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52Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of InnocencePhilosophical Review 108 (2): 300. 1999.Peter Unger’s book has both substantive and methodological aims. Substantively, it aims to prove the following four claims in the following order: we must, in general, suffer great losses of property to prevent suffering and death; we may, in general, impose such losses on others for the same goals; we may, in general, kill others to prevent more deaths; and we must, in general, kill ourself to prevent more deaths. Methodologically, it aims to show that intuitive judgments about cases that would…Read more
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78On experience and the development of the understandingAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 3 (1): 48-56. 1966.
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659Ignorance: A Case for ScepticismOxford University Press. 1975.In these challenging pages, Unger argues for the extreme skeptical view that, not only can nothing ever be known, but no one can ever have any reason at all for anything. A consequence of this is that we cannot ever have any emotions about anything: no one can ever be happy or sad about anything. Finally, in this reduction to absurdity of virtually all our supposed thought, he argues that no one can ever believe, or even say, that anything is the case.
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5Philosophical Papers: Volume 1Oxford Up. 2006.While well-known for his longer book-length work, philosopher Peter Unger's shorter articles have, until now, been less accessible. Collected in two volumes, Philosophical Papers includes articles spanning over 40 years of Unger's long and fruitful career. Volume two focuses on Unger's important work in metaphysics.
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107All the power in the worldOxford University Press. 2006.This bold and original work of philosophy presents an exciting new picture of concrete reality. Peter Unger provocatively breaks with what he terms the conservatism of present-day philosophy, and returns to central themes from Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Russell. Wiping the slate clean, Unger works, from the ground up, to formulate a new metaphysic capable of accommodating our distinctly human perspective. He proposes a world with inherently powerful particulars of two basic sorts: one …Read more
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318Identity, Consciousness, and ValueOxford University Press. 1990.The topic of personal identity has prompted some of the liveliest and most interesting debates in recent philosophy. In a fascinating new contribution to the discussion, Peter Unger presents a psychologically aimed, but physically based, account of our identity over time. While supporting the account, he explains why many influential contemporary philosophers have underrated the importance of physical continuity to our survival, casting a new light on the work of Lewis, Nagel, Nozick, Parfit, Pe…Read more
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103There Are No Ordinary ThingsIn Delia Graff & Timothy Williamson (eds.), Vagueness, Ashgate. pp. 117-154. 1979.
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Philosophical Papers: Volume 2Oxford Up. 2006.While well-known for his longer book-length work, philosopher Peter Unger's shorter articles have, until now, been less accessible. Collected in two volumes, Philosophical Papers includes articles spanning over 40 years of Unger's long and fruitful career. Volume two focuses on Unger's important work in metaphysics.
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189The Survival of the SentientPhilosophical Perspectives 14 325-348. 2000.In this quite modestly ambitious essay, I'll generally just assume that, for the most part, our "scientifically informed" commonsense view of the world is true. Just as it is with such unthinking things as planets, plates and, I suppose, plants, too, so it also is with all earthly thinking beings, from people to pigs and pigeons; each occupies a region of space, however large or small, in which all are spatially related to each other. Or, at least, so it is with the bodies of these beings. And, …Read more
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154The mystery of the physical and the matter of qualitiesMidwest Studies in Philosophy 22 (1). 1998.For some fifty years now, nearly all work in mainstream analytic philosophy has made no serious attempt to understand the _nature of_ _physical reality,_ even though most analytic philosophers take this to be all of reality, or nearly all. While we've worried much about the nature of our own experiences and thoughts and languages, we've worried little about the nature of the vast physical world that, as we ourselves believe, has them all as only a small part
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54Reply to James Van Cleve (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (2): 467-475. 2010.James Van Cleve’s contribution consists of a brief preamble and three numbered sections; in each he characterizes some position(s) of mine. In the first two numbered sections, when characterizing my positions, most of what he says is accurate. In the preamble, by contrast, and especially in the third section, there are misleading mischaracteriza- tions. First, I’ll try to remedy that. Then I’ll reply to some questions raised in his first two sections