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80There are a lot of expressions of pessimism these days about whether we can save the environment — and thereby ourselves. Some of this pessimism is self-serving, but most of it is quite genuine. People look at the trends, and they despair — or else go into denial. And those who despair will almost invariably point to one factor above all others — the threat of overpopulation. No matter whether we recycle all our waste, switch entirely to non-polluting energy sources, sponge the skies of CFCs and…Read more
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14Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity (review)Philosophical Review 105 (2): 259-262. 1996.Sherlock Holmes is reputed to have once remarked impatiently to his earnest but plodding colleague Watson, “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” In Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity, Tim Maudlin offers us a thorough and provocative argument based on this methodological principle. Maudlin insists that all explanations of the mysterious non-local correlations of quantum mechanics must by now be reject…Read more
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10Books by John WoodsIn Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine (eds.), Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods, University of Toronto Press. pp. 517-520. 2005.
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13Introduction: John Woods in ProfileIn Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine (eds.), Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods, University of Toronto Press. pp. 1-12. 2005.
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37The purpose of this paper is to pick up the threads of a debate about the ontology of becoming in spacetime that was triggered by a provocative article published by Nicholas Maxwell in 1985. This debate is itself merely a recent episode in a long dialogue that goes back at least as far as the time of Parmenides and Heraclitus. Here is the question around which this debate centres: is change or becoming the distinguishing feature of the natural or physical world, as suggested obscurely by Heracli…Read more
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151On the edge of a paradigm shift: Quantum nonlocality and the breakdown of peaceful coexistenceInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 12 (2). 1998.I present a thought experiment in quantum mechanics and tease out some of its implications for the doctrine of “peaceful coexistence”, which, following Shimony, I take to be the proposition that quantum mechanics does not force us to revise or abandon the relativistic picture of causality. I criticize the standard arguments in favour of peaceful coexistence on the grounds that they are question-begging, and suggest that the breakdown of Lorentz-invariant relativity as a principle theory would be…Read more
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3Christopher Norris, Quantum Theory and the Flight From Realism: Philosophical Responses to Quantum Mechanics Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 22 (2): 138-140. 2002.
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24A New Look at SimultaneityPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992. 1992.It is generally believed that an invariant notion of a global present or "Now" cannot be defined in special relativity, because of the relativity of optical simultaneity. I argue that this may be a non sequitur since it is not necessarily the case that the psychological "Now" should be thought of as associated with constant time slices in spacetime. By considering a science fictional version of the Twin Paradox due to Robert A. Heinlein, I argue that it is psychologically plausible to associate …Read more
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37Is the human species itself the ultimate Untenable Absurdity? This paper will be a serious (for which I apologize) but rambling philosophical reflection on the grim prospects for our species in the face of peak oil, climate change, warfare, overpopulation, and other looming ecological catastrophes.
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7IndexIn Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine (eds.), Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods, University of Toronto Press. pp. 521-533. 2005.
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8ContributorsIn Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine (eds.), Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods, University of Toronto Press. pp. 511-516. 2005.
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2Book reviews (review)International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 13 (2): 195-204. 1999.Naturalism in Mathematics PENELOPE MADDY, 1997 Oxford, Oxford University Press viii + 254 pp., $CAN91, ISBN 0–19–823573–9 Bohmian Mechanics and Quantum Theory: an Appraisal JAMES T. CUSHING, ARTHUR FINE & SHELDON GOLDSTEIN, 1996 Dordrecht, Kluwer viii + 403, pp., US$159.00, ISBN 0–7923–4028–0 Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking: the 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE, 1997 Edited and introduced, with a commentary, by PATRICIA ANN TURRISI Albany, State U…Read more
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Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Biology |
Philosophy of Physical Science |