Christopher Peacocke

Columbia University
Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London
  • Columbia University
    Department of Philosophy
    Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy
  • Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London
    Other (Part-time)
University of Oxford
Faculty of Philosophy
DPhil
New York City, New York, United States of America
  •  44
    Précis of A Study of Concepts (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (2): 407. 1996.
    The principal thesis of A Study of Concepts is that a concept is individuated by its possession condition. Concepts are here understood to be sliced as finely as epistemic possibility. So now and 6 o’clock are different concepts, even if, in context, they pick out the same time; likewise for the observational concept circular and the complex concept locus of coplanar points equidistant from a given point. In the simplest cases, a possession condition is stated by giving a true, individuating sta…Read more
  •  10
    Thoughts: An Essay on Content
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (1): 178-180. 1988.
  •  41
    Computation as Involving Content: A Response to Egan
    Mind and Language 14 (2): 195-202. 1999.
    Only computational explanations of a content‐involving sort can answer certain ‘how’‐questions; can support content‐involving counterfactuals; and have the generality characteristic of psychological explanations. Purely formal characteriza‐tions of computations have none of these properties, and do not determine content. These points apply not only to psychological explanation, but to Turing machines themselves. Computational explanations which involve content are not opposed to naturalism. They…Read more
  •  69
    Interrelations: Concepts, Knowledge, Reference and Structure
    Mind and Language 19 (1): 85-98. 2004.
    This paper has five theses, which are intended to address the claims in Jerry Fodor's paper. (1) The question arises of the relation between the philosophical theory of concepts and epistemology. Neither is explanatorily prior to the other. Rather, each relies implicitly on distinctions drawn from the other. To explain what makes something knowledge, we need distinctions drawn from the theory of concepts. To explain the attitudes mentioned in a theory of concepts, we need to use the notion of kn…Read more
  •  14
    Sense and Content: Experience, Thought and Their Relations
    Philosophical Quarterly 36 (143): 278-291. 1986.
  •  26
    Christopher Peacocke, The Realm of Reason (review)
    Philosophical Review 115 (2): 243-246. 2006.
  •  16
    Being Known
    Mind 110 (440): 1105-1109. 2001.
  •  20
    New Essays on the A Priori
    Mind 111 (443): 647-652. 2002.
  •  16
    Thoughts: An Essay on Content
    Philosophy of Science 56 (2): 359-360. 1989.
  •  74
    How Are A Priori Truths Possible?1
    European Journal of Philosophy 1 (2): 175-199. 1993.
  •  17
    Theories of Concepts: A Wider Task
    European Journal of Philosophy 8 (3): 298-321. 2000.
  •  5
    Three Principles of Rationalism
    European Journal of Philosophy 10 (3): 375-397. 2002.
  •  69
    XI*—Externalist Explanation1
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 93 (1): 203-230. 1993.
    Christopher Peacocke; XI*—Externalist Explanation1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 203–230, https://doi.org/10.
  • The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy
    Oxford University Press. 2005.
  •  221
    Mental Action and Self-Awareness
    In Jonathan Cohen & Brian McLaughlin (eds.), Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. 2023.
    This paper is built around a single, simple idea. It is widely agreed that there is a distinctive kind of awareness each of us has of his own bodily actions. This action-awareness is different from any perceptual awareness a subject may have of his own actions; it can exist in the absence of such perceptual awareness. The single, simple idea around which this paper is built is that the distinctive awareness that subjects have of their own mental actions is a form of action-awareness. Subjects’ a…Read more
  •  165
    Rationale and maxims in the study of concepts
    Noûs 39 (1): 167-78. 2005.
    Is there any good reason for thinking that a concept is individuated by the condition for a thinker to possess it? Why is that approach superior to alternative accounts of the individuation of concepts? These are amongst the fundamental questions raised by Wayne Davis.
  •  105
    What are concepts?
    Midwest Studies of Philosophy 14 (1): 1-28. 1989.
  •  347
    The metaphysics of concepts
    Mind 100 (399): 525-46. 1991.
  •  84
    Entitlement, reasons and externalism
    Philosophical Books 47 (2): 120-128. 2006.
  •  43
    Principles for Possibilia
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 51 119-145. 2002.
    It seems to be an obvious truth that There could be something that doesn't actually exist.That is, it seems to be obiously true that ◊∃×).It is sufficient for the truth of that there could be more people, or trees, or cars, than there actually are. It is also sufficient for the truth of that there could be some pepole, or trees, or cars that are distinct from all those that actually exist. Do and suchlike statements involve a commitment to possibilia, to things that possibly exist, but do not ac…Read more
  •  12
    Can Possession Conditions Individuate Concepts?
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (2): 433-460. 1996.
    There are issues in the theory of concepts about which A Study of Concepts could have said more. There are also some issues about which it would have done well to say something different. The commentators in this symposium have successfully identified a series of issues of one or other of these two kinds, and I am very grateful for their thought and detailed attention. I have learned from reflection on their comments, and I take this opportunity to try to carry the discussion forward by addressi…Read more
  •  5
    Hacking on Logic
    Journal of Philosophy 78 (3): 168-175. 1981.
  •  1
    Proof and truth
    In John Haldane & Crispin Wright (eds.), Reality, representation, and projection, Oxford University Press. pp. 165--190. 1993.