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17Truth as Convenient FrictionIn Robert B. Talisse & Scott F. Aikin (eds.), The Pragmatism Reader: From Peirce Through the Present, Princeton University Press. pp. 451-470. 2011.
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84Global Expressivism by the Method of DifferencesRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 86 133-154. 2007.In this piece I characterise global expressivism, as I understand it, by contrasting it with five other views: the so-called Canberra Plan; Moorean non-naturalism and platonism; ‘relaxed realism’ and quietism; local expressivism; and response-dependent realism. Some other familiar positions, including fictionalism, error theories, and idealism, are also mentioned, but as sub-cases to one of these five.
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131Making a Difference: Essays on the Philosophy of Causation (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2017.Making a Difference presents fifteen original essays on causation and counterfactuals by an international team of experts. Collectively, they represent the state of the art on these topics. The essays in this volume are inspired by the life and work of Peter Menzies, who made a difference in the lives of students, colleagues, and friends. Topics covered include: the semantics of counterfactuals, agency theories of causation, the context-sensitivity of causal claims, structural equation models, m…Read more
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394What Makes Time Special?Philosophical Review 128 (2): 250-254. 2019.This is my review of Craig Callender's book What Makes Time Special?
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53Carnapian Voluntarism and Global Expressivism: Reply to CarusThe Monist 101 (4): 468-474. 2018.In defending so-called global expressivism I have often seen Carnap as an ally. Both Carnap’s rejection of “externalist” metaphysics and his implicit pluralism about linguistic frameworks seem grist for the global expressivist’s mill. André Carus argues for a third point of connection, via Carnap’s voluntarism. I note two reasons for thinking that this connection is not as close as Carus contends.
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504Ramsey and Joyce on Deliberation and PredictionSynthese 197 4365-4386. 2020.Can an agent deliberating about an action A hold a meaningful credence that she will do A? 'No', say some authors, for 'Deliberation Crowds Out Prediction' (DCOP). Others disagree, but we argue here that such disagreements are often terminological. We explain why DCOP holds in a Ramseyian operationalist model of credence, but show that it is trivial to extend this model so that DCOP fails. We then discuss a model due to Joyce, and show that Joyce's rejection of DCOP rests on terminological choic…Read more
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352New Slant on the EPR-Bell ExperimentBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (2): 297-324. 2013.The best case for thinking that quantum mechanics is nonlocal rests on Bell's Theorem, and later results of the same kind. However, the correlations characteristic of Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR)–Bell (EPRB) experiments also arise in familiar cases elsewhere in quantum mechanics (QM), where the two measurements involved are timelike rather than spacelike separated; and in which the correlations are usually assumed to have a local causal explanation, requiring no action-at-a-distance (AAD). It i…Read more
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49Review Essays: The Common Mind: An Essay on Psychology, Society and PoliticsThe Common Mind: An Essay on Psychology, Society and Politics (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (3): 689. 1995.The dustjacket of The Common Mind bears a photograph of the traffic at a Sydney intersection on a wet winter’s evening in 1938. It is rush hour, and the homeward traffic conveys a fine sense of common purpose. The scene has a special resonance for me, for I stood at that very spot with my parents and brothers one similar evening in 1966, on the day we first arrived in Australia. There was a marked pedestrian crossing there then, which we set out to negotiate, taking it for granted that the relev…Read more
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42The Practical Turn: Pragmatism in Britain in the Long Twentieth Century (edited book)Oup/Ba. 2016.Pragmatism is the idea that philosophical concepts must start with, and remain linked to human experience and inquiry. This book traces and assesses the influence of American pragmatism on British philosophy, with emphasis on Cambridge in the inter-war period, post-war Oxford, and recent developments.
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19Naturalism and the Fate of the M-Worlds: Huw PriceSupplement to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 71 (1): 247-268. 1997.
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566"Click!" Bait for CausalistsIn Arif Ahmed (ed.), Newcomb's Problem, Cambridge University Press. pp. 160-179. 2018.Causalists and Evidentialists can agree about the right course of action in an (apparent) Newcomb problem, if the causal facts are not as initially they seem. If declining $1,000 causes the Predictor to have placed $1m in the opaque box, CDT agrees with EDT that one-boxing is rational. This creates a difficulty for Causalists. We explain the problem with reference to Dummett's work on backward causation and Lewis's on chance and crystal balls. We show that the possibility that the causal facts …Read more
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487Heart of DARCnessAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (1): 136-150. 2019.There is a long-standing disagreement in the philosophy of probability and Bayesian decision theory about whether an agent can hold a meaningful credence about an upcoming action, while she deliberates about what to do. Can she believe that it is, say, 70% probable that she will do A, while she chooses whether to do A? No, say some philosophers, for Deliberation Crowds Out Prediction (DCOP), but others disagree. In this paper, we propose a valid core for DCOP, and identify terminological causes …Read more
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83Bare functional desireAnalysis 49 (4): 162-69. 1989.The purpose of this paper is to sound two notes of caution about a beguiling argument for the negative answer: for the Humean view that desires cannot be beliefs, or cognitive states more generally.
