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A Definite No-NoIn J. C. Beall (ed.), Liars and Heaps: New Essays on Paradox, Oxford University Press Uk. 2003.
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8The symmetry problemIn Jens Johansson Fred Feldman Ben Bradley (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death, Oxford University Press. pp. 234. 2013.
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2Vagueness and the logic of ordinary languageIn Dale Jacquette (ed.), Philosophy of Logic, North Holland. pp. 155. 2002.
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11Das Chinesische MusikzimmerDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 59 (1): 61-63. 2011.The founder of formalism, Eduard Hanslick compared listening to music to looking through a kaleidoscope. Unlike listening to a story, one can understand music without understanding what it is about. This contrast with language suggests a thought experiment that echoes John Searle′s Chinese Room. Instead of featuring a man who reliably manipulates Chinese symbols without knowing what they represent, consider a man who reliably manipulates sounds . Given formalism, the Turing Test should be an app…Read more
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51Philosophy for the EyeThe Philosophers' Magazine 42 (42): 31-39. 2008.The tower of language overshadows a cluster of smaller towers. These are the towers corresponding to the sensory systems. Tallest among this group is the tower of vision, “the master sense”.
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3Tired of being weak-willed? Do you want to end procrastination and back-sliding? Are you envious of those paragons of self-control who always do what they consider best? Thanks to a breakthrough in therapeutic philosophy, you too can now close the gap between what you think you ought to do and what you actually do. Just send $1000 to the address below and you will never again succumb to temptation. This is a MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE. The first time you do something that you know to be irrational, yo…Read more
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6Permission to CheatAnalysis 67 (3). 2007.Seizing the opportunity to apply what they had learned, the students declared a cheating competition. Outspoken participants (future lawyers, politicians, and captains of industry) bragged about their ruses. But to their chagrin, an ethics student prevailed
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1Slipping off the Slippery Slope: A Reply to Professor JacquettePhilosophy and Rhetoric 22 (3). 1989.
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14Pure Moorean PropositionsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 15 (3). 1985.This paper is devoted to a solution to Moore's problem. After explaining what Moore's problem is and after considering the main approaches toward solving the problem, I provide a definition of Moorean sentences in terms of pure Moorean propositions. My solution to Moore's problem essentially involves a description of how one can contradict oneself without uttering a contradiction, and a set of definitions that exactly determines which sentences are Moorean and which are close relatives of Moorea…Read more
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3The Vagueness of KnowledgeCanadian Journal of Philosophy 17 (4). 1987.This paper is intended to show how epistemologists can profit from the study of ways in which 'know' is vague. Topics include the kk thesis, Incorrigibility of sense data, A resemblance between infinity and vagueness, Common knowledge, Naive holism, Question-Begging, Epistemic universalizability, The prediction paradox, The completability of epistemology, And harman's social knowledge cases
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7Blindspotting and Choice Variations of the Prediction ParadoxAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 23 (4). 1986.
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8Modal Bloopers: Why Believable Impossibilities Are NecessaryAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 33 (3). 1996.
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10Precisification by Means of Vague PredicatesNotre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 29 (2): 267-275. 1988.
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20Thought experiments and the epistemology of lawsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 22 (1): 15-44. 1992.The aim of this paper is to show how thought experiments help us learn about laws. After providing examples of this kind of nomic illumination in the first section, I canvass explanations of our modal knowledge and opt for an evolutionary account. The basic application is that the laws of nature have led us to develop rough and ready intuitions of physical possibility which are then exploited by thought experimenters to reveal some of the very laws responsible for those intuitions. The good news…Read more
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6Pseudo-problems: how analytic philosophy gets doneRoutledge. 1993.In the twentieth century, philosophers tackled many of the philosophical problems of previous generations by dissolving them--attacking them as linguistic illusions and showing that the problems, when closely inspected, were not problems at all. Roy A. Sorensen takes the most important and interesting examples from one hundred years of analytic philosophy to consolidate a different theory of dissolution. Pseudo-Problems offers a fascinating alternative history of twentieth century analytic philo…Read more
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40Thought experimentsOxford University Press. 1992.Sorensen presents a general theory of thought experiments: what they are, how they work, what are their virtues and vices. On Sorensen's view, philosophy differs from science in degree, but not in kind. For this reason, he claims, it is possible to understand philosophical thought experiments by concentrating on their resemblance to scientific relatives. Lessons learned about scientific experimentation carry over to thought experiment, and vice versa. Sorensen also assesses the hazards and pseud…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophical Traditions |