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431Personal 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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44The epistemological problem of relativism – reply to OlsonPhilosophical Studies 104 (3): 323-336. 2001.
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25Persons, animals, and human beingsIn Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke & Harry Silverstein (eds.), Time and Identity, Mit Press. 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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6Bertrand Russell's Dialogue with his Contemporaries, by Elizabeth Ramsden Eames (review)Philosophical Books 32 (2): 86-88. 1991.
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234Animalism 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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134Personal 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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9Determinism, Blameworthiness and Deprivation, by Martha Klein (review)Mind 101 (401): 178-179. 1992.
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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.
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34A flaw in Sider's vagueness argument for unrestricted mereological compositionAnalysis 70 (4): 669-672. 2010.
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83Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hume on KnowledgeRoutledge. 1999.David Hume was one of the most important British philosophers of the eighteenth century. The first part of his _Treatise on Human Nature_ is a seminal work in philosophy. _Hume on Knowledge_ introduces and assesses: * Humes life and the background of the _Treatise_ * The ideas and text in the _Treatise_ * Humes continuing importance to philosophy.
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73Tibbles the cat – reply to BurkePhilosophical Studies 95 (3): 215-218. 1999.In his interesting article, Michael Burke (1996) offers a novel solution to the puzzle of Tibbles, the cat, a solution he says, which is based on Aristotelian essentialism. In what follows I argue that, despite its ingenuity, Burke’s solution can be seen to be too implausible to be accepted once we extend it to a variant of the puzzle Burke himself suggests. The conclusion must be that one of the other solutions to the puzzle must be correct. Or, perhaps, that there is no correct solution and th…Read more