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331The conceivability argument and two conceptions of the physicalPhilosophical Perspectives 15 393-413. 2001.The conceivability argument against physicalism1 starts from the prem- ises that: It is conceivable that I have a zombie-twin, i.e., that there is someone who is physically identical to me and yet who lacks phenomenal con- sciousness; and If it is conceivable that I have a zombie-twin, then it is possible that I have a zombie-twin. These premises entail that physicalism is false, for physicalism is the claim—or can be assumed for our purposes to be the claim2—that
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320Perceptual consciousness and intensional transitive verbsPhilosophical Studies 180 (12): 3301-3322. 2023.There is good reason to think that, in every case of perceptual consciousness, there is something of which we are conscious; but there is also good reason to think that, in some cases of perceptual consciousness—for instance, hallucinations—there is nothing of which we are conscious. This paper resolves this inconsistency—which we call the presentation problem—by (a) arguing that ‘conscious of’ and related expressions function as intensional transitive verbs and (b) defending a particular semant…Read more
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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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299Introspection and Consciousness (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2012.The topic of introspection stands at the interface between questions in epistemology about the nature of self-knowledge and questions in the philosophy of mind about the nature of consciousness. What is the nature of introspection such that it provides us with a distinctive way of knowing about our own conscious mental states? And what is the nature of consciousness such that we can know about our own conscious mental states by introspection? How should we understand the relationship between con…Read more
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295How Not to Identify a Research Programme Concerning IntrospectionJournal of Consciousness Studies 30 (9): 215-222. 2023.Kammerer and Frankish (this issue) aim to set out a new research programme concerning introspection. I argue they have done no such thing, since the definition they are working with is too general. I further argue that, while it is possible to restrict the definition and so formulate a related research programme, this will have a different shape to the one they envisage.
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294Philosophy of Mind: Consciousness, Intentionality and IgnoranceIn Barry Dainton & Howard Robinson (eds.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Analytic Philosophy, Bloomsbury Academic. 2013.
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253Crimmins, Gonzales and MooreAnalysis 61 (3): 208-213. 2001.Gonzales tells Mark Crimmins (1992) that Crimmins knows him under two guises, and that under his other guise Crimmins thinks him an idiot. Knowing his cleverness, but not knowing which guise he has in mind, Crimmins trusts Gonzales but does not know which of his beliefs to revise. He therefore asserts to Gonzales. (FBI) I falsely believe that you are an idiot.
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243Does Nagel's footnote eleven solve the mind-body problem?Philosophical Issues 20 (1): 125-143. 2010.
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233Emotivism and truth conditionsPhilosophical Studies 70 (1). 1993.By distinguishing between pragmatic and semantic aspects of emotivism, and by distinguishing between inflationary and deflationary conceptions of truth conditions, this paper defends emotivism against a series of objections. First, it is not the case (as Blackburn has argued) that emotivism must explain the appearance that moral sentences have truth conditions. Second, it is not the case (as Boghossian has argued) that emotivism presupposes that non-moral sentences have inflationary truth condit…Read more
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215Chalmers v ChalmersNoûs 54 (2): 469-487. 2020.This paper brings out an inconsistency between David Chalmers's dualism, which is the main element of his philosophy of mind, and his structuralism, which is the main element of his epistemology. The point is ad hominem , but the inconsistency if it can be established is of considerable independent interest. For the best response to the inconsistency, I argue, is to adopt what Chalmers calls ‘type‐C Materialism’, a version of materialism that has been much discussed in recent times because of it…Read more
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213The 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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207Is 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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204Underestimating the WorldJournal of Consciousness Studies. forthcoming.Galen Strawson has contrasting attitudes to consciousness and free will. In the case of the former, he says it is a fundamental element of nature whose denial is the “greatest woo-woo of the human mind.” In the case of the latter, by contrast, he says it is not merely non-existent but “provably impossible.” Why the difference? This paper suggests this distinctive pattern of positions is generated by underestimating the world (to adapt a phrase Strawson uses himself in another context). If y…Read more
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200Universities from an Epistemological Point of ViewHumanities Review. forthcoming.Abstract: What is the nature and social function of universities? In this article I consider the well-known Humboldtian answer to this question, with a view not just to its inherent plausibility but to how it has changed over time. I pay particular attention to how different versions of the Humboldtian answer make different epistemological assumptions and conclude with a suggestion about how best to develop that answer in the future.
