•  3
    Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy of Mathematics
    In Hans-Johann Glock & John Hyman (eds.), A Companion to Wittgenstein, Wiley-blackwell. 2017.
    The philosophy of mathematics was of colossal importance to Wittgenstein. Its problems had a peculiarly strong hold on him; and he seems to have thought that it was in addressing these problems that he produced his greatest work. However robust the distinction between the calculus and the surrounding prose, the prose may infect the calculus; or the prose may infect how we couch the calculus. Yet Wittgenstein's writings in the philosophy of mathematics stand in a curious relation to this self‐ass…Read more
  •  8
    Wittgenstein and Transcendental Idealism
    In Guy Kahane, Edward Kanterian & Oskari Kuusela (eds.), Wittgenstein and His Interpreters, Blackwell. 2007.
    This chapter contains section titled: Introduction1 Was the Early Wittgenstein a Transcendental Idealist? Was the Later Wittgenstein a Transcendental Idealist?
  • Book Reviews (review)
    Philosophia Mathematica 3 (3): 294-298. 1995.
  • Book Reviews (review)
    Philosophia Mathematica 4 (3): 292-293. 1996.
  •  30
    Frege's permutation argument
    with Andrew Rein
    Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 28 (1): 51-54. 1987.
  •  2
    Quine
    In Christopher Belshaw & Gary Kemp (eds.), 12 Modern Philosophers, Wiley-blackwell. 2009.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Carnap's Logical Positivism Quine's Naturalism The External/Internal Distinction and the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction The Indeterminacy of Translation Quine's Conception of Philosophy I: Metaphysics Quine's Conception of Philosophy II: Ontology Quine's Influence References.
  •  385
    Two of Quine's most familiar doctrines are: that there is a distinction between underdetermination and indeterminacy; and that there is no distinction between analytic and synthetic truths. An argument is given that these two doctrines are incompatible. In terms wholly acceptable to Quine and based on the underdetermination/indeterminacy distinction, an exhaustive and exclusive distinction is drawn between two kinds of true sentences, which, it is argued, corresponds to the traditional analytic/…Read more
  •  96
    Taming the infinite
    Foundations of Science 2 (1): 53-56. 1997.
    For over two thousand years thought about the infinite was dominated by Aristotelian hostility to the idea that the infinite could be a legitimate object of mathematical study. Then Cantor's work late in the nineteenth century seemed to overturn this orthodoxy. However, by highlighting ways in which infinitude still could not be brought under the control of mathematicians, Cantor's work may in fact have reinforced the orthodoxy.
  •  22
    The Philosophy of W. V. Quine (review)
    Idealistic Studies 22 (3): 271-273. 1992.
    This is volume XVIII in the Library of Living Philosophers. It contains Quine’s intellectual autobiography, “approximately one fifth [of which] recurs sporadically” in the much more inclusive The Time of My Life ; there follow twenty-four critical essays covering all aspects of his work by some of the most eminent living philosophers, with a reply by Quine to each; and finally there is a bibliography of his publications, running, remarkably, to eighteen pages and including seventeen books. The v…Read more
  •  107
    Maxims and thick ethical concepts
    Ratio 19 (2). 2006.
    I begin with Kant's notion of a maxim and consider the role which this notion plays in Kant's formulations of the fundamental categorical imperative. This raises the question of what a maxim is, and why there is not the same requirement for resolutions of other kinds to be universalizable. Drawing on Bernard Williams' notion of a thick ethical concept, I proffer an answer to this question which is intended neither in a spirit of simple exegesis nor as a straightforward exercise in moral philosop…Read more
  •  29
    The Infinite
    Philosophical Quarterly 41 (164): 348. 1991.
    Anyone who has pondered the limitlessness of space and time, or the endlessness of numbers, or the perfection of God will recognize the special fascination of this question. Adrian Moore's historical study of the infinite covers all its aspects, from the mathematical to the mystical
  •  186
    On Saying and Showing: A. W. Moore
    Philosophy 62 (242). 1987.
    This essay constitutes an attempt to probe the very idea of a saying/showing distinction of the kind that Wittgenstein advances in the Tractatus—to say what such a distinction consists in, to say what philosophical work it has to do, and to say how we might be justified in drawing such a distinction. Towards the end of the essay the discussion is related to Wittgenstein’s later work. It is argued that we can profitably see this work in such a way that a saying/showing distinction arises there to…Read more
  •  384
    Ineffability and nonsense
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 77 (1). 2003.
