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25The Real Distinction Between Mind and BodyCanadian Journal of Philosophy 20 (sup1): 149-201. 1990.….it [is] wholly irrational to regard as doubtful matters that are perceived clearly and distinctly by the understanding in its purity, on account of mere prejudices of the senses and hypotheses in which there is an element of the unknown.Descartes, Geometrical Exposition of the MeditationsSubstance dualism, once a main preoccupation of Western metaphysics, has fallen strangely out of view; today’s mental/physical dualisms are dualisms of fact, property, or event. So if someone claims to find a …Read more
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861Must existence-questions have answers?In David Chalmers, David Manley & Ryan Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, Oxford University Press. pp. 507-525. 2009.
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424. A Semantic Conception of TruthmakingIn Aboutness, Princeton University Press. pp. 54-76. 2014.
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183. Inclusion in Metaphysics and SemanticsIn Aboutness, Princeton University Press. pp. 45-53. 2014.
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371Superproportionality and mind-body relationsTheoria 16 (40): 65-75. 2001.Mental causes are threatened from two directions: from below, since they would appear to be screened off by lower-order, e.g., neural states; and from within, since they would also appear to be screened off by intrinsic, e.g., syntactical states. A principle needed to parry the first threat -causes should be proportional to their effects- appears to leave us open to the second; for why should unneeded extrinsic detail be any less offensive to proportionality than excess microstructure? I say tha…Read more
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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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14Prime Causation1Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2): 459-467. 2007.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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1195Knights, Knaves, Truth, Truthfulness, Grounding, Tethering, Aboutness, and ParadoxIn Melvin Fitting (ed.), Essays for Raymond Smullyan, . 2017.
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207Explanation, Extrapolation, and ExistenceMind 121 (484): 1007-1029. 2012.Mark Colyvan (2010) raises two problems for ‘easy road’ nominalism about mathematical objects. The first is that a theory’s mathematical commitments may run too deep to permit the extraction of nominalistic content. Taking the math out is, or could be, like taking the hobbits out of Lord of the Rings. I agree with the ‘could be’, but not (or not yet) the ‘is’. A notion of logical subtraction is developed that supports the possibility, questioned by Colyvan, of bracketing a theory’s mathematical …Read more
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2541Non-catastrophic presupposition failureIn Judith Thomson & Alex Byrne (eds.), Content and Modality: Themes From the Philosophy of Robert Stalnaker, Oxford University Press. 2006.
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126Thoughts: 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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110Circularity and ParadoxIn Thomas Bolander, Vincent F. Hendricks & Stig Andur Pedersen (eds.), Self-Reference, Csli Publications. pp. 139--157. 2006.
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581Saul Kripke: Philosophical Troubles: Collected Papers, Volume 1 (review)Journal of Philosophy 110 (4): 221-229. 2013.
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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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1746Is conceivability a guide to possibility?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (1): 1-42. 1993.
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