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934Mary Meets Molyneux: The Explanatory Gap and the Individuation of Phenomenal ConceptsNoûs 38 (3): 503-524. 2004.It is widely accepted that physicalism faces its most serious challenge when it comes to making room for the phenomenal character of psychological experience, its so-called what-it-is-like aspect. The challenge has surfaced repeatedly over the past two decades in a variety of forms. In a particularly striking one, Frank Jackson considers a situation in which Mary, a brilliant scientist who knows all the physical facts there are to know about psychological experience, has spent the whole of her l…Read more
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797‘‘In My ‘Mind’s Eye’: Introspectionism, Detectivism, and the Basis of Authoritative Self-KnowledgeSynthese 191 (15). 2014.It is widely accepted that knowledge of certain of one’s own mental states is authoritative in being epistemically more secure than knowledge of the mental states of others, and theories of self-knowledge have largely appealed to one or the other of two sources to explain this special epistemic status. The first, ‘detectivist’, position, appeals to an inner perception-like basis, whereas the second, ‘constitutivist’, one, appeals to the view that the special security awarded to certain self-know…Read more
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709Emergence and Downward CausationIn Cynthia Macdonald & Graham Macdonald (eds.), Emergence in Mind, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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651Self-knowledge and the "inner eye"Philosophical Explorations 1 (2): 83-106. 1998.What is knowledge of one's own current, consciously entertained intentional states a form of inner awareness? If so, what form? In this paper I explore the prospects for a quasi-observational account of a certain class of cases where subjects appear to have self-knowledge, namely, the so-called cogito-like cases. In section one I provide a rationale for the claim that we need an epistemology of self-knowledge, and specifically, an epistemology of the cogito-like cases. In section two I argue tha…Read more
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536Tropes and Other ThingsIn Stephen Laurence & Cynthia Macdonald (eds.), Contemporary Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics, Wiley-blackwell. 1998.Our day-to-day experience of the world regularly brings us into contact with middlesized objects such as apples, dogs, and other human beings. These objects possess observable properties, properties that are available or accessible to the unaided senses, such as redness and roundness, as well as properties that are not so available, such as chemical ones. Both of these kinds of properties serve as valuable sources of information about our familiar middle-sized objects at least to the extent that…Read more
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500Self-Knowledge and Inner SpaceIn Cynthia Macdonald & Graham Macdonald (eds.), McDowell and His Critics, Blackwell. pp. 73--88. 2006.This chapter contains section titled: Externalism and Authoritative Self‐Knowledge The “Fully Cartesian” Conception Externalism and Authoritative Self‐Knowledge A Suggestion.
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482Consciousness, self-consciousness, and authoritative self-knowledgeProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108 (1pt3): 319-346. 2008.Many recent discussions of self-consciousness and self-knowledge assume that there are only two kinds of accounts available to be taken on the relation between the so-called first-order (conscious) states and subjects' awareness or knowledge of them: a same-order, or reflexive view, on the one hand, or a higher-order one, on the other. I maintain that there is a third kind of view that is distinctively different from these two options. The view is important because it can accommodate and make in…Read more
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446The Epistemology of MeaningIn Dan Ryder, Justine Kingsbury & Kenneth Williford (eds.), Millikan and her critics, Wiley. pp. 221--240. 2013.This chapter contains section titles: Introduction Section 1 Section 2 Conclusion.
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408What is Colour? A Defence of Colour PrimitivismIn Robert Johnson & Michael Smith (eds.), Passions and Projections: Themes from the Philosophy of Simon Blackburn, Oxford University Press. pp. 116-133. 2015.
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386How to be Psychologically RelevantIn Cynthia Macdonald & Graham Macdonald (eds.), Philosophy of Psychology: Debates on Psychological Explanation, Blackwell. 1995.How did I raise my arm? The simple answer is that I raised it as a consequence of intending to raise it. A slightly more complicated response would mention the absence of any factors which would inhibit the execution of the intention- and a more complicated one still would specify the intention in terms of a goal (say, drinking a beer) which requires arm-raising as a means towards that end. Whatever the complications, the simple answer appears to be on the right track
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293Beyond program explanationIn Geoffrey Brennan (ed.), Common minds: themes from the philosophy of Philip Pettit, Oxford University Press. pp. 1--27. 2007.
