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232Truth without truthmaking entitiesIn Helen Beebee & Julian Dodd (eds.), Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate, Clarendon Press. pp. 33. 2005.This chapter replies to arguments, advanced by Gonzalo Rodriguez–Pereyra, for thinking that the intuitions that have inspired theories of truthmaking cannot be accommodated without commitment to truth-making entities. It contains a suggestion about why, even if there are no entities that make propositions true, we should nonetheless be apt to think of truth as grounded. The advocates of truthmakers engage sometimes in a specifically ontological enquiry of a wide-ranging sort, sometimes in the pr…Read more
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504ActionsRoutledge and Kegan Paul. 1980.This book presents an events-based view of human action somewhat different from that of what is known as "standard story". A thesis about trying-to-do-something is distinguished from various volitionist theses. It is argued then that given a correct conception of action's antecedents, actions will be identified not with bodily movements but with causes of such movements.
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15Children's Action Control and Awareness: Comment on Frye and ZelazoIn Johannes Roessler & Naomi Eilan (eds.), Agency and Self-Awareness: Issues in Philosophy and Psychology, Clarendon Press. 2003.Book synopsis: Seventeen brand-new essays by leading philosophers and psychologists Genuinely interdisciplinary work, at the forefront of both fields Includes a valuable introduction, uniting common threads.
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12Acts and Other Events By Judith Jarvis Thomson Cornell University Press, 1977, 274 pp., £10.50 (review)Philosophy 54 (208): 253-. 1979.
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436Agency and ActionsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 55 1-23. 2004.Among philosophical questions about human agency, one can distinguish in a rough and ready way between those that arise in philosophy of mind and those that arise in ethics. In philosophy of mind, one central aim has been to account for the place of agents in a world whose operations are supposedly ‘physical’. In ethics, one central aim has been to account for the connexion between ethical species of normativity and the distinctive deliberative and practical capacities of human beings. Ethics th…Read more
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355Intending, knowing how, infinitivesCanadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (1): 1-17. 2016.Intellectualists tell us that a person who knows how to do something therein knows a proposition. Along with others, they may say that a person who intends to do something intends a proposition. I argue against them. I do so by way of considering ‘know how ——’ and ‘intend ——’ together. When the two are considered together, a realistic conception of human agency can inform the understanding of some infinitives: the argument need not turn on what semanticists have had to say about ‘the subjects of…Read more
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106The standard story of action: an exchangeIn J. H. Aguilar & A. A. A. A. Buckareff (eds.), Causing Human Actions: New Perspectives on the Causal Theory of Action, Mit Press. pp. 57-68. 2010.Book synopsis: The causal theory of action is widely recognized in the literature of the philosophy of action as the "standard story" of human action and agency—the nearest approximation in the field to a theoretical orthodoxy. This volume brings together leading figures working in action theory today to discuss issues relating to the CTA and its applications, which range from experimental philosophy to moral psychology. Some of the contributors defend the theory while others criticize it; some …Read more
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256Essays on Anscombe's Intention (edited book)Harvard University Press. 2011.This collection of ten essays elucidates some of the more challenging aspects of Anscombe’s work and affirms her reputation as one of our most original ...
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38Simple mindedness: in defense of naive naturalism in the philosophy of mindHarvard University Press. 1997.Jennifer Hornsby offers here detailed discussions of ontology, human agency, and everyday psychological explanation. In her distinctive view of questions about the mind's place in nature she argues for a particular position in philosophy of mind: naive naturalism.
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148Dualism in actionRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 43 377-401. 1993.We know what one dualist account of human action looks like, because Descartes gave us one. I want to explore the extent ot which presnet-day accounts of physical action are vulnerable to the charges that may be made against Descartes's dualist account. I once put forward an account of human action, and I have always maintained that my view about the basic shape of a correct ‘theory of aciton’ can be combined with a thoroughgoing opposition to dualism. But the possibility of the combination has …Read more
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268Physicalist thinking and conceptions of behaviourIn Philip Pettit (ed.), Subject, Thought, And Context, Clarendon Press. 1986.
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61Anomalousness in actionIn , . 1999.Book synopsis: The latest volume of the critically acclaimed Library of Living Philosophers series is devoted to the work of analytic philosopher Donald Davidson. Following the standard LLP format, Davidson discusses his life and philosophical development in an intellectual autobiography. This is followed by 31 critical essays by distinguished scholars; Davidson replies to each of these essays. Although Donald Davidson is considered an analytic philosopher, his thought straddles many areas of ph…Read more
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285Meaning and uselessness: How to think about derogatory wordsMidwest Studies in Philosophy 25 (1). 2001.Williams explains why there might have been some point to a linguistic approach in ethics. I suggest that there might be some point to paying attention to an ethical dimension in philosophy of language. I shall consider words that I label ‘derogatory’, and questions they raise about linguistic meaning.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |