-
325Do we see more than we can access?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 5 (5-6): 501-502. 2007.Short commentary on a paper by Ned Block
-
115Color realism revisitedBehavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (6): 791-793. 2003.Our reply is in four parts. The first part, R1, addresses objections to our claim that there might be “unknowable” color facts. The second part, R2, discusses the use we make of opponent process theory. The third part, R3, examines the question of whether colors are causes. The fourth part, R4, takes up some issues concerning the content of visual experience.
-
1008Color realism and color scienceBehavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (1): 3-21. 2003.The target article is an attempt to make some progress on the problem of color realism. Are objects colored? And what is the nature of the color properties? We defend the view that physical objects (for instance, tomatoes, radishes, and rubies) are colored, and that colors are physical properties, specifically types of reflectance. This is probably a minority opinion, at least among color scientists. Textbooks frequently claim that physical objects are not colored, and that the colors are "subje…Read more
-
213Color realism reduxBehavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (1): 52-59. 2003.Our reply is in three parts. The first part concerns some foundational issues in the debate about color realism. The second part addresses the many objections to the version of physicalism about color ("productance physicalism") defended in the target article. The third part discusses the leading alternative approaches and theories endorsed by the commentators.
-
72Against the PCA-analysisAnalysis 58 (1): 38-44. 1998.Jonardon Ganeri, Paul Noordhof, and Murali Ramachandran (1996) have proposed a new counterfactual analysis of causation. We argue that this – the PCA-analysis – is incorrect. In section 1, we explain David Lewis’s first counterfactual analysis of causation, and a problem that led him to propose a second. In section 2 we explain the PCA-analysis, advertised as an improvement on Lewis’s later account. We then give counterexamples to the necessity (section 3) and sufficiency (section 4) of the PCA-an…Read more
-
146Basic sensible qualities and the structure of appearancePhilosophical Issues 18 (1): 385-405. 2008.A sensible quality is a perceptible property, a property that physical objects (or events) perceptually appear to have. Thus smells, tastes, colors and shapes are sensible qualities. An egg, for example, may smell rotten, taste sour, and look cream and round.1,2 The sensible qualities are not a miscellanous jumble—they form complex structures. Crimson, magenta, and chartreuse are not merely three different shades of color: the first two are more similar than either is to the third. Familiar colo…Read more
-
1162Pronoun ProblemsJournal of Controversial Ideas 3 (1): 1-22. 2023.In recent years, pronouns have become a white-hot interface between language and social and political issues. “My pronouns are he/they” signals allegiance to one side in the culture wars, as does “My pronouns are whatever.” But there is surprisingly little philosophical work at this interface; this paper aims to chart the main questions and argue for some answers, with the hope of stimulating more research.
-
242Papineau on Sensory ExperienceOxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind 3 308-17. 2023.Comment on David Papineau's _The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience_
-
1797Hallucination and Its ObjectsPhilosophical Review 131 (3): 327-359. 2022.When one visually hallucinates, the object of one’s hallucination is not before one’s eyes. On the standard view, that is because the object of hallucination does not exist, and so is not anywhere. Many different defenses of the standard view are on offer; each have problems. This paper defends the view that there is always an object of hallucination—a physical object, sometimes with spatiotemporally scattered parts.
-
122Perception and ProbabilityPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2): 343-363. 2021.Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 2, Page 343-363, March 2022.
-
216Appendix to "The female of the species: reply to Heartsilver"Journal of Controversial Ideas 2 (1). 2022.More discussion of some issues raised in "The female of the species: reply to Heartsilver", Journal of Controversial Ideas 2: 1-22 (2022)
-
492The female of the species: reply to HeartsilverJournal of Controversial Ideas 2 (1-22). 2022.Maggie Heartsilver’s “Deflating Byrne’s ‘Are women adult human females?’” subjects the arguments and conclusion of “Are women ...?” to a probing and comprehensive stress test. The present paper responds to Heartsilver’s objections, and also discusses the significance of the proposition that trans women are women.
-
277Smithies’s Mentalism and E=KAnalysis 81 (4): 774-782. 2022.Comment on Declan Smithies's book The Epistemic Role of Consciousness (2019).
-
89Readings on Color I: The Philosophy of Color (edited book)MIT Press. 1997.Edward Wilson Averill By the phrase 'anthropocentric account of color' I mean an account of color that makes an assumption of the following form: two ...
-
270Knowing By Perceiving, by Alan MillarMind 132 (527): 852-861. 2021.Millar has written a valuable monograph on perceptual knowledge. Knowing By Perceiving is careful and detailed, at times laborious, delivering many insights. Oc.
-
660How do things look to the color-blind?In Jonathan Cohen & Mohan Matthen (eds.), Color Ontology and Color Science, Bradford. pp. 259. 2010.Color-vision defects constitute a spectrum of disorders with varying degrees and types of departure from normal human color vision. One form of color-vision defect is dichromacy; by mixing together only two lights, the dichromat can match any light, unlike normal trichromatic humans, who need to mix three. In a philosophical context, our titular question may be taken in two ways. First, it can be taken at face value as a question about visible properties of external objects, and second, it may b…Read more
-
359Rosenthal on mental qualitiesIn Josh Weisberg (ed.), Qualitative Consciousness: Themes From the Philosophy of David Rosenthal, Cambridge University Press. 2022.David Rosenthal couples his higher-order thought theory of consciousness with a theory of “mental qualities”, properties of mental states. The first thesis of this paper is that there are no mental qualities as Rosenthal conceives of them. The second thesis is that Rosenthal’s residual insights are significant. They naturally lead to a simple first-order theory of consciousness.
-
1460Perception and probabilityPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2): 1-21. 2021.One very popular framework in contemporary epistemology is Bayesian. The central epistemic state is subjective confidence, or credence. Traditional epistemic states like belief and knowledge tend to be sidelined, or even dispensed with entirely. Credences are often introduced as familiar mental states, merely in need of a special label for the purposes of epistemology. But whether they are implicitly recognized by the folk or posits of a sophisticated scientific psychology, they do not appear to…Read more
-
77Content and modality: themes from the philosophy of Robert Stalnaker (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2006.Eleven distinguished philosophers have contributed specially written essays on a set of topics much debated in recent years, including physicalism, qualia, semantic competence, conditionals, presuppositions, two-dimensional semantics, and the relation between logic and metaphysics. All these topics are prominent in the work of Robert Stalnaker, a major presence in contemporary philosophy, in honor of whom the volume is published. It also contains a substantial new essay in which Stalnaker replie…Read more
-
165Gender identity is ill-suited as a basis for non-discrimination protections, as proposed in the 2019 Equality Act. Biological sex provides a clearer and better means to the same laudable end.
-
714Comment on Yli-Vakkuri and Hawthorne, Narrow ContentPhilosophical Studies 178 (9): 3017-3026. 2020.This comment mainly examines Yli-Vakkuri and Hawthorne’s preferred framework for examining whether narrow content is viable, arguing that their framework is not well-suited to the task; once a more traditional framework is adopted, Y&H’s case against internalism is strengthened.
-
7971Gender muddle: reply to DembroffJournal of Controversial Ideas 1 (1). 2021.Dembroff’s “Escaping the natural attitude about gender” replies to my “Are women adult human females?”. This paper responds to Dembroff’s many criticisms of my arguments, as well as to the charge that “Are women...” “fundamentally is an unscholarly attempt to vindicate a political slogan that is currently being used to undermine civic rights and respect for trans persons”. I argue that Dembroff’s criticisms fail without exception, and explain why the claims about my motives are baseless.
-
114Discussion of Anil Gupta's “Outline of an Account of Experience”Analytic Philosophy 59 (1): 75-88. 2018.
-
1395Concepts, Belief, and PerceptionIn Christoph Demmerling & Dirk Schroder (eds.), Concepts in Thought, Action, and Emotion: New Essays, Routledge. 2020.At least in one well-motivated sense of ‘concept’, all perception involves concepts, even perception as practiced by lizards and bees. That is because—the paper argues—all perception involves belief.
-
22059Are women adult human females?Philosophical Studies 177 (12): 3783-3803. 2020.Are women (simply) adult human females? Dictionaries suggest that they are. However, philosophers who have explicitly considered the question invariably answer no. This paper argues that they are wrong. The orthodox view is that the category *woman* is a social category, like the categories *widow* and *police officer*, although exactly what this social category consists in is a matter of considerable disagreement. In any event, orthodoxy has it that *woman* is definitely not a biological catego…Read more
-
556Review of Brewer, Perception and Its Objects (review)Mind 130 (517). 2021.Review of Perception and Its Objects (OUP 2011), by Bill Brewer
-
486Schellenberg’s CapacitismAnalysis 79 (4): 713-19. 2019.The Unity of Perception offers a grand synoptic vision of how perception, consciousness and knowledge fit together. It is a remarkable achievement. A short comment can only address fragments of Schellenberg’s picture; naturally I will look for weak spots.
-
1142The science of color and color visionIn Derek H. Brown & Fiona Macpherson (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour, Routledge. 2021.A survey of color science and color vision.
-
812Objectivist reductionismIn Derek H. Brown & Fiona Macpherson (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour, Routledge. 2021.A survey of arguments for and against the view that colors are physical properties.
-
569Color relationalism and relativismTopics in Cognitive Science 9 (1): 172-192. 2017.This paper critically examines color relationalism and color relativism, two theories of color that are allegedly supported by variation in normal human color vision. We mostly discuss color relationalism, defended at length in Jonathan Cohen's The Red and the Real, and argue that the theory has insuperable problems.