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634Does 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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3390The real distinction between mind and bodyCanadian Journal of Philosophy 16 (sup1): 149--201. 1990.Descartes's "conceivability argument" for substance-dualism is defended against Arnauld's criticism that, for all he knows, Descartes can conceive himself without a body only because he underestimates his true essence; one could suggest with equal plausibility that it is only for ignorance of his essential hairiness that Descartes can conceive himself as bald. Conceivability intuitions are defeasible but special reasons are required; a model for such defeat is offered, and various potential defe…Read more
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179Truth and reflectionJournal of Philosophical Logic 14 (3). 1985.Many topics have not been covered, in most cases because I don't know quite what to say about them. Would it be possible to add a decidability predicate to the language? What about stronger connectives, like exclusion negation or Lukasiewicz implication? Would an expanded language do better at expressing its own semantics? Would it contain new and more terrible paradoxes? Can the account be supplemented with a workable notion of inherent truth (see note 36)? In what sense does stage semantics li…Read more
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88Hop, Skip and jump: The agonistic conception of truthPhilosophical Perspectives 7 371-396. 1993.
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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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141Prime 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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1113Ifs, Ands, and Buts: An Incremental Truthmaker Semantics for Indicative ConditionalsAnalytic Philosophy 57 (1): 175-213. 2016.
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201New Grounds for Naive Truth TheoryIn J. C. Beall (ed.), Liars and Heaps: New Essays on Paradox, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 312-330. 2003.
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75The Metaphysics of Modality by Graeme Forbes (review)Journal of Philosophy 85 (6): 329-337. 1988.
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286Cause and essenceSynthese 93 (3). 1992.Essence and causation are fundamental in metaphysics, but little is said about their relations. Some essential properties are of course causal, as it is essential to footprints to have been caused by feet. But I am interested less in causation's role in essence than the reverse: the bearing a thing's essence has on its causal powers. That essencemight make a causal contribution is hinted already by the counterfactual element in causation; and the hint is confirmed by the explanation essence offe…Read more
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