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131E. J. Lowe on Vague Identity and Quantum IndeterminacyAnalysis 55 (1): 14-19. 1995.The paper defends Gareth Evan's argument against vague identity "de re" from a criticism that quantum mechanics provides actual counter-examples to its validity. A more general version of Evans's argument is stated in which identity involving properties are not essential and it is claimed that the scientific facts as so far known are consistent with the Evansian thesis that indeterminacy in truth-value must always be due to semantic indecision
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7Reply to Leslie StevensonPhilosophical Books 23 (1): 7-12. 1982.I shall reply to Mr Stevenson's criticisms of my Objects & Identity (1980) in the order in which they occur in his review; mostly this will be a matter of clearing up obvious confusions.
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107A flawed argument for perdurance – reply to braddon-Mitchell and MillerAnalysis 65 (2): 164-166. 2005.
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20Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics, edited by Barry Loewer and Georges Rey (review)Philosophical Books 33 (4): 232-234. 1992.
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247Perdurance, location and classical mereologyAnalysis 69 (3): 448-452. 2009.In his Ted Sider takes care to define the notion of a temporal part and his doctrine of perdurantism using only the temporally indexed notion of parthood – ‘ x is part of y at t’ – rather than the atemporal notion of classical mereology – ‘ x is a part of y’ – in order to forestall accusations of unintelligibility from his opponents. However, as he notes, endurantists do not necessarily reject the classical mereological notion as unintelligible. They allow that it makes sense and applies to atem…Read more
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47The Possibility of ReincarnationReligious Studies 26 (4): 483-491. 1990.Man has always hoped to survive his bodily death, and it is a central tenet of many religions that such survival is a reality. It has been supposed by many that one form such survival might take is reincarnation in another body. Subscribers to this view include Pythagoras, Plato sometimes, and a large number of Eastern thinkers. Other thinkers have, of course, disputed that reincarnation is a fact, and some have even denied that it is a possibility. But seldom has it been claimed by its opponent…Read more
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127Identity, constitution and microphysical supervenienceProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 99 (3): 273-288. 1999.The aim of the paper is to discuss some recent variants of familiar puzzles concerning the relations of parts to wholes put forward by Trenton Merricks and Eric Olson. The argument is put forward that so long as the familiar distinction between 'loose and popular' and 'strict and philosophical' senses of identity claims is accepted the paradoxical conclusions at which Merricks and Olson arrive can be resisted. It is not denied that accepting the distinction between 'loose and popular' and 'stric…Read more
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1Object-dependent thoughts: A case of superficial necessity but deep contingency?In Pascal Engel (ed.), Mental causation, Oxford University Press. 1995.
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50The Concept of IdentityPhilosophical Quarterly 34 (135): 175. 1984.In this book, Eli Hirsch focuses on identity through time, first with respect to ordinary bodies, then underlying matter, and eventually persons. These are linked at various points with other aspects of identity, such as the spatial unity of things, the unity of kinds, and the unity of groups. He investigates how our identity concept ordinarily operates in these respects. He also asks why this concept is so cental to our thinking and whether we can justify seeing the world in terms of such a con…Read more
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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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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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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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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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10Introducing Persons, by Peter Carruthers (review)Philosophical Quarterly 38 (50): 123-127. 1988.