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59Personal AgencyRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 53 211-227. 2003.Why does the problem of free will seem so intractable? I surmise that in large measure it does so because the free will debate, at least in its modern form, is conducted in terms of a mistaken approach to causality in general. At the heart of this approach is the assumption that all causation is fundamentally event causation. Of course, it is well-known that some philosophers of action want to invoke in addition an irreducible notion of agent causation, applicable only in the sphere of intellige…Read more
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39The rational and the real: Some doubts about the programme of 'rational analysis'In José Luis Bermúdez & Alan Millar (eds.), Reason and Nature: Essays in the Theory of Rationality, Clarendon Press. pp. 175. 2002.
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110Serious endurantism and the strong unity of human personsIn Benedikt Schick, Edmund Runggaldier & Ludger Honnefelder (eds.), Unity and Time in Metaphysics, Walter De Gruyter. pp. 67. 2009.
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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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126Two Notions of Being: Entity and EssenceRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 62 23-48. 2008.
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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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29Review of Frank Plumpton Ramsey and Maria Carla Galavotti: Notes on Philosophy, Probability and Mathematics (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (2): 300-301. 1997.
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23Logical ArgumentIn Miroslaw Szatkowski (ed.), Ontological Proofs Today, Ontos Verlag. pp. 50--179. 2012.
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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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98The mind in natureInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 17 (4). 2009.This Article does not have an abstract
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512What is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths?Mind 121 (484): 919-950. 2012.There is currently intense interest in the question of the source of our presumed knowledge of truths concerning what is, or is not, metaphysically possible or necessary. Some philosophers locate this source in our capacities to conceive or imagine various actual or non-actual states of affairs, but this approach is open to certain familiar and seemingly powerful objections. A different and ostensibly more promising approach has been developed by Timothy Williamson, according to which our capaci…Read more
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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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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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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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324Material coincidence and the cinematographic fallacy: A response to OlsonPhilosophical Quarterly 52 (208): 369-372. 2002.Eric T. Olson has argued that those who hold that two material objects can exactly coincide at a moment of time, with one of these objects constituting the other, face an insuperable difficulty in accounting for the alleged differences between the objects, such as their being of different kinds and possessing different persistence-conditions. The differences, he suggests, are inexplicable, given that the objects in question are composed of the same particles related in precisely the same way. In…Read more
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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
Areas of Specialization
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Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Physical Science |