•  90
    Classical Levels, Russellian Monism and the Implicate Order
    Foundations of Physics 43 (4): 548-567. 2013.
    Reception of the Bohm-Hiley interpretation of quantum mechanics has a curiously Janus faced quality. On the one hand, it is frequently derided as a conservative throwback to outdated classical patterns of thought. On the other hand, it is equally often taken to task for encouraging a wild quantum mysticism, often regarded as anti-scientific. I will argue that there are reasons for this reception, but that a proper appreciation of the dual scientific and philosophical aspects of the view reveals …Read more
  •  88
    Reply to Forbes
    with Alonso Church
    Analysis 42 (4): 224-226. 1982.
  •  86
    I want to show that a common and plausible interpretation of what science tells us about the fundamental structure of the world – the ‘scientific picture of the world’ or SPW for short – leads to what I’ll call ‘generalized epiphenomenalism’, which is the view that the only features of the world that possess causal efficacy are fundamental physical features. I think that generalized epiphenomenalism follows pretty straightforwardly from the SPW as I’ll present it, but it might seem that, once gr…Read more
  •  79
    Weak supervenience and materialism
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 48 (June): 697-709. 1988.
    THIS ARTICLE ARGUES THAT WEAK SUPERVENIENCE IS\nSUFFICIENTLY STRONG TO ESTABLISH A REASONABLE AND PLAUSIBLE\nMATERIALISM. SUPERVENIENCE IS A RELATION BETWEEN FAMILIES\nOF PROPERTIES, SUCH THAT, ROUGHLY SPEAKING, FAMILY A\nSUPERVENES ON FAMILY B IF ANY OBJECTS WHICH ARE\nINDISCERNIBLE WITH RESPECT TO B ARE THEREBY INDISCERNIBLE\nWITH RESPECT TO A. WEAK SUPERVENIENCE IS SUPERVENIENCE\nRESTRICTED TO ONE POSSIBLE WORLD; STRONG SUPERVENIENCE IS A\n"NECESSARY" SUPERVENIENCE EXTENDING ACROSS SOME PRINC…Read more
  •  77
    The reality of now
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 13 (1). 1999.
    The apparent 'flow' of time is one of its most mysterious features, and one which discomforts both scientists and philosophers. One of the most striking assaults upon it is McTaggart's argument that the idea of temporal flow is demonstratively incoherent. In this paper I first urge that the idea of temporal flow is an important part of our intuitive understanding of time, underpinning several of our notions about rationality and time. Second, I try to undercut McTaggart's argument by showing tha…Read more
  •  75
    Metaphysics of Consciousness
    Routledge. 1991.
    _Metaphysics of Consciousness_ opens with a development of the physicalist outlook that denies the need for any explanation of the mental. This "inexplicability" is demonstrated not to be sufficient as refutation of physicalism. However, the inescapable particularity of modes of consciousness appears to overpower this minimal physicalism. This book proposes that such an inference requires either a wholly new conception of how consciousness is physical or a deep and disturbing new kind of physica…Read more
  •  75
    Fodor's theory of content: Problems and objections
    Phiosophy of Science 60 (2): 262-77. 1993.
    Jerry Fodor has recently proposed a new entry into the list of information based approaches to semantic content aimed at explicating the general notion of representation for both mental states and linguistic tokens. The basic idea is that a token means what causes its production. The burden of the theory is to select the proper cause from the sea of causal influences which aid in generating any token while at the same time avoiding the absurdity of everything's being literally meaningful (since …Read more
  •  75
    Consciousness, value and functionalism
    PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 7. 2001.
    Charles Siewert presents a series of thought experiment based arguments against a wide range of current theories of phenomenal consciousness which I believe achieves a considerable measure of success. One topic which I think gets insufficient attention is the discussion of functionalism and I address this here. Before that I consider the intriguing issue, which is seldom considered but figures prominently at the close of Siewert's book, of the value of consciousness. In particular, I broach the …Read more
  •  60
    Externalism and token identity
    Philosophical Quarterly 42 (169): 439-48. 1992.
    Donald Davidson espouses two fundamental theses about the individuation of mental events. The thesis of causal individuation asserts that sameness of cause and effect is sufficient and necessary for event identity. The thesis of content individuation gives only a sufficient condition for difference of mental events: if e and f have different contents then they are different mental events. I argue that given these theses, psychological externalism--the view that mental content is determined by fa…Read more
  •  57
    Tye on consciousness: Time to panic? (review)
    Philosophical Studies 113 (3): 237-247. 2003.
  •  55
    The Discreet Charm of Counterpart Theory
    with Graeme Hunter
    Analysis 41 (2). 1980.
  •  55
    A note on the 'quantum eraser'
    Philosophy of Science 63 (1): 81-90. 1996.
