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233Colour for representationalistsErkenntnis 66 (1-2): 169--85. 2007.Redness is the property that makes things look red in normal circumstances. That seems obvious enough. But then colour is whatever property does that job: a certain reflectance profile as it might be. Redness is the property something is represented to have when it looks red. That seems obvious enough. But looking red does not represent that which looks red as having a certain reflectance profile. What should we say about this antinomy and how does our answer impact on the contest between realis…Read more
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228A problem for expressivismAnalysis 58 (4). 1998.Expressivists hold that ethical sentences express attitudes. We argue that it is very hard for expressivists to give an account of the relevant sense of 'express' which has some plausibility and also delivers the kind of noncognitivist account of ethical sentences they affirm. Our argument draws on Locke's point that words are voluntary signs
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215Narrow content and representation--or twin earth revisitedProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 77 (2): 55-70. 2003.Intentional states represent. Belief represents how we take things to be; desire represents how we would like things to be; and so on. To represent is to make a division among possibilities; it is to divide the possibilities into those that are consistent with how things are being represented to be and those that are not. I will call the possibilities consistent with how some intentional state represents things to be, its content. There is no suggestion that this is the only legitimate notion of…Read more
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205Galen Strawson on panpsychismJournal of Consciousness Studies 13 (10-11): 62-64. 2006.We make powerful motor cars by suitably assembling items that are not themselves powerful, but we do not do this by 'adding in the power' at the very end of the assembly line; nor, if it comes to that, do we add portions of power along the way. Powerful motor cars are nothing over and above complex arrangements or aggregations of items that are not themselves powerful. The example illustrates the way aggregations can have interesting properties that the items aggregated lack. What can we say of …Read more
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195On ensuring that physicalism is not a dual attribute theory in sheep's clothingPhilsophical Studies 131 (1): 227-249. 2006.Physicalists are committed to the determination without remainder of the psychological by the physical, but are they committed to this determination being a priori? This paper distinguishes this question understood de dicto from this question understood de re, argues that understood de re the answer is yes in a way that leaves open the answer to the question understood de dicto.
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193Naturalism and the Fate of the M-Worlds: Frank JacksonAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 71 (1). 1997.We make a huge variety of claims framed in vocabularies drawn from physics and chemistry, everyday talk, neuroscience, ethics, mathematics, semantics, folk and professional psychology, and so on and so forth. We say, for example, that Jones feels cold, that Carlton might win, that there are quarks, that murder is wrong, that there are four fundamental forces, and that a certain level of neurological activity is necessary for thought. If we follow Huw Price's Carnapian lead, we can put this by sa…Read more
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190On the semantics and logic of obligationMind 94 (374): 177-195. 1985.This paper develops an informal semantics for 'ought to be' and 'ought to be given...' and argues for its plausibility. A feature of the semantics is that it invalidates 'if a entails b, And o(a), Then o(b)' and 'if o(a) & o(b), Then o(a&b)', While validating detachment for conditional obligation
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185The Argument from the Persistence of Moral DisagreementIn Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Oxford University Press. 2008.
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180Is there a good argument against the incorrigibility thesis?Australasian Journal of Philosophy 51 (1): 51-62. 1973."the incorrigibility thesis", The thesis that it is logically impossible to be mistaken about such things as whether I am now in pain or am seeing or seeming to see something red, Is very widely supposed to be false. I consider the arguments designed to show this, And argue that they all fail
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175Ramsey Sentences and Avoiding the Sui GenerisIn Hallvard Lillehammer & D. H. Mellor (eds.), Ramsey's Legacy, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2005.
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160Michael Tye on Perceptual Content (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (1): 199-205. 2011.
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160From H2O to water: The relevance to A Priori passageIn Hallvard Lillehammer & Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (eds.), Real Metaphysics, Routledge. pp. 84-97. 2003.
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157Causation and the philosophy of mindPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (n/a): 195-214. 1990.
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151ResponsesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (3): 653-664. 2001.My summary is organised around themes.
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149Locke, expressivism, conditionalsAnalysis 63 (1): 86-92. 2003.The sentence ‘x is square’ might have had different truth conditions from those it in fact has. It might have had no truth conditions at all. Its having truth conditions and its having the ones it has rest on empirical facts about our use of ‘x is square’. What empirical facts? Any answer that goes into detail is inevitably highly controversial, but we think that there is a rough answer that is, by philosophers’ standards, relatively uncontroversial. It goes back to Locke 1689 and beyond, and is…Read more
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148Weakness of willMind 93 (369): 1-18. 1984.I think that clear sense can be made of weakness of will in terms of agents' acting against the dictates of their reason; and that this can be done without becoming enmeshed in the faculties of the mind, and without denying what is right about Humean views about reason and desire. My starting point is, in fact, a Humean position about reason and desire.
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147Is belief an internal state? (review)Philosophical Studies 132 (3): 571-580. 2007.This paper is a discussion of Michael Thau
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144PerceptionPhilosophical Books 19 (May): 49-56. 1978.Two Themes to the Course: a.) How are we to understand the contrast between direct and indirect or immediate and mediate perception? b.) Is there any cogent reason to think we don’t have sense experience of the world around us?
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141Mind, Method and Conditionals: Selected PapersRoutledge. 1998.First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company
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136Procrastinate RevisitedPacific Philosophical Quarterly 95 (4): 634-647. 2014.How is what an agent ought to do at time t related to what they ought to do over a period of time that includes t? I revisit an example that sheds light on this question, taking account of issues to do with the agent's intentions and the distinction between subjective and objective obligation
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135Responses (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (3): 653-664. 2001.I hope the Précis makes clear some of what I would say to the interesting issues my commentators raise. The responses that follow are focussed on a selection of these issues. There are many things I do not discuss for lack of space.
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131Some content is narrowIn John Heil & Alfred R. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation, Oxford University Press. 1993.ONE way t0 defend narrow content is to produce a sentence 0f the form ‘S believes that P’, and show that this sentence is true 0f S if and 0nly if it is true 0f any duplicate from the skin in, any doppclgangcr, of S. N0toriously, this is hard to d0. Twin Earth examples are pervasivc.1 Another way to defend narrow content; is t0 show that Only 2. narrow notion can play thc causal explanatory r01c we require 0f contcnt in 2. properly scicntiicm psychology 0r cognitive science. Notoriously, this is…Read more
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128A note on physicalism and heatAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (1): 26-34. 1980.This Article does not have an abstract
Acton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia