•  155
    Causation appears to present us with an interpretative difficulty. While arguably a redundant relation given fundamental physics, it is nevertheless apparently pragmatically indispensable. This chapter revisits certain arguments made previously by the author for these claims with the benefit of hindsight, starting with the role of causal models in the human sciences, and attempting to explain why it is not possible to straightforwardly ground such models in fundamental physics. This suggests tha…Read more
  •  344
    Reasoning from inconclusive evidence, or ‘induction’, is central to science and any applications we make of it. For that reason alone it demands the attention of philosophers of science. This Element explores the prospects of using probability theory to provide an inductive logic, a framework for representing evidential support. Constraints on the ideal evaluation of hypotheses suggest that overall support for a hypothesis is represented by its probability in light of the total evidence, and inc…Read more
  •  20
    Graham Charles Nerlich (23 November 1929 – 31 March 2022)
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (1): 249-250. 2023.
    Graham Nerlich studied philosophy and English literature at the University of Adelaide, gaining a BA (with joint Honours) in 1954 and an MA (1955). These were halcyon days for philosophy in Adelaid...
  •  403
    Relativity and the A-theory
    In Eleanor Knox & Alastair Wilson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics, Routledge. 2022.
    The special theory of relativity (STR) is widely supposed to be in tension with A-theories of time, those giving special significance to the present moment. A-theories are diverse in the features they regard as distinctive of the present, but all agree that there is an absolute fact of the matter about which events have the feature of presentness. Famously, the standard notion of simultaneity operationalised within the theory of relativity is not absolute. If A-theorists accept relativistic phys…Read more
  •  5
    In this chapter, I’ll provide an introduction to the mathematics of probability theory.1 The philosophy of probability doesn’t require much mathematical sophistication, at least not to get a good grip on the main problems and views. Nothing in this chapter is particularly complicated, and even the mathematically shy should, with a little effort, find it easy to follow. I do assume familiarity with the basics of an elementary logic course, and some basic facility with the notion of a set.
  •  10
    • But this is not all: since organisms differ from aggregates (maybe tables do too?). The difference: organisation, indeed, organisation that constitutes ‘vegetable life’
  •  1
    Characteristic mental states including thinking about going on holiday, desiring to eat a peach, feeling sad, and believing that that Australia will win the world cup. Mental states are intentional (about other things) and we have privileged access to them.
  •  28
    and argue that (2) is similarly not true, but a convention: we use talk of pos• sibility to capture claims about consistency, or whatever. (This is merely an example; I don't suppose that (2) appeals to anyone particularly as a neces• sary truth about possibility or consistency.) Again, the kind of thing that is in..
  •  330
    relevant alternatives: I take it that a process is reliable in the actual world iff, in the actual set of outcomes (i.e. beliefs being formed), the frequency of successes (those beliefs being true) is much greater than the frequency of failures (those beliefs being false). One may wish to run a more sophisticated kind of reliabilism, where one demands that a reliable process also be reliable in counterfactual situations, but one need not, and I won’t here. If perception is a reliable belief form…Read more
  •  428
    There will be a surprise party for Mark tonight. He loves surprise parties, because he loves the surprise—but he'll feel terrible if the surprise is spoiled, and not want to go. He has a reason to go to the party—the surprise—; but if he knew or even believed what that reason was, he would have a reason not to go. It looks like in this case there can be really good reasons for someone without the person being aware of what those reasons are (and in this case, it wouldn't even be a reason to go a…Read more
  •  388
    QUESTIONS Objects seem to have some properties in themselves (like shape), and some other properties that depend on other things around them (like being alone or accompanied). The distinction between primary and secondary qualities is a special case of this more general contrast: what, according to Locke, is the basis for the distinction? Is there more than one way to understand Locke’s argument: what is the best reading of Locke? What wider significance does the distinction between primary and s…Read more
  •  60
    Consider also what I shall call the asymmetry of openness: the obscure contrast we draw between the ‘open future’ and the ‘fixed past.’ We tend to regard the future as a multitude of alternative possibilities, a ‘garden of forking paths’ in Borges’ phrase, whereas we regard the past as a unique, settled, immutable actuality. These descriptions scarcely wear their meaning on their sleeves, yet do seem to capture some genuine and important difference between past and future. What can it be?
