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428Coincidence comes in two varieties – permanent and temporary. Moderate monism is the position that permanent coincidence, but not temporary coincidence, entails identity. Extreme monism is the position that even temporary coincidence entails identity. Pluralists are opponents of monism tout court. The intuitively obvious, commonsensical position is moderate monism. It is therefore important to see if it can be sustained.
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42Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kripke and Naming and NecessityRoutledge. 2012.Saul Kripke is one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. His most celebrated work, Naming and Necessity , makes arguably the most important contribution to the philosophy of language and metaphysics in recent years. Asking fundamental questions – how do names refer to things in the world? Do objects have essential properties? What are natural kind terms and to what do they refer? – he challenges prevailing theories of language and conceptions of metaphysics, especially the…Read more
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102A Flaw in Kripke’s Modal Argument?Philosophia 41 (3): 841-846. 2013.The response to Kripke’s modal argument I wish to propose appeals to the distinction between indicative descriptions, i.e., descriptions formed using indicative verb forms, and what I shall call subjunctive descriptions, descriptions formed using non-indicative verb forms used in subjunctive conditionals. The contrast is between ‘the person who is richer than anyone else in the world’ and ‘the person who would have been richer than anyone else in the world’. The response to Kripke’s modal argume…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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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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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
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Identity and the first personIn Cora Diamond & Jenny Teichman (eds.), Intention and Intentionality: Essays in Honor of G. E. M. Anscombe, Cornell University Press. 1979.
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145Personal Identity (2nd edition)Routledge. 2003.Personal Identity is a comprehensive introduction to the nature of the self and its relation to the body. Harold Noonan places the problem of personal identity in the context of more general puzzles about identity, discussing the major historical theories and more recent debates. The second edition of Personal Identity contains a new chapter on 'animalism' and a new section on vagueness
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185The closest continuer theory of identityInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 28 (1-4): 195-229. 1985.A plausible principle governing identity is that whether a later individual is identical with an earlier individual cannot ever merely depend on whether there are, at the later time, any better candidates for identity with the earlier individual around. This principle has been a bone of contention amongst philosophers interested in identity for many years. In his latest book Philosophical Explanations Robert Nozick presents what I believe to be the strongest case yet made out for the rejection o…Read more
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21Names and BeliefProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81 93-108. 1981.Section I of what follows sets out and develops a few points about a version of the description theory of proper names. Both quasi-names and Kripke's 'puzzle about belief' present problems for such an account. I explore the difficulties that quasi-names create in Section II, and discuss Kripke's puzzle in Section III.