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183Expressivism for Two VoicesIn Pragmatism, Science and Naturalism, Peter Lang. pp. 87-113. 2011.I discuss the relationship between the two forms of expressivism defended by Robert Brandom, on one hand, and philosophers in the Humean tradition, such as Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard, on the other. I identify three apparent points of difference between the two programs, but argue that all three are superficial. Both projects benefit from the insights of the other, and the combination is in a natural sense a global expressivism
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104It has been suggested that some of the puzzles of QM are resolved if we allow that there is retrocausality in the quantum world. In particular, it has been claimed that this approach offers a path to a Lorentz-invariant explanation of Bell correlations, and other manifestations of quantum "nonlocality", without action-at-a-distance. Some writers have suggested that this proposal can be supported by an appeal to time-symmetry, claiming that if QM were made "more time-symmetric", retrocausality wo…Read more
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215Causation, Physics and the Constitution of Reality: Russell’s Republic Revisited (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2007.The difference between cause and effect seems obvious and crucial in ordinary life, yet missing from modern physics. Almost a century ago, Bertrand Russell called the law of causality 'a relic of a bygone age'. In this important collection 13 leading scholars revisit Russell's revolutionary conclusion, discussing one of the most significant and puzzling issues in contemporary thought
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126It is often objected that the Everett interpretation of QM cannot make sense of quantum probabilities, in one or both of two ways: either it can’t make sense of probability at all, or it can’t explain why probability should be governed by the Born rule. David Deutsch has attempted to meet these objections. He argues not only that rational decision under uncertainty makes sense in the Everett interpretation, but also that under reasonable assumptions, the credences of a rational agent in an Evere…Read more
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184Three Norms of Assertibility, or How the Moa became ExtinctNoûs 32 (S12). 1998.holds for all central declarative sentences. According to deflationists, the key to an understanding of truth lies in an appreciation of the grammatical advantages of a predicate satisfying DS. As Paul Horwich puts it, “our truth predicate is merely a logical device enabling simple formulations of certain sorts of generalization.” (1996, p. 878; see also Horwich 1990)
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61The arrow of time is one of the big unclaimed prizes of modern physics. The problem is to reconcile the temporal asymmetry of thermodynamics with the apparent temporal symmetry of fundamental physical theories. Some major players have wrestled with the issue over the past century or so, but is still up for grabs--and very much in the air of late, having been discussed in recent books by Stephen Hawking..
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102Blackburn and the war on errorAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (4). 2006.In the opening line of his essay ‘On Truth’, Francis Bacon ticks off Pontius Pilate for not giving the subject its due time and gravity—‘“What is truth?”, said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.’ If Pilate had stayed for an answer, he would have been waiting a long time—four centuries after Bacon, and twenty after Christ, the jury is still out. But things do seem to have been moving along quite nicely, this past century or so; and as Pilate might note with satisfaction, he himself …Read more
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90Mellor, chance and the single caseBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 35 (1): 11-23. 1984.
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37. A case for causal republicanism?In Huw Price & Richard Corry (eds.), Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality: Russell's Republic Revisited, Oxford University Press. 2006.
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212One of the outstanding achievements of recent cosmology has been to offer some prospect of a unified explanation of temporal asymmetry. The explanation is in two main parts, and runs something like this. First, the various asymmetries we observe are all thermodynamic in origin – all products of the fact that we live in an epoch in which the universe is far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Second, this thermodynamic disequilibrium is associated with the condition of the universe very soon after th…Read more
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30Starving the Theological Cuckoo: Review of John Leslie. Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology (review)Spontaneous Generations 1 (1): 136. 2007.
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48Bertrand Russell’s celebrated essay “On the Notion of Cause” was first delivered to the Aristotelian Society on 4 November 1912, as Russell’s Presidential Address. The piece is best known for a passage in which its author deftly positions himself between the traditional metaphysics of causation and the British crown, firing broadsides in both directions: “The law of causality”, Russell declares, “Like much that passes muster in philosophy, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy…Read more