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291Real metaphysics and the descriptive/revisionary distinctionIn Cornelis De Waal (ed.), Susan Haack: A Lady of Distinctions: The Philosopher Responds to Critics, Prometheus Books. 2007.
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289The metaphysics of mental causationJournal of Philosophy 103 (11): 539-576. 2006.A debate has been raging in the philosophy of mind for at least the past two decades. It concerns whether the mental can make a causal difference to the world. Suppose that I am reading the newspaper and it is getting dark. I switch on the light, and continue with my reading. One explanation of why my switching on of the light occurred is that a desiring with a particular content (that I continue reading), a noticing with a particular content (that it is getting dark), and a believing with a par…Read more
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213Introspection and authoritative self-knowledgeErkenntnis 67 (2): 355-372. 2007.In this paper I outline and defend an introspectionist account of authoritative self-knowledge for a certain class of cases, ones in which a subject is both thinking and thinking about a current, conscious thought. My account is distinctive in a number of ways, one of which is that it is compatible with the truth of externalism
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194Mind-Body Identity TheoriesRoutledge. 1989.Chapter One The most plausible arguments for the identity of mind and body that have been advanced in this century have been for the identity of mental ...
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183Connectionism: Debates on Psychological Explanation (edited book)Blackwell. 1991.This volume provides an introduction to and review of key contemporary debates concerning connectionism, and the nature of explanation and methodology in cognitive psychology. The first debate centers on the question of whether human cognition is best modeled by classical or by connectionist architectures. The second centres on the question of the compatibility between folk, or commonsense, psychological explanation and explanations based on connectionist models of cognition. Each of the two sec…Read more
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169The identity theory of truth and the realm of reference: Where Dodd goes wrongAnalysis 69 (2): 297-304. 2009.In ‘On McDowell's identity conception of truth’ , we suggested that McDowell's Identity Theory, according to which a proposition is true if and only if it is identical with a fact, is only fully understood when we realize that there are two identity claims involved. The first is that, when one thinks truly, the content of a whole thought is identical with a Tractarian Tatsachen – a complex fact constituted by simple Sachverhalte – and the second is that these simple Sachverhalte are in turn iden…Read more
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146Shoemaker on self-knowledge and inner sensePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (3): 711-38. 1999.What is introspective knowledge of one's own intentional states like? This paper aims to make plausible the view that certain cases of self-knowledge, namely the cogito-type ones, are enough like perception to count as cases of quasi-observation. To this end it considers the highly influential arguments developed by Sydney Shoemaker in his recent Royce Lectures. These present the most formidable challenge to the view that certain cases of self-knowledge are quasi-observational and so deserve det…Read more
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138Externalism and First-Person AuthoritySynthese 104 (1): 99-122. 1995.Externalism in the philosophy of mind is threatened by the view that subjects are authoritative with regard to the contents of their own intentional states. If externalism is to be reconciled with first-person authority, two issues need to be addressed: (a) how the non-evidence-based character of knowledge of one's own intentional states is compatible with ignorance of the empirical factors that individuate the contents of those states, and (b) how, given externalism, the non-evidence-based char…Read more
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94Emergence in mind (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2010.The volume also extends the debate about emergence by considering the independence of chemical properties from physical properties, and investigating what would ...
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90McDowell’s Alternative Conceptions of the WorldInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 19 (1): 87-94. 2011.This Article does not have an abstract
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86Rethinking folk-psychology: Alternatives to theories of mindPhilosophical Explorations 11 (3). 2008.This Article does not have an abstract
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66Self-knowledge and the First PersonIn M. Sie, Marc Slors & B. Van den Brink (eds.), Reasons of One's Own, Ashgate. 2004.It is a familiar view in the philosophy of mind and action is that for a thought or attitude to constitute a reason for an action is for it to render intelligible, in the light of norms of rationality or reason, that action. However, I can make sense of your actions in this way by crediting you with attitudes that I myself do not hold. Equally, you can do this for my actions. So not all reasons for one’s actions are one’s own reasons. What more is involved in a reason’s being one’s own reason fo…Read more
Manchester, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |