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149Free will and intentional actionPhilosophia 16 (3-4): 355-364. 1986.I argue for the following analysis of a freely willed action: an act is done of one's own free will, if and only if, it is an intentional act performed by one acting as a rational agent from unobstructed reasons, and so situated that he or she has the capacity to forbear from performing it.
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117Perception and Animal BeliefPhilosophy 55 (212). 1980.I argue that sentences ascribing beliefs to non-human animals have the same logical form as sentences of the "perceives that" variety. Pace D.M. Armstrong, I argue that animal belief sentences can be referentially opaque, just as perception sentences containing a propositional clause are. In both cases, referential opacity requires our assuming that the animal believer and the human perceiver has each identified the object of the belief or perception.
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129Time-gap myopiaAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1): 55-57. 1972.I answer objections to my article, "The Time-Gap Argument," made by C. Daniels in his "Seeing Through a Time Gap."
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164Aristotelian materialismPhilosophia 34 (3): 253-266. 2006.I argue that a modern gloss on Aristotle’s notions of Form and Matter not only allows us to escape a dualism of the psychological and the physical, but also results in a plausible sort of materialism. This is because Aristotle held that the essential nature of any psychological state, including perception and human thought, is to be some physical property. I also show that Hilary Putnam and Martha Nussbaum are mistaken in saying that Aristotle was not a materialist, but a functionalist. His func…Read more
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31The essential tie between knowing and believing: a causal account of knowledge and epistemic reasonsEdwin Mellen Press. 2011.This book offers a causal-explanatory account of knowledge as true belief caused by the worldly state of affairs that explains its existence. It also defends a contextual account of epistemic reasons, arguing that both foundationalism and coherentism cannot provide a satisfactory account of such reasons. Skeptical arguments are answered against a historical background from Plato to the present day.
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299PerversityPhilosophical Quarterly 26 (104): 229-242. 1976.I argue that there are perverse actions, in the sense that they are acts performed in the belief that they are wrong. They are also, however, acts done in the belief that they are right. What makes them perverse is, not only that they have conflicting motivations, but that the motivation that wins out is not in accord with reason. That is, a perverse act is one resulting from one's strongest motivation but not based on all one's available reasons.
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144The time-gap argumentAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 47 (3): 263-272. 1969.I argue that the time-gap argument poses no objection to Direct Realism. In the case of exploded stars many light years from us, what we see is no longer the star, but its light. I argue that in all cases of seeing we see light, but only when physical objects exist at the time of our seeing do we see them.
Coral Gables, Florida, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
1 more
| Epistemology |
| Metaphysics |
| Philosophy of Mind |
| Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
| 20th Century Philosophy |
| 17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
| Social and Political Philosophy |