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2835Epistemic EmotionsIn Peter Goldie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, Oxford University Press. pp. 385--399. 2009.I discuss a large number of emotions that are relevant to performance at epistemic tasks. My central concern is the possibility that it is not the emotions that are most relevant to success of these tasks but associated virtues. I present cases in which it does seem to be the emotions rather than the virtues that are doing the work. I end of the paper by mentioning the connections between desirable and undesirable epistemic emotions.
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1531Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of MindPhilosophical Review 91 (2): 299. 1982.I assess Churchland's views on folk psychology and conceptual thinking, with particular emphasis on the connection between these topics.
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1466An introductory logic textbook where the central concept is not deduction but search and logical form. (Deduction - logical consequence - drops out as a special case. TIt is meant for a class-based rather than a lecture-based course, and for students with general interests.
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1173Moral incompetenceIn Timothy Chappell (ed.), Values and Virtues: Aristotelianism in Contemporary Ethics, Oxford University Press. 2006.Moral high-performers have characteristic faults. I describe difficulties in handling moral problems that arise not out of faulty intentions or defective values but because the agents underestimate the complexity of the situation.
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1063Folk psychology is not a predictive deviceMind 105 (417): 119-37. 1996.I argue that folk psychology does not serve the purpose of facilitating prediction of others' behaviour but if facilitating cooperative action. (See my subsequent book *The Importance of Being Understood*
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1048Pride versus self-respectIn Joseph Adam Carter & Emma C. Gordon (eds.), The Moral Psychology of Pride, Rowman & Littlefield. 2017.
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897Emotional truth: Emotional accuracy: Adam MortonAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76 (1). 2002.This is a reply to de Sousa's 'Emotional Truth', in which he argues that emotions can be objective, as propositional truths are. I say that it is better to distinguish between truth and accuracy, and agree with de Sousa to the extent of arguing that emotions can be more or less accurate, that is, based on the facts as they are.
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830Conventional Norms of ReasoningDialogue 50 (2): 247-260. 2011.I describe conventions not of correct reasoning but of giving and taking advice about reasoning. This article is asn anticipation of part of the first chapter of my forthcoming *Bounded Thinking*, OUP 2012.
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716Complex individuals and multigrade relationsNoûs 9 (3): 309-318. 1975.I relate plural quantification, and predicate logic where predicates do not need a fixed number of argument places, to the part-whole relation. For more on these themes see later work by Boolos, Lewis, and Oliver & Smiley.
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687Comparatives and DegreesAnalysis 44 (1). 1984.I describe a way of handling comparative adjectives "a is P-er than b", in terms of degrees "a has P to degree d". I defend this approach against attacks due to C J F Williams in an article in the same issue of *Analysis*, by tracing his objections to the assumption that degrees must be linearly ordered. Since this abstract is written years later, I can mention that some of the ideas were taken further in my Hypercomparatives. Synthese 111, 1997, 97-114 .
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676The Value of a PersonAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 68 (1). 1994.(for Adam Morton's half) I argue that if we take the values of persons to be ordered in a way that allows incomparability, then the problems Broome raises have easy solutions. In particular we can maintain that creating people is morally neutral while killing them has a negative value.
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667Denying the doctrine and changing the subjectJournal of Philosophy 70 (15): 503-510. 1973.I discuss Quine's claim that anyone denying what we now take to be a logical truth would be using logical words in a novel way. I trace this to a confusions between outright denial and failure to assert, and assertion of a negation. (This abstract is written from memory decades after the article.)
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663The Paradox of Self-Consciousness (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (3): 727-730. 2001.I discuss Bermudez' minimalist approach to self-consciousness approvingly, connecting it with other positions in philosophy and trying to separate it from ideas about non-conceptual content.
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662The chaology of mindAnalysis 48 (3): 135. 1988.I explore the possibility that mentality can be characterized as a level in between the functional and the neurological, namely as a physical system exhibiting a specific kind of chaos. The argument is meant to make a case for this kind of characterization rather than giving one in specific detail.
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646The architecture of reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality (review)Philosophy 77 (3): 454-471. 2002.I admire Audi's intentions in discussing the rationality of beliefs, desires, and actions together, and doubt that this can be done internalistically, as he tries.
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641Emotional TruthAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76 247-275. 2002.[Ronald de Sousa] Taking literally the concept of emotional truth requires breaking the monopoly on truth of belief-like states. To this end, I look to perceptions for a model of non-propositional states that might be true or false, and to desires for a model of propositional attitudes the norm of which is other than the semantic satisfaction of their propositional object. Those models inspire a conception of generic truth, which can admit of degrees for analogue representations such as emotions…Read more
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640Emotional Truth. By Ronald de Sousa. (Oxford UP, 2011. Pp. xviii + 391. Price £38.00.)Philosophical Quarterly 62 (246): 220-222. 2012.
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589Saving epistemology from the epistemologists: recent work in the theory of knowledgeBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (4): 685-704. 2000.This is a very selective survey of developments in epistemology, concentrating on work from the past twenty years that is of interest to philosophers of science. The selection is organized around interesting connections between distinct themes. I first connect issues about skepticism to issues about the reliability of belief-acquiring processes. Next I connect discussions of the defeasibility of reasons for belief to accounts of the theory-independence of evidence. Then I connect doubts about Ba…Read more
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555Inequity/Iniquity: Card on Balancing Injustice and evilHypatia 19 (4): 199-203. 2004.Card argues that we should not give injustice priority over evil. I agree. But I think Card sets us up for some difficult balancings, for example of small evils against middle sized injustices. I suggest some ways of staying off the tightrope.
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543Folk psychology does not existIn Daniel D. Hutto & Matthew Ratcliffe (eds.), Folk Psychology Re-Assessed, Kluwer/springer Press. pp. 211--221. 2007.I discuss the possibility that there is no intrinsic unity to the capacities which are bundled under the label "folk psychology". Cooperative skills, attributional skills, and predictive skills may be scattered as parts of other non--psychological capacities. I discuss how some forms of social life bring these different skills together. I end with some remarks on how abilities that are not unified in their essential mechanisms may still form a rough practical unity. (Remark: the paper is conject…Read more
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525Contrastive knowledgePhilosophical Explorations 6 (2). 2003.We describe the three place relation of contrastive knowledge, which holds between a person, a target proposition, and a contrasting proposition. The person knows that p rather than that q. We argue for three claims about this relation. (a) Many common sense and philosophical ascriptions of knowledge can be understood in terms of it. (b) Its application is subject to fewer complications than non-contrastive knowledge is. (c) It applies over a wide range of human and nonhuman cases.
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521Shared Knowledge from Individual Vice: the role of unworthy epistemic emotionsPhilosophical Inquiries. 2014.This paper begins with a discussion the role of less-than-admirable epistemic emotions in our respectable, indeed admirable inquiries: nosiness, obsessiveness, wishful thinking, denial, partisanship. The explanation for their desirable effect is Mandevillian: because of the division of epistemic labour individual epistemic vices can lead to shared knowledge. In fact it is sometimes essential to it.
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50710 The evolution of strategic thinkingIn Peter Carruthers & A. Chamberlain (eds.), Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language and Meta-Cognition, Cambridge University Press. pp. 218. 2000.I discuss ways in which innate human psychology facilitates the quasi-game-theoretical reasoning required for group life.
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488Indicative versus subjunctive in future conditionalsAnalysis 64 (4): 289-293. 2004.I give cases where the contrast between "if Shakespeare had not written Hamlet someone else would have" and "if Shakespeare did not write Hamlet and someone else did"is found in future tense sentences. This is often denied.
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479Theory and Evidence. Clark Glymour (review)Philosophy of Science 48 (3): 498-500. 1981.review of Glymour's *Theory and Evidence* focusing on the arguments against holism.
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476Causation: A Realist ApproachPhilosophical Books 30 (3): 157-161. 1989.a review of Tooley's Causation: a realist approach*, with emphasis on his use of probability and Ramsey sentences.
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473Abstracts of Comments: The Saturation of Dyspepsia: Comments on WilsonNoûs 12 (1). 1978.Wilson argued that since for continuants such as people a predicate and a time determine a place, natural language *can* specify just, e,.g. "a is dyspeptic at t" leaving the location of a's dyspepsia unstated. From this he concludes that language *must* leave the location unstated. I query the transition from *may* to *must*.
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458The Variety of RationalityAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 59 (1): 139-176. 1985.I discuss the connections between rationality and intentional action, emphasising that different kinds of action are rational an intentional in different ways.
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457Review of Armstrong & Malcolm *Consciousness and Causality* (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36 (3): 341-344. 1985.Malcolm and Armstrong think they are disagreeing, but in fact they share some's apprehensions about mental states, particularly perceptual states