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472What does it mean to be one of us?Journal of Anthropological Psychology 10 9-11. 2008.Bransen takes the first question to pose ―the problem of man‘s uniqueness,‖ and his ultimate aim is to dissolve that problem. His method of dissolving it is by way of a detailed answer to the second question, which is the most fundamental. I want to show that Bransen‘s answer to the second question actually provides an answer to each of the other questions, and that instead of dissolving the problem of man‘s uniqueness (posed by question #1), what he offers is really a straightforward solution—a…Read more
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192Material persons and the doctrine of resurrectionFaith and Philosophy 18 (2): 151-167. 2001.Many Christians assume that there are only two possibilities for what a human person is: either Animalism (the view that we are fundamentally animals) or Immaterialism (the view that we are fundamentally immaterial souls). I set out a third possibility: the Constitution View (the view that we are material beings, constituted by bodies but not identical to the bodies that now constitute us.) After setting out and briefly defending the Constitution View, I apply it to the doctrine of resurrection.…Read more
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56Saving Belief: A Critique of PhysicalismPrinceton University Press. 1987."This book is a comprehensive attack on several of the views that have been most influential in the philosophy of psychology during the last two decades. Professor Baker argues that mentalistic notions should not be eliminated, and need not be explained in terms of other notions, in cognitive science.' The book is interesting and shows an honest concern for clear argumentation. It deserves a wide readership." --Tyler Burge, University of California at Los Angeles"This book is a provocative and r…Read more
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40Science and the Attitudes: A Reply to SanfordBehavior and Philosophy 24 (2): 187-189. 1996.Explaining Attitudes was not intended to be hostile to science. Its target is what I called the Standard View, a conception of the attitudes that is held almost universally. The heart of the Standard View is the thesis that beliefs (and other..
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213A metaphysics of ordinary things and why we need itPhilosophy 83 (1): 5-24. 2008.Metaphysics has enjoyed a vigorous revival in the last few decades. Even so, there has been little ontological interest in the things that we interact with everyday—trees, tables, other people.1 It is not that metaphysicians ignore ordinary things altogether. Indeed, they are happy to say that sentences like ‘The daffodils are out early this year’ or ‘My computer crashed again’ are true. But they take the truth of such sentences not to require that a full description of reality mention daffodils…Read more
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87Interpretation in Action: A Preliminary InquiryIn Fernando Mão de Ferro (ed.), A Explicação da Interpretação Humana (Portuguese), Edições Colibri. 2005.The term ‘human interpretation’ itself has two interpretations: interpretation by human beings and interpretation of human beings. We are all familiar with both kinds of interpretation in ordinary life. Marie interprets Sam’s remark as a sexual invitation; Joseph interprets the famous guest’s attire as an insult to the host. But as the organizers of our conference point out, we have no systematic explanation of human interpretation—either ‘of’ or ‘by’ human beings. Before embarking on a theory o…Read more
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93Practical realism defended: Replies to criticsIn Anthonie Meijers (ed.), Explaining Beliefs: Lynne Rudder Baker and Her Critics, Stanford: Csli Publications. 2001.The topics that I shall consider are these: (1) Causal Explanatoriness of the Attitudes (Dretske, Elugardo); (2) The “Brain-Explain” Thesis and Metaphysical Constraints on Explanation (Antony, Elugardo); (3) Causal Powers of Beliefs (Meyering); (4) Microreduction (Beckermann); (5) Non-Emergent, Non-Reductive Materialism (Antony); (6) The Master Argument Against the Standard View (Dretske, Antony, Elugardo); (7) Practical Realism Extended (Meijers); (8) Alternative to Both the Standard View and P…Read more
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106Pereboom's Robust Nonreductive PhysicalismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (3): 736-744. 2013.
