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145Open 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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153Things: papers on objects, events, and propertiesOxford University Press. 2010.Identity, Essence, and Indiscernibility - Intrinsicness - Cause and Essence - Advertisement for a Sketch of an Outline of a Prototheory of Causation - Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake? - Apriority and Existence - Go Figure: A Path through Fictionalism - Abstract Objects: A Case Study - The Myth of the Seven - Carving Content at the Joints - Non-Catastrophic Presupposition Failure - Must Existence-Questions Have Answers?
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251Carving Content at the JointsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 38 (S1): 145-177. 2008.Here is Frege in Foundations of Arithmetic, § 64:The judgment 'Line a is parallel to line b', in symbols: ab, can be taken as an identity. If we do this, we obtain the concept of direction, and say: 'The direction of line a is equal to the direction of line b.' Thus we replace the symbol by the more generic symbol =, through removing what is specific in the content of the former and dividing it between a and b. We carve up the content in a way different from the original way, and this yields us …Read more
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1586Advertisement for a sketch of an outline of a proto-theory of causationIn Ned Hall, L. A. Paul & John Collins (eds.), Causation and Counterfactuals, Mit Press. pp. 119-137. 2004.
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235Permission and (So-Called Epistemic) PossibilityIn Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann (eds.), Modality: metaphysics, logic, and epistemology, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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161Necessity, Essence, and Individuation: A Defense of ConventionalismPhilosophical Review 101 (4): 878. 1992.
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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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474Coulda, woulda, shouldaIn Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Conceivability and Possibility, Oxford University Press. pp. 441-492. 2002.
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2Illusions of possibilityIn Manuel Garcia-Carpintero & Josep Macià (eds.), Two-Dimensional Semantics, Clarendon Press. 2006.
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520The myth of the sevenIn Mark Eli Kalderon (ed.), Fictionalism in Metaphysics, Clarendon Press. pp. 88--115. 2005.
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1937A Priority and ExistenceIn Paul Artin Boghossian & Christopher Peacocke (eds.), New Essays on the A Priori, Oxford University Press. pp. 197--228. 2000.
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670Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 72 (1). 1998.[Stephen Yablo] The usual charge against Carnap's internal/external distinction is one of 'guilt by association with analytic/synthetic'. But it can be freed of this association, to become the distinction between statements made within make-believe games and those made outside them-or, rather, a special case of it with some claim to be called the metaphorical/literal distinction. Not even Quine considers figurative speech committal, so this turns the tables somewhat. To determine our ontological…Read more
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