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539Deeply contingent a priori knowledgePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2): 247-269. 2002.The argument is not, however, problem-free. First: while the meaning of s might not guarantee a verifying state of affairs, mightn’t the fact of one’s believing that s is true guarantee a verifying state of affairs? And mightn’t this fact be exploited to secure knowledge of truths that are deeply contingent? Second: the argument seems to rely on the principle that if I can conceive that not P is actually the case, then I do not know that P. But it is generally agreed that a knowledge-conferring …Read more
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396Causal structuralismIn Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Metaphysics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 361--78. 2018.
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305DisjunctivismAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 80 (1): 145-83. 2006.[John Hawthorne] We examine some well-known disjunctivist projects in the philosophy of perception, mainly in a critical vein. Our discussion is divided into four parts. Following some introductory remarks, we examine in part two the link between object-dependent contents and disjunctivism. In part three, we explore the disjunctivist's use of discriminability facts as a basis for understanding experience. In part four, we examine an interesting argument for disjunctivism that has been offered by…Read more
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523Contemporary debates in metaphysics (edited book)Blackwell. 2008.This anthology introduces advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students to today's debates in metaphysics. The book consists of essays by contemporary metaphysicians, and all but one appear here for the first time. For each of nine topics, there are two essays, one "pro-" and one "con-".
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255Cartesian DualismIn Peter van Inwagen & D. Zimmerman (eds.), Persons Human and Divine, Oxford University Press. 2007.In this short paper, I shall examine some key structural features of Descartes’s metaphysics, as it relates to mind–body dualism. The style of presentation will partly be one of rational reconstruction, designed to present the Cartesian system in a way that will be of maximal interest to contemporary metaphysicians. Section 1 focuses on five key Cartesian theses about principal attributes. Sections 2 and 3 examine how those theses play themselves out in Descartes’s discussion of mind–body dualism
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251Blocking Definitions of MaterialismPhilosophical Studies 110 (2): 103-113. 2002.It is often thought that materialism about themind can be clarified using the concept of supervenience. But there is a difficulty. Amaterialist should admit the possibility ofghosts and thus should allow that a world mightduplicate the physical character of our worldand enjoy, in addition, immaterial beings withmental properties. So materialists can't claimthat every world that is physicallyindistinguishable from our world is alsomentally indistinguishable; and this is wellknown. What is less un…Read more
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826Belief is weakPhilosophical Studies 173 (5): 1393-1404. 2016.It is tempting to posit an intimate relationship between belief and assertion. The speech act of assertion seems like a way of transferring the speaker’s belief to his or her audience. If this is right, then you might think that the evidential warrant required for asserting a proposition is just the same as the warrant for believing it. We call this thesis entitlement equality. We argue here that entitlement equality is false, because our everyday notion of belief is unambiguously a weak one. Be…Read more
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418Assertion, Context, and Epistemic AccessibilityMind 118 (470): 377-397. 2009.In his seminal paper 'Assertion', Robert Stalnaker distinguishes between the semantic content of a sentence on an occasion of use and the content asserted by an utterance of that sentence on that occasion. While in general the assertoric content of an utterance is simply its semantic content, the mechanisms of conversation sometimes force the two apart. Of special interest in this connection is one of the principles governing assertoric content in the framework, one according to which the assert…Read more
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2A Neglected Cartesian Argument for DualismIn Peter van Inwagen & Dean Zimmerman (eds.), Persons: Human and Divine, Clarendon Press. 2007.
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303A note on 'languages and language'Australasian Journal of Philosophy 68 (1). 1990.This Article does not have an abstract
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607The Real Guide to Fake Barns: A Catalogue of Gifts for Your Epistemic EnemiesPhilosophical Studies 124 (3): 331-352. 2005.Perhaps the concept of knowledge, prior to its being fashioned and molded by certain philosophical traditions, never offered any stable negative verdict in the original fake barn case.
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50Oxford Studies in Epistemology:Volume 2: Volume 2 (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2007.OSE is a biennial publication which offers a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board, it will publish exemplary papers in epistemology, broadly construed. Anyone wanting to understand the latest developments in the discipline can start here.
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3Oxford Studies in Epistemology: Volume 3 (edited book)Oxford University Press UK. 2007.Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a biennial publicaton which offers a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board composed of leading philosophers in North America, Europe and Australasia, it will publish exemplary papers in epistemology, broadly construed. Topics within its purview include: *traditional epistemological questions concerning the nature of belief, justification, and knowledge, the status of scepticism, t…Read more
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IntroductionIn Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Conceivability and Possibility, Oxford University Press. 2002.
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IntroductionIn Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Perceptual experience, Oxford University Press. 2006.
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412ScepticismIn William J. Abraham Frederick D. Aquino (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology, Oxford University Press. pp. 290-308. 2017.To what extent are the answers to theological questions knowable? And if the relevant answers are knowable, which sorts of inquirers are in a position to know them? In this chapter we shall not answer these questions directly but instead supply a range of tools that may help us make progress here. The tools consist of plausible structural constraints on knowledge. After articulating them, we shall go on to indicate some ways in which they interact with theological scepticism. In some cases the s…Read more
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3Leibniz on Superessentialism and World-Bound IndividualsStudia Leibnitiana 22 (2): 175-183. 1990.Unsere Diskussion soil eine Alternative zu der allgemein anerkannten Interpretation der Leibnizschen Auffassung von De-re-Modalitat verteidigen. Insbesondere versuchen wir zu zeigen, dafi Leibniz nicht die Lehre von der Weltgebundenheit der Einzelsubstanzen akzeptierte, obwohl er annahm, dafi die inneren Bestimmungen den Dingen wesentlich zukommen. Wir versuchen weiterhin zu erweisen, dafl Leibniz eine duplikat-theoretische Behandlung des ublichen modalen Diskurses vornahm und dafi dies in keine…Read more
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1439Epistemic Modals in ContextIn Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Contextualism in Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 131-170. 2005.A very simple contextualist treatment of a sentence containing an epistemic modal, e.g. a might be F, is that it is true iff for all the contextually salient community knows, a is F. It is widely agreed that the simple theory will not work in some cases, but the counterexamples produced so far seem amenable to a more complicated contextualist theory. We argue, however, that no contextualist theory can capture the evaluations speakers naturally make of sentences containing epistemic modals. If we…Read more
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64Leibnizian Modality Again: Reply to MurrayThe Leibniz Review 10 87-101. 2000.Purdue University and Syracuse University.
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18Leibnizian Modality Again: Reply to MurrayThe Leibniz Review 10 87-101. 2000.Purdue University and Syracuse University.
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74Leibnizian Essentialism, Transworld Identity, and CounterpartsHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 9 (4). 1992.
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378Locations and bindingAnalysis 67 (2): 95-105. 2007.It is natural to think that the relationship between ‘rain’ and the location of rain is different from the relationship between ‘dance’ and the location of dancing. Utterances of (1) are typically interpreted as, in some sense, being about a location in which it rains. (2) is, typically, not interpreted as being about a location in which the dancing takes place
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123Reply to Glanzberg, Soames and WeathersonAnalysis 71 (1): 143-156. 2011.One of Weatherson's main goals is to drive home a methodological point: We shouldn't be looking for deductive arguments for or against relativism – we should instead be evaluating inductive arguments designed to show that either relativism or some alternative offers the best explanation of some data. Our focus in Chapter Two on diagnostics for shared content allegedly encourages the search for deductive arguments and so does more harm than good. We have no methodological slogan of our own to off…Read more
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