  •  3433
    For Locke, an idea is ‘the immediate object of perception, thought, or understanding’ (§8).1 Perhaps this is something like a concept: he goes on to give examples of white, cold, and round, which look like they have some representational content. What do these ideas represent? Locke defines a quality: ‘the power to produce any idea in our mind, I call quality of the subject wherein that power is’ (§8). The natural thought is that these ideas represent some quality of the object, which quality ju…Read more
  •  287
    Some philosophers have been attracted to the idea that the norm of belief is truth that is, a belief that p is correct i p is true. But this idea is problematic in view of some very common• place re ections on what one should believe about paradoxical sentences like the Truthteller. Interestingly, these re ections don't seem to trouble the rival knowledge norm for belief, and this may provide indirect support for that alternative norm.
  •  370
    A generic quantification, like dogs have tails, has a distinctive semantics; it is certainly not synonymous with the universal quantification all dogs have tails. A generic causal claim, like smoking causes cancer, is similarly not synonymous with all smoking causes cancer. Many philosophers of science have taken this difference in meaning to demand radical treatments of causal generics, invoking such exotica as causation between properties or causation at ‘different levels’. A more sober treatm…Read more
  •  4
    Section: Part I - Degrees of belief.
  •  325
    Given Locke’s views on primary and secondary qualities, it seems he is committed to there being real underlying properties in objects, the arrangement and disposition of which underlies and produces the observed properties of that object. It might be natural to think that these primary qualities provide a general system for classifying objects into classes: that we could delineate the real kinds of objects in nature by looking at what their real primary qualities were. A list of the particular q…Read more
  •  370
    Metaphysics, having long since recovered the logical positivist/empiricist objections that were supposed to signal its death, is once again coming under sustained criticism, and from a similar direction. Once it was realised that speculative systematic metaphysics needn’t be abandoned in light of empiricist scruples, metaphysics flourished. But it’s become increasingly clear that, even if the logical empiricists didn’t exactly get their objections right, there is something worrying about the evi…Read more
  •  563
    Weak Location
    Dialectica 73 (1-2): 149-181. 2019.
    Recently, many philosophers have been interested in using locative relations to clarify and pursue debates in the metaphysics of material objects. Most begin with the relation of exact location. But what if we begin instead with the relation known as weak location – the relation an object x bears to any region not completely bereft of x? I explore some of the consequences of pursuing this route for issues including coincidence, extended simples, and endurance, with an eye to evaluating the prosp…Read more
  •  846
    Chance, determinism, and unsettledness
    Philosophical Studies 176 (3): 781-802. 2019.
    A previously unrecognised argument against deterministic chance is introduced. The argument rests on the twin ideas that determined outcomes are settled, while chancy outcomes are unsettled, thus making cases of determined but chancy outcomes impossible. Closer attention to tacit assumptions about settledness makes available some principled lines of resistance to the argument for compatibilists about chance and determinism. Yet the costs of maintaining compatibilism may be higher with respect to…Read more
  •  1184
    I argue that any broadly dispositional analysis of probability will either fail to give an adequate explication of probability, or else will fail to provide an explication that can be gainfully employed elsewhere (for instance, in empirical science or in the regulation of credence). The diversity and number of arguments suggests that there is little prospect of any successful analysis along these lines.
  •  147
    Probability
    In Paul Humphreys (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 417-439. 2016.
    Rather than entailing that a particular outcome will occur, many scientific theories only entail that an outcome will occur with a certain probability. Because scientific evidence inevitably falls short of conclusive proof, when choosing between different theories it is standard to make reference to how probable the various options are in light of the evidence. A full understanding of probability in science needs to address both the role of probabilities in theories, or chances, as well as the r…Read more
  •  1125
    Deterministic Chance
    Noûs 45 (2). 2010.
    I sketch a new constraint on chance, which connects chance ascriptions closely with ascriptions of ability, and more specifically with 'CAN'-claims. This connection between chance and ability has some claim to be a platitude; moreover, it exposes the debate over deterministic chance to the extensive literature on (in)compatibilism about free will. The upshot is that a prima facie case for the tenability of deterministic chance can be made. But the main thrust of the paper is to draw attention to…Read more
  •  526
    Is the Past a Matter of Chance?
    In Alastair Wilson (ed.), Chance and Temporal Asymmetry, Oxford University Press. pp. 126-158. 2014.
    This volume sets the agenda for future work on time and chance, which are central to theemerging sub-field of metaphysics of science.