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25Brief Reply to Rosenkrantz's Comments on my “The Ontological Status of Persons”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2): 394-396. 2002.Chisholm held that persons are essentially persons. The Constitution View affords a non-Chisholmian way to defend the thesis that persons are essentially persons. The Constitution View shows how persons are constituted by---but not identical to---human animals. On the Constitution View, being a person determines a person’s persistence conditions. On the Animalist View, being an animal determines a person’s persistence conditions.Things of kind K have ontological significance if their persistence…Read more
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15Instrumentalism: Back from the Brink?In Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism, Princeton University Press. pp. 149-166. 1987.
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330Persons and Bodies: A Constitution ViewCambridge University Press. 2000.What is a human person, and what is the relation between a person and his or her body? In her third book on the philosophy of mind, Lynne Rudder Baker investigates what she terms the person/body problem and offers a detailed account of the relation between human persons and their bodies. Baker's argument is based on the 'Constitution View' of persons and bodies, which aims to show what distinguishes persons from all other beings and to show how we can be fully material beings without being ident…Read more
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70The Emergent Self (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (3): 734-736. 2002.The Emergent Self is valuable not least because it runs so thoroughly against the grain of contemporary philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Hasker defends a kind of substance dualism. In motivating this now-neglected approach, he ranges over a considerable field, discussing, among other things, Kim on supervenience and mental causation, Frankfurt on alternative possibilities, Nagel on panpsychism, Swinburne on the soul, O’Connor on agent causation, van Inwagen on the impossibility of “re-creatio…Read more
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1Christians should reject mind-body dualismIn Michael L. Peterson (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, Blackwell. 2003.
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16Materialism with a human faceIn Kevin Corcoran (ed.), Soul, body, and survival: essays on the metaphysics of human persons, Cornell University Press. 2001.
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What beliefs are notIn Steven J. Wagner & Richard Wagner (eds.), Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal, University of Notre Dame Press. 1993.
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328Social externalism and first-person authorityErkenntnis 67 (2). 2007.Social Externalism is the thesis that many of our thoughts are individuated in part by the linguistic and social practices of the thinker’s community. After defending Social Externalism and arguing for its broad application, I turn to the kind of defeasible first-person authority that we have over our own thoughts. Then, I present and refute an argument that uses first-person authority to disprove Social Externalism. Finally, I argue briefly that Social Externalism—far from being incompatible wi…Read more
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83Big-Tent MetaphysicsAbstracta 4 (S1): 8-15. 2008.Eric Olson won the hearts of my graduate students by dedicating his book “to the unemployed philosophers.” (The students subsequently got fine jobs, but it’s the thought (or rather the sympathy) that counts.) As appreciated as the dedication was, however, I doubt that it was responsible for the wonderful reception that Olson’s book, The Human Animal, has had. Rather, the cleverness of his arguments, the vigor with which Olson writes, and the new interpretations of old thought experiments and arg…Read more
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Reply to Zimmerman's 'should a Christian be a mind/body dualist?' - YesIn Michael L. Peterson (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, Blackwell. 2003.
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39Review of Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (8). 2006.
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1The second-person account of the problem of evilIn Kevin Timpe (ed.), Metaphysics and God: Essays in Honor of Eleonore Stump, Routledge. 2009.
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127Human Persons as Social EntitiesJournal of Social Ontology 1 (1): 77-87. 2014.The aim of this article is to show that human persons belong, ontologically, in social ontology. After setting out my views on ontology, I turn to persons and argue that they have first-person perspectives in two stages (rudimentary and robust) essentially. Then I argue that the robust stage of the first-person persective is social, in that it requires a language, and languages require linguistic communities. Then I extend the argument to cover the rudimentary stage of the first-person perspecti…Read more
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129On a causal theory of contentPhilosophical Perspectives 3 165-186. 1989.The project of explaining intentional phenomena in terms of nonintentional phenomena has become a central task in the philosophy of mind.' Since intentional phenomena like believing, desiring, intending have content essentially, the project is one of showing how semantic properties like content can be reconciled with nonsemantic properties like cause. As Jerry A. Fodor put it, The worry about representation is above all that the semantic (and/or the intentional) will prove permanently recalcitra…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |