-
100Perception and ordinary objectsIn Javier Cumpa & Bill Brewer (eds.), The Nature of Ordinary Objects, Cambridge University Press. 2018.The paper argues -- against the standard view in metaphysics -- that the existence of ordinary objects like tomatoes is (near-enough) established by the fact that such things are apparently encountered in perception.
-
51Is sex binary?Arc Digital (nov 1). 2018.Response to Anne Fausto-Sterling's New York Times Op-Ed, in which she purports to explain why sex isn't binary.
-
15Readings on Color, Volume 1: The Philosophy of ColorMIT Press. 1997."This admirable volume of readings is the first of a pair: the editors are to be applauded for placing the philosophy of color exactly where it should go, in ...
-
14Transparency and Self-KnowledgeOxford University Press. 2018.You know what someone else is thinking and feeling by observing them. But how do you know what you are thinking and feeling? This is the problem of self-knowledge: Alex Byrne tries to solve it. The idea is that you know this not by taking a special kind of look at your own mind, but by an inference from a premise about your environment.
-
1Review: Soames on Quine and Davidson (review)Philosophical Studies 135 (3): 439-449. 2007.A discussion of Quine and Davidson, as interpreted and criticized in Scott Soames' "Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume II"
-
103Do Colours Look Like Dispositions? Reply to Langsam and OthersPhilosophical Quarterly 51 (203): 238-245. 2001.Dispositional theories of colour have been attacked by McGinn and others on the ground that ‘Colours do not look like dispositions’. Langsam has argued that on the contrary they do, in ‘Why Colours Do Look Like Dispositions’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 50 , pp. 68–75. I make three claims. First, neither side has made its case. Secondly, it is true, at least on one interpretation, that colours do not look like dispositions. Thirdly, this does not show that dispositionalism about colours is fals…Read more
-
27Color and similarityPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (3): 641-65. 2003.Anything is similar to anything, provided the respects of similarity are allowed to be gerrymandered or gruesome, as Goodman observed.2 But similarity in non-gruesome or—as I shall say—genuine respects is much less ecumenical. Colors, it seems, provide a compelling illustration of the distinction as applied to similarities among properties.3 For instance, in innumerable gruesome respects, blue is more similar to yellow than to purple. But in a genuine respect, blue is more similar to purple than…Read more
-
26Color and the Mind‐Body ProblemDialectica 60 (2): 223-44. 2006.b>: there is no “mind-body problem”, or “hard problem of consciousness”; if there is a hard problem of something, it is the problem of reconciling the manifest and scientific images
-
15Some like it HOT: Consciousness and higher-order thoughtsPhilosophical Studies 86 (2): 103-29. 1997.Consciousness is the subject of many metaphors, and one of the most hardy perennials compares consciousness to a spotlight, illuminating certain mental goings-on, while leaving others to do their work in the dark. One way of elaborating the spotlight metaphor is this: mental events are loaded on to one end of a conveyer belt by the senses, and move with the belt
-
82David Hume, David Lewis, and decision theoryMind 106 (423): 411-728. 1997.David Lewis claims that a simple sort of anti-Humeanism-that the rational agent desires something to the extent he believes it to be good-can be given a decision-theoretic formulation, which Lewis calls 'Desire as Belief' (DAB). Given the (widely held) assumption that Jeffrey conditionalising is a rationally permissible way to change one's mind in the face of new evidence, Lewis proves that DAB leads to absurdity. Thus, according to Lewis, the simple form of anti-Humeanism stands refuted. In thi…Read more
-
12Philosophy of MindPhilosophical Review 107 (1): 113. 1998.In the preface, Kim writes hopefully that his introduction to the philosophy of mind is “intended to be accessible to those without a formal background in philosophy”. The blurb at the end is more realistic: Philosophy of Mind is “a textbook for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students”. It is an admirable addition to Westview’s excellent Dimensions of Philosophy series. Brisk, workmanlike chapters profile the usual suspects: behaviorism, the identity theory, mind as computer and as caus…Read more
-
16Yes, Virginia, Lemons are YellowPhilosophical Studies 108 (1-2): 213-222. 2002.This paper discusses a number of themes and arguments in The Quest for Reality: Stroud's distinction between “philosophical” and “ordinary” questions about reality; the similarity he finds between the view that coloris “unreal” and the view that it is “subjective”; his argument against thesecondary quality theory; his argument against the error theory; and the “disappointing” conclusion of the book.
