth of ‘snow is white’.
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75Actors and zombiesIn Alex Byrne & J. Thomson (eds.), Content and Modalities: Themes From the Philosophy of Robert Stalnaker, Oxford University Press. pp. 1. 2006.Much of contemporary philosophy of mind is dominated by the intersection of three topics: physicalism, the conceivability argument, and the necessary a posteriori. I will be concerned here to describe the consensus view of these topics; to explain why I think this account is mistaken; and to briefly sketch an alternative.
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146Strawson's realistic monismJournal of Consciousness Studies. forthcoming.There is at least one element in Strawson
Acton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Metaphilosophy |
Areas of Interest
Metaphilosophy |
Philosophy of Mind |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |