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62Real metaphysics, edited by Hallvard Lillehammer and Gonzalo Rodriguez-pereyraEuropean Journal of Philosophy 16 (1). 2008.
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Identity, vagueness, and modalityIn José Luis Bermúdez (ed.), Thought, Reference, and Experience: Themes From the Philosophy of Gareth Evans, Clarendon Press. 2005.
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260Reply 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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19Objects and criteria of identityIn R. Hole & C. Wright (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Blackwell. 1997.'Object' and 'criterion of identity' are philosophical terms of art whose application lies at a considerable theoretical remove from the surface phenomena of everyday linguistic usage. This partly explains their highly controversial status, for their point of application lies precisely where the concerns of linguists and philosophers of language merge with those of metaphysicians. This chapter explains the possession of determinate identity‐conditions. It argues that the distinction between 'abs…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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1Experience and its objectsIn Tim Crane (ed.), The Contents of Experience, Cambridge University Press. 1992.
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15Review. Notes on philosophy, probability and mathematics. FP Ramsey (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (2): 300-301. 1997.
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25Is Conceptualist Realism a Stable Position?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2): 456-461. 2007.
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143Reviews 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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2Non-Cartesian DualismIn John Heil (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology, Oxford University Press. 2003.
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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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52Complex Reality: Unity, Simplicity, and Complexity in a Substance OntologyIn Christer Svennerlind, Jan Almäng & Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson (eds.), Johanssonian Investigations. Essays in Honour of Ingvar Johansson on His Seventieth Birthday, Ontos Verlag. pp. 5--338. 2013.
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2A. J. Ayer: Memorial Essays Edited by A. Phillips Griffiths Cambridge University Press, 1991, v + 239 pp., £12.95 (review)Philosophy 68 (263): 107-108. 1993.
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271The 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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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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1607Causal closure principles and emergentismPhilosophy 75 (294): 571-586. 2000.Causal closure arguments against interactionist dualism are currently popular amongst physicalists. Such an argument appeals to some principles of the causal closure of the physical, together with certain other premises, to conclude that at least some mental events are identical with physical events. However, it is crucial to the success of any such argument that the physical causal closure principle to which it appeals is neither too strong nor too weak by certain standards. In this paper, it i…Read more
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2803D/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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232Locke on Real Essence and Water as a Natural Kind: A Qualified DefenceAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 85 (1): 1-19. 2011.‘Water is H2O’ is one of the most frequently cited sentences in analytic philosophy, thanks to the seminal work of Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam in the 1970s on the semantics of natural kind terms. Both of these philosophers owe an intellectual debt to the empiricist metaphysics of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, while disagreeing profoundly with Locke about the reality of natural kinds. Locke employs an intriguing example involving water to support his view that kinds (or ‘sp…Read more
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Metaphysics |
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