    This note aims to make more familiar to philosophers yet another bizarre quantum mechanical effect with disturbing metaphysical implications. It is possible to modify the classic double-slit experiment so that one can register the path of a particle to determine which slit it passes through, and then erase this registered information so that the interference effects which would normally disappear upon registration of the "which path" information are reconstituted. Thus the "trajectory" of partic…Read more
  •  53
    Review of John Foster, A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenalistic Idealism (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (4). 2009.
  •  53
    Probabilistic Semantics, Identity and Belief
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 13 (3). 1983.
    The goal of standard semantics is to provide truth conditions for the sentences of a given language. Probabilistic Semantics does not share this aim; it might be said instead, if rather cryptically, that Probabilistic Semantics aims to provide belief conditions.The central and guiding idea of Probabilistic Semantics is that each rational individual has ‘within’ him or her a personal subjective probability function. The output of the function when given a certain sentence as input represents the …Read more
  •  52
    It would be hard to deny that the experience of emotion is one of the most significant aspects of consciousness. While it is possible to imagine a being who enjoyed some forms of consciousness while lacking any awareness of its emotional states, such a being’s conscious life would be radically different from human consciousness. Yet, I believe that in fact we are surrounded by such beings and, most of the time, we ourselves are such. This is not to say that such beings lack emotions, or that the…Read more
  •  47
    Reduction and Emergence in Philosophy and Science
    Analysis 78 (3): 552-557. 2018.
    This book sets the standard, and a very high one at that, for the ongoing discussion of emergence in philosophy and science.1 1 Engaging but rigorous in argumentation, comprehensive but attentive to detail, it is a model of philosophical writing.
  •  45
    The Metaphysics of Consciousness (review)
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24 (1): 155-167. 1994.
  •  43
    Higher Order Thought theories of consciousness contend that consciousness can be explicated in terms of a relation between mental states of different
  •  42
    Verification, skepticism, and consciousness
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 36 (1-2): 113-133. 1993.
    I argue that Daniel Dennett's latest book, Consciousness Explained, presents a radically eliminativist view of conscious experience in which experience or, in Dennett's own words, actual phenomenology, becomes a merely intentional object of our own and others? judgments ?about? experience. This strategy of ?intentionalizing? consciousness dovetails nicely with Dennett's background model of brain function: cognitive pandemonium, but does not follow from it. Thus Dennett is driven to a series of i…Read more
  •  41
    Though there are many analogies between time and space, there appear to be three commonplace yet deeply perplexing features of time that reveal it to be quite unlike space. These can be called ‘orientation’, ‘flow’ and ‘presence’. By orientation I mean that there is a direction to time, a temporal order between events which is not merely a reflection of how they are observed (what McTaggart 1908/1968 labelled the B-series time). Assertions that objects stand in spatial relations, such as to the …Read more
  •  35
    The Reflexive Nature of Consciousness (review)
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (3): 563-566. 2010.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  32
    The anomalousness of the mental
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 19 (3): 389-401. 1981.
  •  31
    The logic of lost lingens
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 19 (4). 1990.
  •  29
    Instrumentalism in psychology
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 4 (2). 1990.
    Abstract I aim to examine two questions. First, whether ‘folk psychology’ is a kind of theory and, second, more seriously, how are we to understand the system of principles of folk psychology. As to the first, there is a confusion between ‘theory’ and ‘science’. Much of the debate ignores the differences between these, and I argue that whereas folk psychology cannot be called a science there are grounds for calling it a theory. On the more serious question of interpretation, I review the general…Read more
  •  29
    Scientific Anti-Realism and the Epistemic Community
    PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988 181-187. 1988.
    Bas van Fraassen has presented a most vigorous argument in support of an anti-realist interpretation of science. In defence of his view he revives the seemingly moribund 'observable-unobservable' distinction, and employs it in the attempt to show that science provides no grounds for accepting, as real, entities which it itself classifies as unobservable. Traditional arguments against the observable-unobservable distinction can be reinterpreted as arguments for the reality of what is unobservable…Read more
  •  26
    Truth and values: essays for Hans Herzberger (edited book)
    with Jamie Tappenden and Achille C. Varzi
    University of Calgary Press. 2011.
    A selection of essays dedicated to Hans Herzberger with affection and gratitude for both his profound work and his lasting example. Contributors: I. Levi (on whether and how a rational agent should be seen as a maximizer of some cognitive value), C. Normore (on medieval accounts of logical validity), J. P. Tappenden (on the local influences on Frege's doctrines), A. Urquhart (on the inexpressible), A. C. Varzi (on dimensionality and the sense of possibility), and S. Yablo (on content and carving…Read more
  •  25
    The emergence of consciousness
    Philosophic Exchange 36 (1): 5-23. 2006.
    According to the mainstream view in philosophy today, the world is a purely physical system, in which consciousness emerged as a product of increasing biological complexity, from non-conscious precursors composed of non-conscious components. The mainstream view is a beautiful, grand vision of the universe. However, it leaves no real place for consciousness. This paper explains why.