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144Open knowledge and changing the subjectPhilosophical Studies 174 (4): 1047-1071. 2017.Knowledge is closed under implication, according to standard theories. Orthodoxy can allow, though, that apparent counterexamples to closure exist, much as Kripkeans recognize the existence of illusions of possibility which they seek to explain away. Should not everyone, orthodox or not, want to make sense of “intimations of openness”? This paper compares two styles of explanation: evidence that boosts P’s probability need not boost that of its consequence Q; evidence bearing on P’s subject matt…Read more
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143Prime causation (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2). 2005.No one doubts that mental states can be wide. Why should this seem to prevent them from causing behavior? Tim points to an "internalist line of thought"
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125Thoughts: papers on mind, meaning, and modalityOxford University Press. 2008.The real distinction between mind and body -- Is conceivability a guide to possibility? -- Textbook kripkeanism and the open texture of concepts -- Coulda, woulda, shoulda -- No fool's cold : notes on illusions of possibility -- Beyond rigidification : the importance of being really actual -- How in the world? -- Mental causation -- Singling out properties -- Wide causation -- Causal relevance : mental, moral, and epistemic.
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121Almog on Descartes’s Mind and Body (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (3). 2005.Descartes thought his mind and body could exist apart, and that this attested to a real distinction between them. The challenge as Almog initially describes it is to find a reading of “can exist apart” that is strong enough to establish a real distinction, yet weak enough to be justified by what Descartes offers as evidence: that DM and DB can be conceived apart.
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112'What am I?' Descartes and the mind-body problem - reply (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (3): 717-734. 2005.In his Meditations, René Descartes asks, "what am I?" His initial answer is "a man." But he soon discards it: "But what is a man? Shall I say 'a rational animal'? No: for then I should inquire what an animal is, what rationality is, and in this way one question would lead down the slope to harder ones." Instead of understanding what a man is, Descartes shifts to two new questions: "What is Mind?" and "What is Body?" These questions develop into Descartes's main philosophical preoccupation: the M…Read more
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110Circularity and ParadoxIn Thomas Bolander, Vincent F. Hendricks & Stig Andur Pedersen (eds.), Self-Reference, Csli Publications. pp. 139--157. 2006.
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87Hop, Skip and jump: The agonistic conception of truthPhilosophical Perspectives 7 371-396. 1993.
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84The Seven Habits of Highly Effective ThinkersThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 9 35-45. 2000.By effective thinkers I mean not people who think effectively, but people who understand “how it’s done,” i.e., people not paralyzed by the philosophical problem of epiphenomenalism. I argue that mental causes are not preempted by either neural or narrow content states, and that extrinsically individuated mental states are not out of proportion with their putative effects. I give three examples/models of how an extrinsic cause might be more proportional to an effect than the competition
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80Red, Bitter, Best (review)Philosophical Books 41 (1). 2002.Book reviewed in this article: Jackson, F., From Metaphysics to Ethics
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73The Metaphysics of Modality by Graeme Forbes (review)Journal of Philosophy 85 (6): 329-337. 1988.
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68Kment on counterfactualsAnalysis 77 (1): 148-155. 2017.Review of Kment, "*Modality and Explanatory Reasoning*, with an emphasis on counterfactuals.
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65A paradox of existenceIn T. Hofweber & A. Everett (eds.), Empty Names, Fiction, and the Puzzles of Non-Existence, Csli Publications. pp. 275--312. 2000.ontology metaontology wright platonism fregean existence epistemology
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60Replies to commentatorsPhilosophical Studies 174 (3): 809-820. 2017.I reply to three commentators—Friederike Moltmann, Daniel Rothschild, and Zoltán Szabó—on six topics—sense and reference, the unity of subject matter, questions, presupposition, partial truth, and content mereology.
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55Review: Concepts and Consciousness (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (2). 1999.I. The Conscious Mind is a hugely likable book. Perceptive, candid, and instructive page by page, the work as a whole sets out a large and uplifting vision with cheeringly un-Dover-Beach-ish implications for “our place in the universe.” A book that you can’t helping wanting to believe as much as you can’t help wanting to believe this one doesn’t come along every day. It is with real regret that I proceed to the story of why belief would not come.
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424. A Semantic Conception of TruthmakingIn Aboutness, Princeton University Press. pp. 54-76. 2014.
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38Corrections to "Hop, Skip, and jump: The agonistic conception of truth:Philosophical Perspectives 9 503-506. 1995.
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