    [A. W. Moore] Criteria of ineffability are presented which, it is claimed, preclude the possibility of truths that are ineffable, but not the possibility of other things that are ineffable—not even the possibility of other things that are non-trivially ineffable. Specifically, they do not preclude the possibility of states of understanding that are ineffable. This, it is argued, allows for a reappraisal of the dispute between those who adopt a traditional reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and …Read more
  •  3
    Points of View
    Oxford University Press UK. 1997.
    'superb' -Tom Stoneham, Oxford MagazineA. W. Moore argues in this bold and unusual book that it is possible to think about the world from no point of view. His argument involves discussion of a very wide range of fundamental philosophical issues, including the nature of persons, the subject-matter of mathematics, realism and anti-realism, value, the inexpressible, and God. The result is a powerful critique of our own finitude. 'imaginative, original, and ambitious' Robert Brandom, Times Literary…Read more
  •  253
    A note on Kant's first antinomy
    Philosophical Quarterly 42 (169): 480-485. 1992.
    An interpretation of Kant's first antinomy is defended whereby both its thesis and its antithesis depend on a common basic principle that Kant endorses, namely that there cannot be an ‘infinite contingency’, by which is meant a contingent fact about how an infinite region of space or time is occupied. The greatest problem with this interpretation is that Kant explicitly declines to apply counterparts of the temporal arguments in the antinomy to the world’s future, even though, if the interpretat…Read more
  •  237
    Bird on Kant's Mathematical Antinomies
    Kantian Review 16 (2): 235-243. 2011.
    This essay is concerned with Graham Bird’s treatment, in The Revolutionary Kant, of Kant’s mathematical antinomies. On Bird’s interpretation, our error in these antinomies is to think that we can settle certain issues about the limits of physical reality by pure reason whereas in fact we cannot settle them at all. On the rival interpretation advocated in this essay, it is not true that we cannot settle these issues. Our error is to presuppose that the concept of the unconditioned has application…Read more
  •  146
    One World
    European Journal of Philosophy 24 (4): 934-945. 2016.
    This essay appeared as a contribution to a special issue of European Journal of Philosophy to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of P. F. Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense. In that book Strawson asks whether we should agree with Kant's claim, in his Critique of Pure Reason, that there can be only one world. What Kant means by this claim is that the four-dimensional realm that we inhabit must constitute the whole of empirical reality. Strawson gives reasons for challenging this claim. …Read more
  •  126
    Apperception and the Unreality of Tense
    In Christoph Hoerl & Teresa McCormack (eds.), Time and Memory: Issues in Philosophy and Psychology, Oxford University Press. pp. 375-391. 2001.
    The aim of this essay is to characterize the issue whether tense is real. Roughly, this is the issue whether, given any tensed representation, its tense corresponds in some suitably direct way to some feature of reality. The task is to make this less rough. Eight characterizations of the issue are considered and rejected, before one is endorsed. On this characterization, the unreality of tense is equivalent to the unity of temporal reality. The issue whether tense is real, so characterized, is t…Read more
  •  51
  •  1
    Wittgenstein and infinity
    In Marie McGinn & Oskari Kuusela (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Oxford University Press. 2011.
  •  49
    Wittgenstein and transcendental idealism
    In Guy Kahane, Edward Kanterian & Oskari Kuusela (eds.), Wittgenstein and His Interpreters: Essays in Memory of Gordon Baker, Blackwell. pp. 174--199. 2007.
  •  317
    Transcendental idealism in Wittgenstein, and theories of meaning
    Philosophical Quarterly 35 (139): 134-155. 1985.
    This essay involves exploration of certain repercussions of Bernard Williams’ view that there is, in Wittgenstein’s later work, a transcendental idealism akin to that found in the Tractatus—sharing with it the feature that it cannot be satisfactorily stated. It is argued that, if Williams is right, then Wittgenstein’s later work precludes a philosophically substantial theory of meaning; for such a theory would force us to try to state the idealism. In a postscript written for the reprint of the …Read more
  •  6
    The Infinite: Third Edition
    Routledge. 2018.
    This third edition of The Infinite includes a new part 'Infinity Superseded' which contains two new chapters refining Moore's ideas through a re-examination of the ideas of Spinoza, Hegel, and Nietzsche. Much of this is heavily influenced by the work of Deleuze. There is also a new technical appendix on still unresolved issues about different infinite sizes.
  •  86
    This book is concerned with the history of metaphysics since Descartes. Taking as its definition of metaphysics 'the most general attempt to make sense of things', it charts the evolution of this enterprise through various competing conceptions of its possibility, scope, and limits. The book is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with the early modern period, the late modern period in the analytic tradition, and the late modern period in non-analytic traditions. In its unusually wide …Read more