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Molyneux and motor plasticityPhilosophy and the Mind Sciences 5. 2024.
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Sellars’ Naturalism, the Myth of the Given and Ηusserl’s Transcendental PhenomenologyPhilosophical Forum 49 (4): 511-539. 2018.
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Normativity, Lifeworld, and Science in Sellars’ Synoptic VisionSpringer Nature Switzerland. 2023.This book brings together the work of Wilfrid Sellars with work in 20th century phenomenology and 21st century speculative realism in order to think through one of the most important predicaments of contemporary philosophy. As a result of the disenchantment of nature in late modernity, philosophy has struggled to account for the place of persons, construed as loci of normative authority and responsibility, within a scientifically, naturalistically described world, bereft of values and norms. The…Read more
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No Work for a Theory of GroundingInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 57 (5-6): 535-579. 2014.It has recently been suggested that a distinctive metaphysical relation— ‘Grounding’—is ultimately at issue in contexts in which some goings-on are said to hold ‘in virtue of’’, be ‘metaphysically dependent on’, or be ‘nothing over and above’ some others. Grounding is supposed to do good work in illuminating metaphysical dependence. I argue that Grounding is also unsuited to do this work. To start, Grounding alone cannot do this work, for bare claims of Grounding leave open such basic questions …Read more
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Constitution, Causation, and the Final Opinion: A Puzzle in Peirce's IllustrationsHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 40 (3): 237-257. 2023.In “The Fixation of Belief,” Peirce apparently accepts the causal claim that real physical objects cause us to reach an indefeasible “final opinion” concerning them. In “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” he apparently accepts the constitutive claim that for physical objects to be real just is for them to be represented in that opinion. These claims initially seem inconsistent, since causal claims are explanatory and since equivalent claims cannot explain one another. Contrary to prominent suggestion…Read more
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A Cybernetic Theory of Persons: How and Why Sellars Naturalized KantPhilosophical Inquiries 10 (1). 2022.I argue that Sellars’s naturalization of Kant should be understood in terms of how he used behavioristic psychology and cybernetics. I first explore how Sellars used Edward Tolman’s cognitive-behavioristic psychology to naturalize Kant in the early essay “Language, Rules, and Behavior”. I then turn to Norbert Wiener’s understanding of feedback loops and circular causality. On this basis I argue that Sellars’s distinction between signifying and picturing, which he introduces in “Being and Being K…Read more
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Peirce's modal shift: From set theory to pragmaticismJournal of the History of Philosophy 45 (4): 551-576. 2007.For many years, Charles Peirce maintained that all senses of the modal terms "possible" and "necessary" can be defined in terms of "states of information." But in 1896, he was motivated by his work in set theory to criticize that account of modality, and in 1905 he characterized that criticism as a return "to the Aristotelian doctrine of a real possibility ... the great step that was needed to render pragmaticism an intelligible doctrine." But since Peirce was a realist about modality before 189…Read more
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Enactivism, pragmatism…behaviorism?Philosophical Studies 176 (3): 807-818. 2019.Shaun Gallagher applies enactivist thinking to a staggeringly wide range of topics in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, even venturing into the realms of biological anthropology. One prominent point Gallagher makes that the holistic approach of enactivism makes it less amenable to scientific investigation than the cognitivist framework it seeks to replace, and should be seen as a “philosophy of nature” rather than a scientific research program. Gallagher also gives truth to the saying th…Read more
Deakin, Victoria, Australia
Areas of Interest
2 more
Metaphilosophy |
History of Western Philosophy |
Meaning |
Truth |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Wilfrid Sellars |
Ludwig Wittgenstein |