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141The KK-Principle, Margins for Error, and SafetyErkenntnis 76 (1): 121-136. 2012.This paper considers, and rejects, three strategies aimed at showing that the KK-principle fails even in most favourable circumstances (all emerging from Williamson’s Knowledge and its Limits ). The case against the final strategy provides positive grounds for thinking that the principle should hold good in such situations
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107Noordhof on probabilistic causationMind 109 (434): 309-313. 2000.In a recent article, Paul Noordhof (1999) has put forward an intriguing account of causation intended to work under the assumption of indeterminism. I am going to present four problems for the account, three which challenge the necessity of the conditions he specifies, and one which challenges their joint-sufficiency.
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160How Believing Can Fail to Be KnowingTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 21 (2): 185-194. 2006.This paper defends a simple, externalist account of knowledge, incorporating familiar conditions mentioned in the literature, and responds to Timothy Williamson’s charge that any such analysis is futile because knowledge is semantically un-analyzable. The response, in short, is that even though such an account may not offer a reductive analysis of knowledge-by way of more basic, non-circular concepts-it still has an explanatory advantage over Williamson’s own position: it explains how belief can…Read more
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73Bach on Behalf of RussellAnalysis 55 (4). 1995.An utterance of a sentence involving an incomplete (definite) description, ‘the F’, where the context—even taking the speaker’s intentions into account—does not determine a unique F, would be unintelligible. But an utterance (in the same context) of the corresponding Russellian paraphrase would not be unintelligible. So I urged in ‘A Strawsonian objection to Russell’s theory of descriptions’ (ANALYSIS 53, 1993, pp. 209-12). I compared an utterance of (1) The table is covered with books. with an …Read more
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47The Ambiguity Thesis Versus Kripke's Defence of RussellMind and Language 11 (4): 371-387. 1996.In his influential paper 'Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference', Kripke defends Russell's theory of descriptions against the charge that the existence of referential and attributive uses of descriptions reflects a semantic ambiguity. He presents a purely defensive argument to show that Russell's theory is not refuted by the referential usage and a number of methodological considerations which apparently tell in favour of Russell's unitary theory over an ambiguity theory. In this paper, I p…Read more
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216Williamson’s Argument Against the KK-Principle 157The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 1. 2005.Timothy Williamson (2000 ch. 5) presents a reductio against the luminosity of knowing, against, that is, the so-called KK-principle: if one knows p, then one knows (or is at least in a position to know) that one knows p.1 I do not endorse the principle, but I do not think Williamson’s argument succeeds in refuting it. My aim here is to show that the KK-principle is not the most obvious culprit behind the contradiction Williamson derives.
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51Sortal modal logic and counterpart theoryAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (4). 1998.This Article does not have an abstract
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182Kripkean Counterpart TheoryPolish Journal of Philosophy 2 (2): 89-106. 2008.David Lewis’s counterpart-theoretic semantics for quantified modal logic is motivated originally by worries about identifying objects across possible worlds; the counterpart relation is grounded more cautiously on comparative similarity. The possibility of contingent identity is an unsought -- and in some eyes, unwelcome -- consequence of this approach. In this paper I motivate a Kripkean counterpart theory by way of defending the prior, pre-theoretical, coherence of contingent directness. Conti…Read more
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227Descriptions and pressupositions: Strawson vs. RussellSouth African Journal of Philosophy 27 (3): 242-257. 2008.A Russellian theory of (definite) descriptions takes an utterance of the form ‘The F is G' to express a purely general proposition that affirms the existence of a (contextually) unique F: there is exactly one F [which is C] and it is G. Strawson, by contrast, takes the utterer to presuppose in some sense that there is exactly one salient F, but this is not part of what is asserted; rather, when the presupposition is not met the utterance simply fails to express a (true or false) proposition. A d…Read more
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1A Counterfactual Analysis of Indeterministic CausationIn J. Collins, E. J. Hall & L. A. Paul (eds.), Causation and Counterfactuals, Mit Press. 2004.
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248Rigidity, occasional identity and Leibniz' lawPhilosophical Quarterly 50 (201): 518-526. 2000.André Gallois (1998) attempts to defend the occasional identity thesis (OIT), the thesis that objects which are distinct at one time may nonetheless be identical at another time, in the face of two influential lines of argument against it. One argument involves Kripke’s (1971) notion of rigid designation and the other, Leibniz’s law (affirming the indiscernibility of identicals). It is reasonable for advocates of (OIT) to question the picture of rigid designation and the version of Leibniz’s law…Read more
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92On restricting rigidityMind 101 (401): 141-144. 1992.In this note I revive a lingering (albeit dormant) account of rigid designation from the pages of Mind with the aim of laying it to rest. Why let a sleeping dog lie when you can put it down? André Gallois (1986) has proposed an account of rigid designators that allegedly squares with Saul Kripke’s (1980) characterisation of them as terms which designate the same object in all possible worlds, but on which, contra Kripke, identity sentences involving rigid designators may be merely contingently t…Read more
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1Interdeterministic causation and varieties of chance-raisingIn Phil Dowe & Paul Noordhof (eds.), Cause and Chance: Causation in an Indeterministic World, Routledge. 2003.
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Bilkent UniversityRegular Faculty
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |