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1The Emergent MindDissertation, Princeton University. 1993.Emergentists such as Samuel Alexander and C. Lloyd Morgan held that the mental is causally efficacious, supervenes on the physical, but does so mysteriously. We must accept the emergent mind, in Alexander's phrase, with "natural piety". Emergentism emerged late last century and all but disappeared in the twentieth. This dissertation attempts to revive the position. ;To explain psycho-physical supervenience is to provide a proof of the mental facts from the physical facts, such that mental vocabu…Read more
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201Inverted qualiaStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2004.Qualia inversion thought experiments are ubiquitous in contemporary philosophy of mind. The most popular kind is one or another variant of Locke's hypothetical case of
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121Subjectivity is no barrierBehavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (6): 949-950. 1999.Palmer's subjectivity barrier seems to be erected on a popular but highly suspect conception of visual experience, and his color room argument is invalid
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758McDowell and Wright on Anti-Scepticism etc.In Dylan Dodd & Elia Zardini (eds.), Scepticism and Perceptual Justification, Oxford University Press. 2014.On the assumption that we may learn from our elders and betters, this paper approaches some fundamental questions in perceptual epistemology through a dispute between McDowell and Wright about external world scepticism.
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217Hill on mindPhilosophical Studies 173 831-39. 2016.Hill's views on visual experience are critically examined
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24Review: Semantic Values? (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (1). 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.
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359Either / orIn Adrian Haddock & Fiona Macpherson (eds.), Disjunctivism: perception, action, knowledge, Oxford University Press. pp. 57-94. 2008.This essay surveys the varieties of disjunctivism about perceptual experience. Disjunctivism comes in two main flavours, metaphysical and epistemological.
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753Qualia ain't in the headNoûs 40 (2): 241-255. 2006.Qualia internalism is the thesis that qualia are intrinsic to their subjects: the experiences of intrinsic duplicates have the same qualia. Content externalism is the thesis that mental representation is an extrinsic matter, partly depending on what happens outside the head. 1 Intentionalism comes in strong and weak forms. In its weakest formulation, it is the thesis that representationally identical experiences of subjects have the same qualia. 2
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368Perception and evidencePhilosophical Studies 170 101-113. 2014.Critical discussion of Susanna Schellenberg's account of hallucination and perceptual evidence.
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103The primary issues concern whether objects have colours, and what sorts of properties the colours are. Some philosophers hold that nothing is coloured, others that colour are powers to affect perceivers, and others that colours are physical properties.
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170Knowing that I am thinkingIn Anthony Hatzimoysis (ed.), Self-Knowledge, Oxford University Press. 2008.Soc. …I speak of what I scarcely understand; but the soul when thinking appears to me to be just talking—asking questions of herself and answering them, affirming and denying. And when she has arrived at a decision, either gradually or by a sudden impulse, and has at last agreed, and does not doubt, this is called her opinion. I say, then, that to form an opinion is to speak, and opinion is a word spoken,—I mean, to oneself and in silence, not aloud or to another: What think you? Theaet. I agree…Read more
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136Semantic values? (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (1): 201-7. 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.
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230Consciousness and nonconceptual content (review)Philosophical Studies 113 (3): 261-274. 2003.Consciousness, Color, and Content is a significant contribution to our understanding of consciousness, among other things. I have learned a lot from it, as well as Tye’s other writings. What’s more, I actually agree with much of it – fortunately for this symposium, not all of it. The book continues the defense of the “PANIC” theory of phenomenal consciousness that Tye began in Ten Problems of Consciousness (1995). A fair chunk of it, though, is largely independent of this theory: the discussion o…Read more
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149IntroductionIn Alex Byrne & Heather Logue (eds.), Disjunctivism: Contemporary Readings, Mit Press. 2009.
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389Spin control: Comment on McDowell's Mind and WorldPhilosophical Issues 7 261-73. 1996.We have justified beliefs about the external world, and some of these are formed directly on the basis of perception. I may justifiably believe that a certain dog is in certain manger, and I may have this belief because I can see that the dog is in the manger. So far, so good
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1045BehaviourismIn S. D. Guttenplan (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. 1996.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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117As Gert says, the basic claim of representationism is that the phenomenal character of an experience supervenes on its representational content. Restricted to color experience, representationism may be put as follows
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40Review of Peter Ludlow, Yujin Nagasawa, Daniel Stoljar (eds.), There's Something About Mary (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (1). 2006.
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528David 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
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79Philosophy 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
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341Yes, 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.
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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..
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907The 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
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42Is 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
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30Some Like It Hot: Consciousness and Higher-Order ThoughtsPhilosophical Studies 86 (2): 103-129. 1997.
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620Bad intensionsIn Manuel Garcia-Carpintero & Maci (eds.), Two-Dimensional Semantics: Foundations and Applications, Oxford University 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