•  1515
    Knowledge, wisdom, and the philosopher
    Philosophy 81 (1): 129-151. 2006.
    The overarching thesis of this essay is that despite the etymological relationship between the word ‘philosophy’ and wisdom—the word ‘philosophos’, in Greek, means ‘lover of wisdom’—and irrespective of the longstanding tradition of identifying philosophers with ‘wise men’—mainline philosophy, historically, has had little interest in wisdom and has been preoccupied primarily with knowledge. Philosophy, if we are speaking of the mainline tradition, has had and continues to have more in common with…Read more
  •  117
    Composite Objects and the Abstract/Concrete Distinction
    Journal of Philosophical Research 27 215-238. 2002.
    In his latest book, Realistic Rationalism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), Jerrold J. Katz proposes an ontology designed to handle putative counterexamples to the traditional abstract/concrete distinction. Objects like the equator and impure sets, which appear to have both abstract and concrete components, are problematic for classical Platonism, whose exclusive categories of objects with spatiotemporal location and objects lacking spatial or temporal location leave no room for them. Katz propo…Read more
  •  99
    Review: Selves and Other Texts: The Case for Cultural Realism (review)
    British Journal of Aesthetics 45 (2): 199-200. 2005.
  •  87
    Normative criticism and the objective value of artworks
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60 (2). 2002.
  •  81
    Art and freedom
    British Journal of Aesthetics 44 (3): 307-309. 2004.
  •  77
    Family resemblances, relationalism, and the meaning of 'art'
    British Journal of Aesthetics 47 (3): 280-297. 2007.
    Peter Kivy has maintained that the Wittgensteinian account of ‘art’ ‘is not a going concern’ and that ‘the traditional task of defining the work of art is back in fashion, with a vengeance’. This is true, in large part, because of the turn towards relational definitions of ‘art’ taken by philosophers in the 1960s; a move that is widely believed to have countered the Wittgensteinian charge that ‘art’ is an open concept and which gave rise to a ‘New Wave’ in aesthetic theorizing. So successful has…Read more
  •  66
    Dan O'Brien, Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge (review)
    Teaching Philosophy 32 (4): 413-417. 2009.
  •  52
    This essay is intended as a companion‐piece to my article, “Reality in Common Sense: Reflections on Realism and Anti‐Realism from a ‘Common Sense Naturalist’ Perspective.” (Philosophical Investigations, Vol. 25, No. 4 (October 2002). It explores the epistemological dimension of the Common Sense Naturalism that I developed in that earlier, predominantly metaphysical essay; a position that combines the views of David Hume, Thomas Reid, and the Wittgenstein of On Certainty. My ultimate aim is to pr…Read more
  •  48
    Critical justification and critical laws
    British Journal of Aesthetics 43 (4): 393-400. 2003.
    This essay counters the claim, made by Arnold Isenberg, Mary Mothersill, and others, that there can be no straightforward justification of critical evaluations of artworks, because there can be no critical laws. My argument is that if we adopt an Aristotelian view of the value of artworks, the problem of critical laws is reduced to a mere problem of scope and is easily solved. An Aristotelian system of kind classification, which groups artworks according to common formal and narrative purposes, …Read more
  •  46
    The Good Old Liberal Consensus
    The Philosophers' Magazine 87 96-99. 2019.
    In this essay, I explain why the traditional liberal consensus is needed now as much as it ever was.
  •  40
    Angelaki, Volume 17, Issue 1, Page 3-12, March 2012
  •  40
    The Decline and Rebirth of Philosophy
    Philosophy Now 130 34-37. 2019.
    In this essay, I discuss philosophy's decline, in the context of disciplinization, scientism, and specialization, as well as possible ways in which it might renew itself.
  •  32
    A word from the editors
    Philosophical Forum 30 (1). 1999.
  •  31
    The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism (review)
    The Philosophers' Magazine 88 110-112. 2020.
  •  20
    How to live a good life: a guide to choosing your personal philosophy (edited book)
    Vintage Books/Penguin Random House LLC. 2020.
    A collection of essays by fifteen philosophers presenting a thoughtful, introductory guide to choosing a philosophy for living an examined and meaningful life.
  •  13
    Art and Freedom
    with S. Davies, R. Hopkins, and J. Robinson
    British Journal of Aesthetics 44 (3): 307-309. 2004.
  •  3
    How to live a good life: choosing the right philosophy of life for you (edited book)
    Vintage Books/Penguin Random House LLC. 2020.
    A collection of essays by fifteen philosophers presenting a thoughtful, introductory guide to choosing a philosophy for living an examined and meaningful life.
  • Philosophers, throughout the modern era, have treated the aesthetic judgment as a judgment of taste. But this makes it difficult to see how such judgments can be taken as normative; for if the aesthetic judgment is just an assertion of what one likes or finds beautiful, how can one validly claim that someone else ought to like it or find it beautiful too? This is important because critics offer justifications for the aesthetic judgments that they make, and they attempt to persuade others to agre…Read more