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191Comments on Galen Strawson - 'realistic monism: Why physicalism entails panpsychismJournal of Consciousness Studies 13 (10-11): 170-176. 2006.
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189The 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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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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189Two Conceivability Arguments ComparedProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 107 (1pt1): 27-44. 2007.This paper compares and contrasts two conceivability arguments: the zombie argument (ZA) against physicalism, and the perfect actor argument (AA) against behaviourism. I start the paper by assuming that the arguments are of the same kind, and that AA is sound. On the basis of these two assumptions I criticize the most common philosophical suggestions in the literature today about what is wrong with ZA, and what is right in it. I end the paper by suggesting that the comparison between the two arg…Read more
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185Knowledge of PerceptionIn Declan Smithies & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Introspection and Consciousness. 2012.
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182Introduction to There's Something About MaryIn Peter Ludlow, Daniel Stoljar & Yujin Nagasawa (eds.), There's Something About Mary, . 2004.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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171On the self-locating response to the knowledge argumentPhilosophical Studies 155 (3): 437-443. 2011.On the self-locating response to the knowledge argument Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11098-010-9612-2 Authors Daniel Stoljar, Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT, 0200 Australia Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116.
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169Ignorance and Imagination: The Epistemic Origin of the Problem of ConsciousnessOxford University Press USA. 2006.Ignorance and Imagination advances a novel way to resolve the central philosophical problem about the mind: how it is that consciousness or experience fits into a larger naturalistic picture of the world. The correct response to the problem, Stoljar argues, is not to posit a realm of experience distinct from the physical, nor to deny the reality of phenomenal experience, nor even to rethink our understanding of consciousness and the language we use to talk about it. Instead, we should view the p…Read more
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165The Materialist SixtiesIn John Symons & Charles Wolfe (eds.), History and Philosophy of Materialism, Routledge. forthcoming.Abstract: The 1960s saw the publication of many works in philosophy in which materialism (or physicalism) was a major theme even if not always endorsed. But how should we assess the ‘materialist sixties’? This paper argues that what is distinctive about the period is that it combines materialist metaphysics with materialist meta-philosophy, and, in so doing, solved a problem that dogged the discipline of philosophy since it assumed its modern form in the 19th century.
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154Evans on transparency: a rationalist accountPhilosophical Studies 176 (8): 2067-2085. 2019.Gareth Evans famously observed that he can answer the question ‘Do you think there is going to be a third world war?’ by attending to “precisely the same outward phenomena as I would attend to if I were answering the question ‘Will there be a third world war?’”. I argue that this observation follows from two independently plausible ideas in philosophy of mind. The first is about rationality and consciousness: it is that to be rational is in part to be required to believe that you are in a consci…Read more
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152The Ontology of Mind: Events, States and Processes (review)Philosophical Review 108 (3): 418. 1999.The aim of this book is to argue that issues in metaphysics—in particular issues about the nature of states and causation—will have a significant impact in philosophy of mind. As Steward puts it: “the category of state has been so grossly misunderstood that some theories of mind which are supposed to encompass entities traditionally regarded as falling under the category, e.g., beliefs and desires, cannot so much as be sensibly formulated, once we are clearer about the nature of states”. Accordi…Read more
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149Introspection 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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146Strawson's realistic monismJournal of Consciousness Studies. forthcoming.There is at least one element in Strawson
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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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128Chomsky, London and LewisAnalysis 75 (1): 16-22. 2015.This article suggests that Chomsky’s notorious ‘London’ argument against semantics looks much more plausible that it is usually interpreted as being when seen in the light of something apparently remote from its concerns, viz., David Lewis’s distinction between natural and non-natural properties
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 |