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19On the “content” and “relevance” of information-theoretic epistemologyBehavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (1): 79-81. 1983.
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52Moral Relativism, Cognitivism and Defeasible RulesSocial Philosophy and Policy 11 (1): 116-138. 1994.Naturalism rejects a sui generis and fundamental realm of the evaluative or normative. Thought and talk about the good and the right must hence be understood without appeal to any such evaluative or normative concepts or properties. In Sections I and II, we see noncognitivism step forward with its account of evaluative and normative language as fundamentally optative or prescriptive. Prescriptivism falls afoul of several problems. Prominent among them below is the “problem of prima facie reasons…Read more
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19Vincent A. Tomas 1916-1995Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 69 (5). 1996.
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12Essays on the Philosophy of George Berkeley (edited book)D. Reidel. 1986.A tercentenary conference of March, 1985, drew to Newport, Rhode Island, nearly all the most distinguished Berkeley scholars now active. The conference was organized by the International Berkeley Society, with the support of several institutions and many people. This volume represents a selection of the lead papers deliv ered at that conference, most now revised. The Cartesian marriage of Mind and Body has proved an uneasy union. Each side has claimed supremacy and usurped the rights of the othe…Read more
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Consciousness of the Self and the PresentIn James E. Tomberlin (ed.), Agent, Language, and the Structure of the World: Essays Presented to Hector-Neri Castaneda With His Replies, Hackett. pp. 131-47. 1983.
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12External realism and philosophy in transitionJournal of Social Philosophy 22 (1): 183-186. 1991.This paper was written for a panel session, in which I was asked to represent an analytic perspective. On reflection I found that there is no such thing, however, and that what best unifies the analytic traditions is not even a set of questions, much less a set of answers, but only agreement on certain standards of clarity and argumentation, and an interest in dialectic and debate. Certain issues have long dominated the analytic agenda, it is true, and I see no better way to represent an analyti…Read more
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79Situations against virtues : the situationist attack on virtue theoryIn Chrysostomos Mantzavinos (ed.), Philosophy of the social sciences: philosophical theory and scientific practice, Cambridge University Press. pp. 274--290. 2009.
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193Metaphysics: An Anthology, 2nd Edition (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2011.Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this highly successful textbook continues to represent the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in metaphysics. In addition to updated material from the first edition, it presents entirely new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of material objects.
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122Varieties of CausationGrazer Philosophische Studien 11 (1): 93-103. 1980.According to nomological accounts of causation causal connections among events or states must be mediated by contingent laws of nature. Three types of causal connection are cited and discussed in opposition to such nomological accounts: (a) material causation (as when a zygote is generated by the union of an ovum and a sperm); (b) consequentialist causation (as when an apple is chromatically colored as a result of being red); (c) inclusive causation (as when a board is on a stump in consequence …Read more
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209A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume IOxford University Press. 2007.Ernest Sosa presents a new approach to the problems of knowledge and scepticism. He argues for two levels of knowledge, the animal and the reflective, each viewed as a distinctive human accomplishment. Sosa's virtue epistemology illuminates different varieties of scepticism, the nature and status of intuitions, and epistemic normativity.
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44Epistemology and primitive truthIn Michael P. Lynch (ed.), The Nature of Truth: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives, Mit Press. 2001.
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2Intuitions and truthIn Patrick Greenough & Michael Patrick Lynch (eds.), Truth and realism, Oxford University Press. pp. 208--26. 2006.
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53The Relevance of Moore and WittgensteinIn Albert Casullo & Joshua C. Thurow (eds.), The a Priori in Philosophy, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 186. 2013.
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43Abilities, concepts, and externalismIn Pascal Engel (ed.), Mental causation, Oxford University Press. 1995.
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Offtrack bets against the skepticIn Luper-Foy Steven (ed.), The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and His Critics, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 314. 1987.
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1719Davidson's EpistemologyIn Kirk Ludwig (ed.), Contemporary Philosophy in Focus: Donald Davidson, Cambridge University Press. 2003.Davidson’s epistemology, like Kant’s, features a transcendental argument as its centerpiece. Both philosophers reject any priority, whether epistemological or conceptual, of the subjective over the objective, attempting thus to solve the problem of the external world. For Davidson, three varieties of knowledge are coordinate—knowledge of the self, of other minds, and of the external world. None has priority. Despite the epistemologically coordinate status of the mind and the world, however, the …Read more
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107Responses to four criticsPhilosophical Studies 166 (3): 625-636. 2013.This alleged disagreement is only verbal, however, given my anti-intellectualist conception of a suitably broad category of ‘‘belief.’’ Although this broad conception figures large in my earlier writings, it figures not at all in the book under discussion, which helps explain H&H’s reaction. Here now is how I make the relevant distinctions and try to clarify what reflective knowledge amounts to, and how it comes in degrees
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84The coherence of virtue and the virtue of coherenceSynthese 64 (1). 1985.Polyfacetic epistemology would answer the skeptic, provide how-to-think manuals, explain how we know, and more. To some it is the project of assuring oneself, of validating one's knowledge or supposed knowledge, turning it into real and assured knowledge, thus defeating the skeptic. To others it is a set of rules or instructions, a guide to the perplexed, a manual for conducting the intellect. To others yet it is a meta-discipline, but one whose purpose is not nearly so much guidance as understa…Read more
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5On the propositional relation theory of perceptionGrazer Philosophische Studien 32 (1): 205-208. 1988.
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1Moore's ProofIn Susana Nuccetelli & Gary Seay (eds.), Themes From G. E. Moore: New Essays in Epistemology and Ethics, Oxford University Press. 2007.
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20Chapter seven. Knowledge: Instrumental and TestimonialIn Knowing Full Well, Princeton University Press. pp. 128-139. 2010.