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29The Case for PerduranceIn Gerhard Preyer & Frank Siebelt (eds.), Reality and Humean Supervenience: Essays on the Philosophy of David Lewis, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2001.
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81Locke on Personal IdentityPhilosophy 53 (205): 343-351. 1978.In part I of this paper I defend Locke's account of personal identity against three well-known objections; in part II, I put forward a criticism of my own
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The commonalities between proper names and natural kind terms : a Fregean perspectiveIn Helen Beebee & Nigel Sabbarton-Leary (eds.), The Semantics and Metaphysics of Natural Kinds, Routledge. pp. 84-103. 2010.
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123The Four-Dimensional WorldAnalysis 37 (1): 32-39. 1976.This paper defends the view of continuants as 'four-dimensional worms' against an argument of Geach's. This is to the effect that if continuants are four-dimensional worms then their stages either do, or do not, fall under the very general terms satisfied by the continuants themselves (a stage of a man either is, or is not, a man); but that either alternative is untenable. I try to show how the former alternative may be defended by appealing to some of Geach's own ideas about identity; then go o…Read more
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220Count Nouns and Mass NounsAnalysis 38 (4): 167-172. 1978.The paper argues that one distinction between concrete count nouns and concrete mass nouns is that geach's derelativization thesis is valid for the former but not valid for the latter. That is, Where 'f' is a concrete count noun 'x is (an) f' means 'for some y, X is the same f as y', But where 'f' is a concrete mass noun this is not so; rather, In this case, 'x is f' is tantamount to 'for some y, X is the f of y'. It is further suggested that abstract nouns are in this respect to be grouped with…Read more
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53Relative identity: a reply to Nicholas GriffinMind 89 (353): 96-98. 1980.In the October 1978 issue of Mind, Nicholas Griffin puts forward a criticism of one of my arguments in 'Wiggins on Identity'. Although I would not now wish to defend everything I said in that paper, the argument Griffin attacks still seems to me to be a good one. In what follows, I explain why I think his criticism fails to strike home.
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433Personal pronoun revisionism - asking the right questionAnalysis 72 (2): 316-318. 2012.Personal pronoun revisionism (so-called by Olson, E. 2007. What are We? A Study in Personal Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press) is a response to the problem of the thinking animal on behalf of the neo-Lockean theorist. Many worry about this response. The worry rests on asking the wrong question, namely: how can two thinkers that are so alike differ in this way in their cognitive capacities? This is the wrong question because they don't. The right question is: how can they fail to be the s…Read more
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2The self and personal identityIn Alan Bailey & Dan O'Brien (eds.), The Continuum Companion to Hume, Continuum. pp. 167. 2012.
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25Persons, animals, and human beingsIn Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke & Harry S. Silverstein (eds.), Time and Identity, Bradford. 2010.This chapter discusses the suggestion that a psychological approach must be mistaken, because, in fact, the correct account of personal identity is given by the biological approach, according to which we are human beings whose identity over time requires no kind of psychological continuity or connectedness whatsoever. A number of authors support this suggestion, including Paul Snowdon, Peter van Inwagen, and Eric Olson. This also presumes that humans, i.e. members of the species Homo sapiens, ar…Read more
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44The epistemological problem of relativism – reply to OlsonPhilosophical Studies 104 (3): 323-336. 2001.
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6Bertrand Russell's Dialogue with his Contemporaries, by Elizabeth Ramsden Eames (review)Philosophical Books 32 (2): 86-88. 1991.
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235Animalism versus lockeanism: A current controversyPhilosophical Quarterly 48 (192): 302-318. 1998.
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131Vague Identity Yet AgainAnalysis 50 (3): 157-162. 1990.The paper defends Gareth Evans's argument against vague identity. It appeals to a principle I name the principle of the diversity of the definitely dissimilar to defend the thesis that vague identity statements owe their indeterminacy to vagueness in language