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9IndividuationIn Michael J. Loux & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), The Oxford handbook of metaphysics, Oxford University Press. 2003.
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154Identity, individuality, and unityPhilosophy 78 (3): 321-336. 2003.Locke notoriously included number amongst the primary qualities of bodies and was roundly criticized for doing so by Berkeley. Frege echoed some of Berkeley's criticisms in attacking the idea that ‘Number is a property of external things’, while defending his own view that number is a property of concepts. In the present paper, Locke's view is defended against the objections of Berkeley and Frege, and Frege's alternative view of number is criticized. More precisely, it is argued that numbers are…Read more
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181Review. Interpreting bodies: Classical and quantum objects in modern physics. E Castellani [ed] (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (2): 353-355. 2000.
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67Essentialism, Metaphysical Realism, and the Errors of ConceptualismPhilosophia Scientiae 12 9-33. 2008.Le réalisme métaphysique est la conception suivant laquelle la plupart des objets qui peuplent le monde existent indépendamment de notre pensée et possèdent une nature indépendante de la manière dont nous pouvons éventuellement la concevoir. A mon sens cette position engage à admettre une forme robuste d'essentialisme. Beaucoup des formes modernes de l'anti-réalisme tirent leurs origines d'une forme de conceptualisme, suivant laquelle toutes les vérités que nous puissions connaître au sujet des …Read more
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263Reply to le poidevin and MellorMind 96 (384): 539-542. 1987.In ‘Time, Change and the “Indexical Fallacy”’,1 Robin Le Poidevin and D. H. Mellor criticize an earlier paper of mine2 both for failing to rebut an argument of McTaggart's and for failing to explain why time is the dimension of change. I consider that their criticisms miss the mark on both scores, partly through misrepresentation of my views and partly through defective argumentation
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23Logical ArgumentIn Miroslaw Szatkowski (ed.), Ontological Proofs Today, Ontos Verlag. pp. 50--179. 2012.
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22The Determinists Have Run Out of Luck—For a Good ReasonPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (3): 745-748. 2008.
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194A survey of metaphysicsOxford University Press. 2002.A systematic overview of modern metaphysics, A Survey of Metaphysics covers all of the most important topics in the field. It adopts the fairly traditional conception of metaphysics as a subject that deals with the deepest questions that can be raised concerning the fundamental structure of reality as a whole. The book is divided into six main sections that address the following themes: identity and change, necessity and essence, causation, agency and events, space and time, and universals and p…Read more
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150Reviews seeing dark things: The philosophy of shadows by Roy Sorensen oxford university press, 2008. 310 pp. £25.99 (review)Philosophy 84 (4): 615-619. 2009.
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91Some varieties of metaphysical dependenceIn Miguel Hoeltje, Benjamin Schnieder & Alex Steinberg (eds.), Varieties of Dependence: Ontological Dependence, Grounding, Supervenience, Response-Dependence, Philosophia. pp. 193-210. 2013.In this paper, I first of all define various kinds of ontological dependence, motivating these definitions by appeal to examples. My contention is that whenever we need, in metaphysics, to appeal to some notion of existential or identity-dependence, one or other of these definitions will serve our needs adequately, which one depending on the case in hand. Then I respond to some objections to one of these proposed definitions in particular, namely, my definition of (what I call) essential identit…Read more
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26A Defence SubstanceIn Alessandro Antonietti, Antonella Corradini & E. Jonathan Lowe (eds.), Psycho-Physical Dualism Today: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Lexington Books. pp. 167. 2008.
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50Powerful Particulars:Review Essay on John Heils From an Ontological Point of View (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2): 466-479. 2007.John Heil's new book (Heil 2003) is remarkable in many ways. In a concise, lucid and accessible manner, it develops a complete system of ontology with many strikingly original features and then applies that ontology to fundamental issues in the philosophy of mind, with illuminating results. Although Heil acknowledges his intellectual debts to C. B. Martin (p. viii), he is unduly modest about his own contribution to the development and application of this novel metaphysical system. A full examina…Read more
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1Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective By Donald Davidson Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. xviii + 237. ISBN 0-19-823752-9 (review)Philosophy 78 (4): 553-564. 2003.
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285The problems of intrinsic change: Rejoinder to LewisAnalysis 48 (2): 72-77. 1988.E. J. Lowe; The problems of intrinsic change: rejoinder to Lewis, Analysis, Volume 48, Issue 2, 1 March 1988, Pages 72–77, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/48.2.7.
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35Powers: A study in metaphysicsBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (4): 817--822. 2004.
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2853D/4D equivalence, the twins paradox and absolute timeAnalysis 63 (2). 2002.The thesis of 3D/4D equivalence states that every three-dimensional description of the world is translatable without remainder into a four-dimensional description, and vice versa. In representing an object in 3D or in 4D terms we are giving alternative descriptions of one and the same thing, and debates over whether the ontology of the physical world is "really" 3D or 4D are pointless. The twins paradox is shown to rest, in relativistic 4D geometry, on a reversed law of triangle inequality. But …Read more
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114Substantial change and spatiotemporal coincidenceRatio 16 (2). 2003.Substantial change occurs when a persisting object of some kind either begins or ceases to exist. Typically, this happens when one or more persisting objects of another kind or kinds are subjected to appropriate varieties of qualitative or relational change, as when the particles composing a lump of bronze are rearranged so as to create a statue. However, such transformations also seem to result, very often, in cases of spatiotemporal coincidence, in which two numerically distinct objects of dif…Read more
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67Does the descriptivist/anti-descriptivist debate have any philosophical significance?Philosophical Books 48 (1): 27-33. 2007.
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Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
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