•  374
    Very few (if any) people believe that the world was created, and is maintained, by a thoroughly contemptible and malicious being. Do we have good reason for our disbelief? In the first part of this paper I offer an argument for the non-existence of such a being. According to this argument there is just too much good - too may good things - in the world for the ‘malicious being’ theory to be plausible. In the second part of the paper I briefly consider the applicability of similar arguments to …Read more
  •  50
    Cartesian Semantics
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17 (1): 63-70. 1987.
    Descartes thought he could suppose he was the victim of massive deception in regard to the external world. In fact he undertakes the supposing of it.I will … suppose that … a certain evil spirit, not less clever and deceitful than powerful, has bent all his efforts to deceiving me. I will think that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds, and all other external things are nothing but illusions and dreams that he has used to trick my credulity. I will regard myself as having no hands…Read more
  • Philo, a Jewish philosopher, is interesting for various reasons. For one thing, he was a contemporary of Jesus who was deeply interested in all things related to religion but apparently never heard of Jesus. For another his view of God presumably shows one (radical, but possible) set of ideas about God available at that time.
  •  39
    Indeterminate people
    Analysis 45 (3): 141-145. 1985.
    Here is the paper that was attacked by George Rea in his “How many minds…?” paper. Has this issue been resolved? Can there be entities such that there is no definite answer to the question “Are there 13 minds at work here, or 14?”
  •  56
    Three Kinds of Classses
    American Philosophical Quarterly 3 (1): 77-188. 1966.
    This is a boiled down version of my doctoral dissertation. Ryle wouldn’t publish it, claiming that it is like ‘a well sharpened pencil that no one will ever use.’ I guess he turned out to be right. Nevertheless I think it was, and is, a good paper.
  •  632
    This paper attempts to show that Scott Soames has not given us an example of a contingent a priori truth. (What it probably shows is how confused I am on this topic.)