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40The Ontology of ArtIn Peter Kivy (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics, Blackwell. pp. 78-92. 2004.This chapter contains sections titled: A Range of Views Criteria of Assessment The Road to a Solution.
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435Fictional characters and literary practicesBritish Journal of Aesthetics 43 (2): 138-157. 2003.I argue that the ontological status of fictional characters is determined by the beliefs and practices of those who competently deal with works of literature, and draw out three important consequences of this. First, heavily revisionary theories cannot be considered as ‘discoveries’ about the ‘true nature’ of fictional characters; any acceptable realist theory of fiction must preserve all or most of the common conception of fictional characters. Second, once we note that the existence conditions…Read more
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8Social entitiesIn Robin Le Poidevin, Simons Peter, McGonigal Andrew & Ross P. Cameron (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, Routledge. 2009.
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157Experimental Philosophy and the Methods of OntologyThe Monist 95 (2): 175-199. 2012.Those working in experimental philosophy have raised a number of arguments against the use of conceptual analysis in philosophical inquiries. But they have typically focused on a model that pursues conceptual analysis by taking intuitions as a kind of (defeasible) evidence for philosophical hypotheses. Little attention has been given to the constitutivist alternative, which sees metaphysical modal facts as reflections of constitutive semantic rules. I begin with a brief overview of the constitut…Read more
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167Quizzical Ontology and Easy OntologyJournal of Philosophy 111 (9-10): 502-528. 2014.This paper examines what’s at stake in which form of metaontological deflationism we adopt. Stephen Yablo has argued for a ‘quizzicalist’ approach, holding that many ontological questions are ‘moot’ in the sense that there is simply nothing to settle them. Defenders of the ‘easy approach’ to ontology, by contrast, think not that these questions are unsettled, but that they are very easily settled by trivial inferences from uncontroversial premises—so obviously and easily settled that there is no…Read more
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36Artifacts and human conceptsIn Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence (eds.), Creations of the Mind: Theories of Artifacts and Their Representaion, Oxford University Press. pp. 52--73. 2007.
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137In What Sense Is Phenomenology Transcendental?Southern Journal of Philosophy 45 (S1): 85-92. 2007.Dan Zahavi raises doubts about the prospects for combining phenomenological and analytical approaches to the mind, based chiefly on the claim that phenomenology is a form of transcendental philosophy. I argue that there are two ways in which one might understand the claim that phenomenology is transcendental: (1) as the claim that the methods of phenomenology essentially involve addressing transcendental questions or making transcendental arguments, or (2) as the claim that phenomenology is comm…Read more
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127Why we Should Still Take it EasyMind 126 (503): 769-779. 2017.In an earlier paper in this journal I argued that deflationism is preferable to fictionalism as an alternative to both traditional realism and eliminativism. Gabriele Contessa questions this conclusion, denying that fictionalist arguments beg the question against easy ontological arguments, presenting a new argument against easy ontology, and suggesting a response to the challenge I raise for fictionalists. Below I respond to these points in turn. In so doing, I hope to clarify the broader theor…Read more
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208First-person knowledge in phenomenologyIn David Woodruff Smith & Amie L. Thomasson (eds.), Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind, Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 115-138. 2005.An account of the source of first-person knowledge is essential not just for phenomenology, but for anyone who takes seriously the apparent evidence that we each have a distinctive access to knowing what we experience. One standard way to account for the source of first-person knowledge is by appeal to a kind of inner observation of the passing contents of one’s own mind, and phenomenology is often thought to rely on introspection. I argue, however, that Husserl’s method of phenomenological reduct…Read more
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465The easy approach to ontologyAxiomathes 19 (1): 1-15. 2009.This paper defends the view that ontological questions (properly understood) are easy—too easy, in fact, to be subjects of substantive and distinctively philosophical debates. They are easy, roughly, in the sense that they may be resolved straightforwardly—generally by a combination of conceptual and empirical enquiries. After briefly outlining the view and some of its virtues, I turn to examine two central lines of objection. The first is that this ‘easy’ approach is itself committed to substan…Read more
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300Fiction and MetaphysicsCambridge University Press. 1998.This challenging study places fiction squarely at the centre of the discussion of metaphysics. Philosophers have traditionally treated fiction as involving a set of narrow problems in logic or the philosophy of language. By contrast Amie Thomasson argues that fiction has far-reaching implications for central problems of metaphysics. The book develops an 'artifactual' theory of fiction, whereby fictional characters are abstract artifacts as ordinary as laws or symphonies or works of literature. B…Read more
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117Research Problems and Methods in MetaphysicsIn Robert Barnard & Neil Manson (eds.), Continuum Companion to Metaphysics, Continuum Publishing. 2012.
