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7Wiggins' Second Thoughts on Identity (review)Philosophical Quarterly 31 (24): 260-268. 1981.Critical study of David Wiggins's Sameness and Substance (1980)
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4Russellian thoughts and methodological solipsismIn Jeremy Butterfield (ed.), Language, mind and logic, Cambridge University Press. pp. 67-91. 1986.
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84Against Strong PluralismPhilosophia 43 (4): 1081-1087. 2015.Strong pluralists hold that not even permanent material coincidence is enough for identity. Strong pluralism entails the possibility of purely material objects -- even if not coincident -- alike in all general respects, categorial and dispositional, relational and non-relational, past, present and future, at the microphysical level, but differing in some general modal, counterfactual or dispositional repscts at the macrophysical level. It is objectionable because it thus deprives us of the expla…Read more
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121Tollensing van InwagenPhilosophia 42 (4): 1055-1061. 2014.Van Inwagen has an ingenious argument for the non-existence of human artefacts . But the argument cannot be accepted, since human artefacts are everywhere. However, it cannot be ignored. The proper response to it is to treat it as a refutation of its least plausible premise, i.e., to ‘tollens’ it. I first set out van Inwagen’s argument. I then identify its least plausible premise and explain the consequence of denying it, that is, the acceptance of a plenitudinous, pluralist ontology. I argue th…Read more
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28Introducing PersonsPhilosophical Quarterly 38 (150): 123. 1988.This is an elegant and clear tour through many of the issues in philosophy of mind that have occupied philosophers of this century. The topics covered include the problem of other minds, arguments for and against the existence of the soul, a discussion of the bundle theory of the mind, behaviorism, functionalism, mind/brain identity, the argument against the possibility of private language, personal identity and the possibility of after-life, and the question of whether animals and computers can…Read more
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31Animalism versus Lockeanism: Reply to MackiePhilosophical Quarterly 51 (202): 83-90. 2001.I respond to criticisms by David Mackie of my previous paper on animalism and Lockeanism. I argue that the ‘transplant intuition’, that a person goes where his brain (or cerebrum) goes, is compatible both with animalism and Lockeanism. I give three arguments for this conclusion, two of them developing lines of thought in Parfit's work. However, I accept that animalism and Lockeanism are incompatible, and I go on to consider the difficulties for Lockeanism that this raises. The principal difficu…Read more
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41Frege: A Critical IntroductionPolity. 2001.This new book offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to Frege's remarkable philosophical work, examining the main areas of his writings and demonstrating the connections between them. Frege's main contribution to philosophy spans philosophical logic, the theory of meaning, mathematical logic and the philosophy of mathematics. The book clearly explains and assesses Frege's work in these areas, systematically examining his major concepts, and revealing the links between them. The empha…Read more
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10Introducing Persons, by Peter Carruthers (review)Philosophical Quarterly 38 (50): 123-127. 1988.
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291Constitution is identityMind 102 (405): 133-146. 1993.In his interesting article 'Constitution is not Identity' (1992), Mark Johnston argues that (in a sense soon to be explained) constitution is distinct from identity. In what follows, I dispute Johnston's contention.
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142Objects and identity: an examination of the relative identity thesis and its consequencesMartinus Nijhoff. 1980.In the first twelve chapters of this book, I am concerned with the Fregean notion of an object (the reference of a proper name) and its connection with the notion of identity. The rest of the book is devoted to a discussion of the problem of personal identity.
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146The Adequacy of Genuine Modal RealismMind 123 (491): 851-860. 2014.What are the requirements on an adequate genuine modal realist analysis of modal discourse? One is material adequacy: the modal realist must provide for each candidate analysandum an analysans in the language of counterpart theory which by his lights has the same truth value as the candidate analysandum. Must the material biconditional joining these be necessarily true? This is the requirement of strict adequacy. It is not satisfied if Lewis’s 1968 scheme provides the analysis. John Divers puts …Read more
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324Bird against the HumeansRatio 23 (1): 73-86. 2010.Debate between Humean contingentists and anti-Humean necessitarians in the philosophy of science is ongoing. One of the most important contemporary anti-Humeans is Alexander Bird. Bird calls the particular version of Humeanism he is opposed to 'categoricalism'. In his paper (2005) and in Chapter 4 of his book (2007) Bird argues against categoricalism about properties and laws. His arguments against categoricalism about properties are intended to support the necessitarian position he calls dispos…Read more
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134What is a one-level criterion of identity?Analysis 69 (2): 274-277. 2009.Standardly, a one-level criterion of identity 1 is given in the form: ∀ x∀ y )where ‘ K’ denotes the kind of thing for which the criterion is being given and ‘ R’ denotes the criterial relation.Thus, we have, for example, the criterion of identity for sets: ∀ x∀ y))and for composites: ∀ x∀ y))and for events: ∀ x∀ y)). is equivalent to the conjunction of: ∀ x and ∀ x )),which just give two necessary 2 conditions for application of the predicate ‘ K’. 3Consider now the reading of ‘ Kx’ as ‘ x is a…Read more
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53The Passage of TimeMetaphysica 16 (1). 2015.Eric Olson argues that the dynamic view of time must be false. It requires that the question ‘How fast does time pass?’ has an answer. But its only possible answer, one second per second, is not an answer. I argue that Olson has failed to identify what is wrong with talk of time’s passage. Then I argue that, nonetheless, he is right to reject it. To say that time passes is analogous to saying that space is dense, and to ask about the rate of time’s passage is analogous to asking how dense space …Read more
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87In Defence of the Sensible Theory of IndeterminacyMetaphysica 14 (2): 239-252. 2013.Can the world itself _be_ vague, so that rather than vagueness be a deficiency in our mode of describing the world, it is a necessary feature of any true description of it? Gareth Evans famously poses this question in his paper ‘Can There Be Vague Objects’ (Analysis 38(4):208, 1978 ). In his recent paper ‘Indeterminacy and Vagueness: Logic and Metaphysics’, Peter van Inwagen ( 2009 ) elaborates the account of vagueness and, in particular, in the case of sentences, consequent indeterminacy in tru…Read more
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229Plenitude, Pluralism, and Neo-Lockean PersonsJournal of Consciousness Studies 22 (11-12): 108-131. 2015.The paper discusses the arguments for and against animalism and concludes that a pluralist position which rejects animalism and embraces a multiplicity of thinkers is the best option.
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15The Will: A Dual Aspect Theory, by Brian O'Shaughessy (review)Philosophy 57 (219): 140-142. 1982.
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114Does ontic indeterminacy in boundaries entail ontic indeterminacy in identity?Analysis 68 (2): 174-176. 2008.
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7The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume 7: Theory of Knowledge (review)Philosophical Books 26 (2): 93-94. 1985.