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641What Physical Properties ArePacific Philosophical Quarterly 82 (2): 201-225. 2001.This paper concerns the question of how to specify what is to count as physical for the purposes of debates concerning either physicalism or the completeness of physics. I argue that what is needed from an account of the physical depends primarily on the particular issue at stake, and that the demand for a general a priori specification of the physical is misplaced. A number of attempts to say what should be counted as physical are defended from recent attacks by Chris Daly, and a specific proposa…Read more
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19Transcendental realism defended: a response to AllanSouth African Journal of Philosophy 17 (3): 198-210. 1998.
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38Reductionisms and physicalismsSouth African Journal of Philosophy 25 (2): 159-170. 2006.Causal exclusion arguments, especially as championed by Kim, have recently made life uncomfortable for would-be non-reductive physicalists. Non-reductive physicalism was itself, in turn, partly a response to earlier arguments against reductionism. The philosophy of science, though, distinguishes more forms of reduction than philosophy of mind generally cares to. In this paper I review four major families of reductionist thesis, and give reasons for keeping them more carefully separate than usual…Read more
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59Information processing and dynamical systems approaches are complementaryBehavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (5): 639-640. 2002.Shanker & King (S&K) trumpet the adoption of a “new paradigm” in communication studies, exemplified by ape language research. Though cautiously sympathetic, I maintain that their argument relies on a false dichotomy between “information” and “dynamical systems” theory, and that the resulting confusion prevents them from recognizing the main chance their line of thinking suggests.
University Of Natal, Durban
Alumnus, 2000
Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Biology |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
PhilPapers Editorships
Causal Closure of the Physical |