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What phenomenal consciousness is likeIn Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology, John Benjamins. 2004.The terminology surrounding the dispute between higher-order and first-order theories of consciousness is piled so high that it sometimes obscures the view. When the debris is cleared away, there is a real prospect
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Inverted qualiaIn Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Metaphysics Research Lab. 2014.
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132Introspection and evidenceIn Maria Lasonen-Aarnio & Clayton Littlejohn (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence, Routledge. pp. 318-28. 2024.
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165Ashley on gender identityJournal of Controversial Ideas 4 (1): 1-10. 2024.‘Gender identity’ was clearly defined sixty years ago, but the dominant conceptions of gender identity today are deeply obscure. Florence Ashley’s 2023 theory of gender identity is one of the latest attempts at demystification. Although Ashley’s paper is not fully coherent, a coherent theory of gender identity can be extracted from it. That theory, we argue, is clearly false. It is psychologically very implausible, and does not support ‘firstperson authority over gender’, as Ashley claims. We a…Read more
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Introspection and evidenceIn Maria Lasonen-Aarnio & Clayton Littlejohn (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence, Routledge. 2019.
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267Seeing or Saying?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 108 (2): 528-535. 2024.Comment on Brogaard's Seeing and Saying (OUP 2018)
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538Whither naive realism? - IPhilosophical Perspectives (1): 1-20. 2023.Different authors offer subtly different characterizations of naïve realism. We disentangle the main ones and argue that illusions provide the best proving ground for naïve realism and its main rival, representationalism. According to naïve realism, illusions never involve per- ceptual error. We assess two leading attempts to explain apparent perceptual error away, from William Fish and Bill Brewer, and conclude that they fail. Another lead- ing attempt is assessed in a companion paper, which al…Read more
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843More on "Gender Identity"Archives of Sexual Behavior. 2023.Continuing correspondence on 'gender identity'.
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78Readings on Color, Volume 2: The Science of Color (edited book)MIT Press. 1997.These volumes will serve as useful resources for anyone interested in philosophy of color perception or color science.
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1BIn Samuel Guttenplan (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. 2017.Introductory texts in the philosophy of mind often begin with a discussion of behaviourism, presented as one of the few theories of mind that have been conclusively refuted. But matters are not that simple: behaviourism, in one form or another, is still alive and kicking.
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5Experience and ContentIn Katherine Hawley & Fiona Macpherson (eds.), The Admissible Contents of Experience, Wiley. 2011.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
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3904The origin of "gender identity"Archives of Sexual Behavior. 2023.A Letter to the Editor about the origin of "gender identity" and deficiencies in its current definition
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776Color PrimitivismErkenntnis 66 (1-2). 2006.The typical kind of color realism is reductive: the color properties are identified with properties specified in other terms (as ways of altering light, for instance). If no reductive analysis is available — if the colors are primitive sui generis properties — this is often taken to be a convincing argument for eliminativism. That is, realist primitivism is usually thought to be untenable. The realist preference for reductive theories of color over the last few decades is particularly striking i…Read more
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57Unique huesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (2): 184-185. 1997.Saunders & van Brakel argue, inter alia, that there is for the claim that there are four unique hues (red, green, blue, and yellow), and that there are two corresponding opponent processes. We argue that this is quite mistaken
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441Truest blueAnalysis 67 (1): 87-92. 2007.1. The “puzzle” Physical objects are coloured: roses are red, violets are blue, and so forth. In particular, physical objects have fine-grained shades of colour: a certain chip, we can suppose, is true blue (unique, or pure blue). The following sort of scenario is commonplace. The chip looks true blue to John; in the same (ordinary) viewing conditions it looks (slightly) greenish-blue to Jane. Both John and Jane are “normal” perceivers. Now, nothing can be both true blue and greenish-blue; since…Read more
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84Purple Haze: The Puzzle of ConsciousnessPhilosophical Review 111 (4): 594-597. 2002.This much-anticipated book is a detailed elaboration and defense of Levine’s influential claim that there is an “explanatory gap” between the mental and the physical.
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324Do 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
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113Color 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.
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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.
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1003Color 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
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197Against 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
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248Basic 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
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1109Pronoun 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.
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233Papineau on Sensory ExperienceOxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind 3 308-17. 2023.Comment on David Papineau's _The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience_
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1757Hallucination 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.
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132Perception and ProbabilityPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2): 343-363. 2021.Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 2, Page 343-363, March 2022.
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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)