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Review of John Dupre's Human Nature and the Limits of Science (review)Economics and Philosophy 18 (2): 357-362. 2002.
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31Introduction: What makes science possibleIn Peter Carruthers, Stephen Stich & Michael Siegal (eds.), The Cognitive Basis of Science, Cambridge University Press. 2002.
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10Some New Techniques for the Analysis Correlations of Point DistributionsIn R. J. Russell, N. Murphy & A. R. Peacocke (eds.), Chaos and Complexity, Vatican Observatory Publications. pp. 165. 1995.
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122Human nature and the limits of science, John Dupré. Clarendon press, 2001, 211 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 18 (2): 351-385. 2002.
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384Reductive explanation and the "explanatory gap"Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (2): 153-174. 2004.Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an
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112Who is blind to blindsight?PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 7. 2001.This paper uses the explanation of blindsight generated by a two-systems theory of vision in order to set Siewert a dilemma. Either his blindsight examples are modelled on actual blindsight, in which case certain reductive theories of phenomenal consciousness will have no difficulty in accommodating them. Or they are intended to be purely imaginary, in which case they will have no force against a reductive naturalist
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191Valence and ValuePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (3): 658-680. 2017.Valence is a central component of all affective states, including pains, pleasures, emotions, moods, and feelings of desire or repulsion.This paper has two main goals. One is to suggest that enough is now known about the causes, consequences, and properties of valence to indicate that it forms a unitary natural-psychological kind, one that seemingly plays a fundamental role in motivating all kinds of intentional action. If this turns out to be true, then the correct characterization of the natur…Read more
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60Reductive Explanation and the "Explanatory Gap"Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (2): 153-173. 2004.Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an ‘explanatory gap’ between physical, functional and intentional facts, on the one hand, and the facts of phenomenal consciousness, on the other, argue that there are reasons of principle why phenomenal consciousness cannot be reductively explained: Jackson, ; Levine,, ; McGinn ; Sturgeon, ; Chalmers,. Some of these writers claim that the existence of such a gap would warrant a belief in some form of ontological…Read more
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5Introducing Persons: Theories and Arguments in the Philosophy of MindMind 97 (386): 310-312. 1986.
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75Implicit versus Explicit Attitudes: Differing Manifestations of the Same Representational Structures?Review of Philosophy and Psychology 9 (1): 51-72. 2018.Implicit and explicit attitudes manifest themselves as distinct and partly dissociable behavioral dispositions. It is natural to think that these differences reflect differing underlying representations. The present article argues that this may be a mistake. Although non-verbal and verbal measures of attitudes often dissociate, this may be because the two types of outcome-measure are differentially impacted by other factors, not because they are tapping into distinct kinds of representation or d…Read more
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Human Knowledge and Human Nature: A New Introduction to an Ancient DebatePhilosophy 67 (262): 567-569. 1992.
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171Basic questionsMind and Language 33 (2): 130-147. 2018.This paper argues that a set of questioning attitudes are among the foundations of human and animal minds. While both verbal questioning and states of curiosity are generally explained in terms of metacognitive desires for knowledge or true belief, I argue that each is better explained by a prelinguistic sui generis type of mental attitude of questioning. I review a range of considerations in support of such a proposal and improve on previous characterizations of the nature of these attitudes. I…Read more
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58Descriptive Experience Sampling: What is it good for?Journal of Consciousness Studies 18 (1): 130-149. 2011.We defend the reliability of Hurlburt's Descriptive Experi-ence Sampling method against some of Schwitzgebel's attacks. But we agree with Schwitzgebel that the method could be used much more widely than it has been, helping to answer questions about the nature and structure of consciousness in addition to cataloguing the latter's contents. We sketch a number of potential lines of further enquiry.
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The Innate Mind: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United StatesOxford University Press USA. 2008.This is the third volume of a three-volume set on The Innate Mind. The extent to which cognitive structures, processes, and contents are innate is one of the central questions concerning the nature of the mind, with important implications for debates throughout the human sciences. By bringing together the top nativist scholars in philosophy, psychology, and allied disciplines these volumes provide a comprehensive assessment of nativist thought and a definitive reference point for future nativist…Read more
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38Moderately Massive ModularityRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 53 67-89. 2003.This paper will sketch a model of the human mind according to which the mind's structure is massively, but by no means wholly, modular. Modularity views in general will be motivated, elucidated, and defended, before the thesis of moderately massive modularity is explained and elaborated.
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163An architecture for dual reasoningIn Jonathan Evans & Keith Frankish (eds.), In Two Minds: Dual Processes and Beyond, Oxford University Press. 2008.In J. Evans and K. Frankish (eds.), In Two Minds: dual processes and beyond. Oxford University Press, 2008. (In draft.)
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73Frege's RegressProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 82. 1982.In his essay 'Thoughts',' Frege is to be found employing a regress-argument against the correspondence theory of truth. He seems to have felt that the argument is not only completely destructive of the correspondence theory, but that it could be deployed equally well against any attempt to provide a general definition of the notion of truth. In my view neither conclusion is warranted. But Frege's Regress can, nevertheless, be developed into an argument of the greatest significance.
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282The evolution of consciousnessIn Peter Carruthers & A. Chamberlain (eds.), Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language and Meta-Cognition, Cambridge University Press. pp. 254. 2000.How might consciousness have evolved? Unfortunately for the prospects of providing a convincing answer to this question, there is no agreed account of what consciousness is. So any attempt at an answer will have to fragment along a number of different lines of enquiry. More fortunately, perhaps, there is general agreement that a number of distinct notions of consciousness need to be distinguished from one another; and there is also broad agreement as to which of these is particularly problematic…Read more
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43Review of Alvin I. Goldman, Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (11). 2006.
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333Conscious thinking: Language or elimination?Mind and Language 13 (4): 457-476. 1998.Do we conduct our conscious propositional thinking in natural language? Or is such language only peripherally related to human conscious thought-processes? In this paper I shall present a partial defence of the former view, by arguing that the only real alternative is eliminativism about conscious propositional thinking. Following some introductory remarks, I shall state the argument for this conclusion, and show how that conclusion can be true. Thereafter I shall defend each of the three main p…Read more
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268The Architecture of the Mind:Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of Thought: Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of ThoughtOxford University Press UK. 2006.This book is a comprehensive development and defense of one of the guiding assumptions of evolutionary psychology: that the human mind is composed of a large number of semi-independent modules. The Architecture of the Mind has three main goals. One is to argue for massive mental modularity. Another is to answer a 'How possibly?' challenge to any such approach. The first part of the book lays out the positive case supporting massive modularity. It also outlines how the thesis should best be devel…Read more
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Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Cognitive Sciences |