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74II—Exclusive IndividualsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 89 (1): 125-142. 2015.I agree with a great deal in Helen Steward's paper. I am especially sympathetic to her suggestion that we gain metaphysical illumination by considering various ways in which we arrive at ideas of certain kinds of individuals by abstraction from those of more basic kinds. My aim is to pursue that suggestion by exploring the proposal that a grounding node in this form of abstraction may be characterized by Exclusivity in spatial location. Steward claims that we arrive at our ideas of specific even…Read more
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74Reference and SubjectivityIn John Greco (ed.), Ernest Sosa and His Critics, Blackwell. 2004.In ‘Fregean Reference Defended’ (1995), Sosa presents a sophisticated descriptive theory of reference, which he calls ‘fregean’, and which he argues avoids standard counterexamples to more basic variants of this approach. What is characteristic of a fregean theory, in his sense, is the idea that what makes a person’s thought about some object, a, a thought about that particular thing, is the fact that a uniquely satisfies an appropriate individuator which is suitably operative in her thinking.1 …Read more
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67RepliesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (2): 449-464. 2001.In his comments, Richard Fumerton carefully develops two fundamental concerns with my views, which he interprets sympathetically, and almost entirely correctly. Before turning to these concerns, though, I must make one point about his concise opening statement of my principal claims. As I hope is clear from my précis, perceptual experiences provide reasons for empirical beliefs not simply in virtue of sharing demonstrative content with them. The key idea is that a person cannot properly grasp th…Read more
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56The Mind's Construction: The Ontology of Mind and Mental Action. By Matthew Soteriou. Oxford: Oxford University Press2013, pp. 400, £55. ISBN: 978-0-19-967845-7 (review)Philosophy 90 (2): 346-356. 2015.
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51Learning from experience: A commentary on baddeley and Weiskrantz (eds.), Attention: Selection, Awareness, and ControlMind and Language 10 (1-2): 181-193. 1995.
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47The Nature of Ordinary Objects (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2018.The metaphysics of ordinary objects is an increasingly vibrant field of study for philosophers. This volume gathers insights from a number of leading authors, who together tackle the central issues in contemporary debates about the subject. Their essays engage with topics including composition, persistence, perception, categories, images, artifacts, truthmakers, metaontology, and the relationship between the manifest and scientific images. Exploring the nature of everyday things, the contributor…Read more
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45Empirical reason: Questions for Gupta, McDowell, and SiegelPhilosophical Issues 29 (1): 311-323. 2019.Philosophical Issues, EarlyView.
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44Self-Knowledge and ExternalismThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 5 39-47. 2000.A person’s authoritative self-knowledge about the contents of his or her own beliefs is thought to cause problems for content externalism, for it appears to yield arguments constituting a wholly non-empirical source of empirical knowledge: knowledge that certain particular objects or kinds exist in the environment. I set out this objection to externalism, and present a new reply. Possession of an externalist concept is an epistemological skill: it depends upon the subject’s possession of demonst…Read more
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43Empirical reason: Answers to Gupta, McDowell, and SiegelPhilosophical Issues 29 (1): 366-377. 2019.Philosophical Issues, EarlyView.
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29Do Sense Experiential States Have Conceptual Content?In Matthias Steup & John Turri (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Blackwell. pp. 217--230. 2013.
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18I—The Presidential Address: The Objectivity of PerceptionProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 121 (1): 1-20. 2021.We believe that the ordinary physical objects that we perceive continue to exist unperceived; and this is intuitively an aspect of any authentic characterization of how the world appears to us in perception. But how can experience present its objects as continuing to exist beyond that very experience of them? Here I aim to explain this phenomenon. I start with an insight from Evans (1985). Familiar attempts to implement this insight fail, in my opinion. Here I introduce, motivate, defend, and el…Read more
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16Perception and ContentIn Jakob Lindgaard (ed.), John McDowell, Blackwell. 2008-03-17.This chapter contains sections titled: The Possibility of Falsity The Involvement of Generality Notes References.
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4The integration of spatial vision and actionIn Naomi M. Eilan (ed.), Spatial Representation: Problems in Philosophy and Psychology, Blackwell. 1993.
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1Introduction: Frames of Reference'In Naomi Eilan, Rosaleen A. McCarthy & Bill Brewer (eds.), Spatial Representation: Problems in Philosophy and Psychology, Blackwell. 1993.
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Objects and the explanation of perceptionIn Johan Gersel, Rasmus Thybo Jensen, Morten S. Thaning & Søren Overgaard (eds.), In the light of experience: new essays on perception and reasons, Oxford University Press. 2018.
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Introduction: ActionIn Naomi M. Eilan (ed.), Spatial Representation: Problems in Philosophy and Psychology, Blackwell. 1993.
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Workshop participantsIn Naomi Eilan, Rosaleen A. McCarthy & Bill Brewer (eds.), Spatial Representation: Problems in Philosophy and Psychology, Blackwell. pp. 400. 1993.
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Thoughts about objects, places and timesIn Objectivity, Simulation and the Unity of Consciousness, Oxford University Press. 1994.
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Spatial Representation. Problems in philosophy and psychologyRevue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 191 (1): 119-120. 2001.
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Attention and direct realismIn Adam Pautz & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Blockheads! Essays on Ned Block’s Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness, Mit Press. 2019.
London, London, City of, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Areas of Interest
17th/18th Century Philosophy |