-
22analytic tradition, from its early 20th-century roots in the work of G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell through Saul Kripke’s pioneering advances in..
-
146The epistemic significance of experiencePhilosophical Studies 173 947-67. 2016.According to orthodoxy, perceptual beliefs are caused by perceptual experiences. The paper argues that this view makes it impossible to explain how experiences can be epistemically significant. A rival account, on which experiences in the “good case” are ways of knowing, is set out and defended
-
9Is snow white?Boston Review. 2005.CURRENT ISSUE table of contents FEATURES new democracy forum new fiction forum poetry fiction film archives ABOUT US masthead mission rave reviews contests writers? guidelines internships advertising SERVICES bookstore locator literary links subscribe
-
7Some Like It Hot: Consciousness and Higher-Order ThoughtsPhilosophical Studies 86 (2): 103-129. 1997.
-
10Bad intensionsIn Manuel García-Carpintero & Josep Macià (eds.), Two-Dimensional Semantics, Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 38--54. 2006._the a priori role_ (for word T). For instance, perhaps anyone who understands the word _water_ is able to know, without appeal to any further a posteriori information, that _water_ refers to the clear, drinkable natural kind whose instances are predominant in our oceans and lakes (if _water_ refers at all
-
172InterpretivismEuropean Review of Philosophy 3 (Response-Dependence): 199-223. 1998.In the writings of Daniel Dennett and Donald Davidson we find something like the following bold conjecture: it is an a priori truth that there is no gap between our best judgements of a subject's beliefs and desires and the truth about the subject's beliefs and desires. Under ideal conditions a subject's belief-box and desire-box become transparent.
-
14Something about MaryGrazer Philosophische Studien 63 (1): 27-52. 2002.Jackson's black-and-white Mary teaches us that the propositional content of perception cannot be fully expressed in language.
-
2Review of Uriah Kriegel (ed.), Phenomenal Intentionality (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2013.
-
67Experience and contentPhilosophical Quarterly 59 (236): 429-451. 2009.The 'content view', in slogan form, is 'Perceptual experiences have representational content'. I explain why the content view should be reformulated to remove any reference to 'experiences'. I then argue, against Bill Brewer, Charles Travis and others, that the content view is true. One corollary of the discussion is that the content of perception is relatively thin (confined, in the visual case, to roughly the output of 'mid-level' vision). Finally, I argue (briefly) that the opponents of the c…Read more
-
12Comments on Cohen, Mizrahi, Maund, and LevineDialectica 60 223-244. 2006.Cohen begins by defining ‘Color Physicalism’ so that the position is incompatible with Color Relationalism (unlike Byrne and Hilbert 2003, 7, and note 18). Physicalism, in any event, is something of a distraction, since Cohen’s argument from perceptual variation is directed against any view on which minor color misperception is common (Byrne and Hilbert 2004). A typical color primitivist, for example, is equally vulnerable to the argument. Suppose that normal human observers S1 and S2 are viewin…Read more
-
1Two radical neuron doctrinesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (5): 833-833. 1999.G&S describe the radical neuron doctrine in a number of slightly different ways, and we think this hides an important distinction. On the one hand, the radical neuron doctrine is supposed to have the consequence "that a successful theory of the mind will make no reference to anything like the concepts of linguistics or the psychological sciences as we currently understand them", and so Chomskyan linguistics "is doomed from the beginning" (sect. 2.2.2, paras. 2,3).[1] (Note that `a successful the…Read more
-
132Knowing what I wantIn JeeLoo Liu & John Perry (eds.), Consciousness and the Self: New Essays, Cambridge University Press. 2011.How do you know what you want? The question is neglected by epistemologists. This paper attempts an answer.
-
1Semantic Values?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (1): 201-207. 2002.Lance and Hawthorne have served up a large, rich and argument-stuffed book that has much to teach us about central issues in the philosophy of language, as well as sports trivia. I shall concentrate, not surprisingly, on points I either disagreed with or found unclear; there are many acute observations, particularly in the second half of the book, that fall into neither of these categories.