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105CategoriesStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.A system of categories is a complete list of highest kinds or genera. Traditionally, following Aristotle, these have been thought of as highest genera of entities (in the widest sense of the term), so that a system of categories undertaken in this realist spirit would ideally provide an inventory of everything there is, thus answering the most basic of metaphysical questions: “What is there?”. Skepticism about the possibilities for discerning the different categories of ‘reality itself’ has led …Read more
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353Ordinary Objects (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2007.Arguments that ordinary inanimate objects such as tables and chairs, sticks and stones, simply do not exist have become increasingly common and increasingly prominent. Some are based on demands for parsimony or for a non-arbitrary answer to the special composition question; others arise from prohibitions against causal redundancy, ontological vagueness, or co-location; and others still come from worries that a common sense ontology would be a rival to a scientific one. Until now, little has been…Read more
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55Moderate Realism and Its LogicPhilosophical Review 107 (3): 474. 1998.D. W. Mertz provides a "new" competitor in the universals debate by reviving, developing, and defending the medieval doctrine of Moderate Realism. This book is a substantial contribution to ontology and logic, combining interesting new arguments for polyadic relations and unit attributes, careful and thorough historical studies, and a logic that could solve many old problems.
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161Introspection and phenomenological methodPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 2 (3): 239-254. 2003.It is argued that the work of Husserl offers a model for self-knowledge that avoids the disadvantages of standard introspectionist accounts and of a Sellarsian view of the relation between our perceptual judgements and derived judgements about appearances. Self-knowledge is based on externally directed knowledge of the world that is then subjected to a cognitive transformation analogous to the move from a statement to the activity of stating. Appearance talk is (contra Sellars) not an epistemica…Read more
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98The first question to be addressed about fictional entities is: are there any? The usual grounds given for accepting or rejecting the view that there are fictional entities come from linguistic considerations. We make many different sorts of claims about fictional characters in our literary discussions. How can we account for their apparent truth? Does doing so require that we allow that there are fictional characters we can refer to, or can we offer equally good analyses while denying that ther…Read more
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155Structural explanations and norms: comments on HaslangerPhilosophical Studies 173 (1): 131-139. 2016.Sally Haslanger undertakes groundbreaking work in developing an account of structural explanations and the social structures that figure in them. A chief virtue of the account is that it can show the importance of structural explanations while also respecting the role of individual autonomy in explaining many decisions, by demonstrating the way in which social structures may set up a ‘choice architecture’ in which these choices are made. This paper gives an overview of this achievement, and goes…Read more
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390Existence questionsPhilosophical Studies 141 (1). 2008.I argue that thinking of existence questions as deep questions to be resolved by a distinctively philosophical discipline of ontology is misguided. I begin by examining how to understand the truth-conditions of existence claims, by way of understanding the rules of use for ‘exists’ and for general noun terms. This yields a straightforward method for resolving existence questions by a combination of conceptual analysis and empirical enquiry. It also provides a blueprint for arguing against most c…Read more
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368Realism and human kindsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (3). 2003.It is often noted that institutional objects and artifacts depend on human beliefs and intentions and so fail to meet the realist paradigm of mind-independent objects. In this paper I draw out exactly in what ways the thesis of mind-independence fails, and show that it has some surprising consequences. For the specific forms of mind-dependence involved entail that we have certain forms of epistemic privilege with regard to our own institutional and artifactual kinds, protecting us from certain p…Read more
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49Answerable and unanswerable questionsIn David Chalmers, David Manley & Ryan Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, Oxford University Press. 2009.While fights about ontology rage on in the ring, there’s long been a suspicion whispered in certain corners of the stadium that some of the fights aren’t real. Granted the disputants all think they are really disagreeing—it’s not the sincerity of the serious ontologists that’s in question, but rather their judgment that they are engaged in a real debate about genuine issues of substance.
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10Ontología fácil y sus consecuenciasDisputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin 4 (5): 247--279. 2015.[ES] Los trabajos recientes de Stephen Schiffer en el desarrollo de una explicación pleonástica de proposiciones producen resultados importantes que cambian el significado tanto de la ontología de primer orden como de la meta-ontología. El objetivo del presente trabajo es dejar en claro cuáles son estas consecuencias y por qué son tan importantes. Según mi punto de vista, la mayor amenaza para los partidarios de la metafísica proviene de un punto de vista que yo he llamado en otro trabajo el ace…Read more
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288Metaphysical Arguments against Ordinary ObjectsPhilosophical Quarterly 56 (224). 2006.Several prominent attacks on the objects of 'folk ontology' argue that these would be omitted from a scientific ontology, or would be 'rivals' of scientific objects for their claims to be efficacious, occupy space, be composed of parts, or possess a range of other properties. I examine causal redundancy and overdetermination arguments, 'nothing over and above' appeals, and arguments based on problems with collocation and with property additivity. I argue that these share a common problem: applyi…Read more
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7Creations of the Mind: Essays on Artifacts and their Representation, ed. Stephen Laurence and Eric Margolis, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
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239The ontology of art and knowledge in aestheticsJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (3). 2005.Amie L. Thomasson; The Ontology of Art and Knowledge in Aesthetics: Thomasson The Ontology of Art and Knowledge in Aesthetics, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art.
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Dartmouth CollegeRegular Faculty
Hanover, New Hampshire, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Areas of Interest
1 more
Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Aesthetics |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |