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If P then Q Conditionals and the Foundations of ReasoningBehavior and Philosophy 19 (2): 103-107. 1991.
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36. Self-Deception as RationalizationIn Brian P. McLaughlin & Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (eds.), Perspectives on Self-Deception, University of California Press. pp. 157-169. 1988.
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126Distinctness and non-identityAnalysis 65 (4). 2005.The following statement (A) is usually abbreviated with symbols: (A) There are items X and Y, each is F, X is not identical to Y, and everything F is identical to X or is identical to Y. (A) is neither necessary nor sufficient for the existence of exactly two distinct things that are F. Some things are neither identical nor distinct. The difference between distinctness and nonidentity makes a difference in asking questions about counting, constitution, and persistence.
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20From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against BeliefPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (1): 149-154. 1986.
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12Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen: The Defense of Reason in Descartes's MeditationsPhilosophical Review 82 (1): 120. 1973.
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43Resemblance and Identity: An Examination of the Problem of Universals (review)Philosophical Review 77 (3): 386-389. 1968.
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5How Plausible is the Principle of Plenitude?Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 59 (2): 149. 1978.The cardinality of incompatible possibilities whose actuality requires at least N seconds exceeds the cardinality of disjoint intervals at least N seconds long. Therefore, not all logical possibilities can be actual in the long run, even if the long run is infinite.
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11Varieties of Things: Foundations of Contemporary Metaphysics ‐ By Cynthia Macdonald (review)Philosophical Books 48 (1): 81-82. 2007.
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17Difficulties for the Reconciling and Estranging Projects: Some SymmetriesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (1): 240-244. 2007.Suppose that Susan did not go to the movies. The reconciling project attempts to show that this plus Determinism does not imply that Susan could not have gone to the movies. The estranging project attempts to show the opposite. A counter‐entailment argument is of the form A is consistent with C, and C entails not‐B, therefore A does not entail B. An instance of the counter‐entailment arguments undermines a central argument for the reconciling project. Another instance undermines a central argume…Read more
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1Infinite regress argumentsIn James H. Fetzer (ed.), Principles of philosophical reasoning, Rowman & Allanheld. pp. 93--117. 1984.
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4Chisholm on Brentano's thesisIn Lewis Edwin Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Roderick M. Chisholm, Open Court. pp. 25--201. 1997.Roderick Chisholm provides, in different places, two formulations of Brentano's thesis about the relation between the psychological and the intentional: (1) all and only psychological sentences are intentional; (2) no psychological intentional sentence is equivalent to a nonintentional sentence. Chisholm also presents several definitions of intentionality. Some of these allow that a sentence is intentional while its negation is nonintentional, which ruins the prospects of defending the more plau…Read more
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45What could have happenedNoûs 10 (3): 313-326. 1976.Morton White proposes two patterns of expansion for sentences of the form "Possible (x is Q)" in "On What Could Have Happened" (Philosophical Review, 1968). His attempts in "Ands and Cans" (Mind, 1974) and in "Positive Freedom, Negative Freedom, and Possibility" (Journal of Philosophy, 1973) to simplify these two patterns and his argument for abandoning the first pattern are mistaken. Although I question a number of White's claims, my purpose is to improve his treatment of possibility rather tha…Read more
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15Book Review:Perception, Common Sense, and Science James W. Cornman (review)Philosophy of Science 45 (1): 163-. 1978.
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19Intermediate conclusionsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 53 (1). 1975.A statement q is a conclusion intermediate between p and h if and only if (1) p justifies h, (2) p justifies q, and (3) (p and not-q) justifies h to a significantly lesser degree than p justifies h. I contend that Gettier-type counterexamples to definitions of factual knowledge violate the following principle: if one knows that h on the basis of p, then all the conclusions intermediate between p and h are true. This principle does not refer to anyone's beliefs that intermediate conclusions are t…Read more
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66Disjunctive PredicatesAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 30 (2): 167-1722. 1993.Philosophers have had difficulty in explaining the difference between disjunctive and non-disjunctive predicates. Purely syntactical criteria are ineffective, and mention of resemblance begs the question. I draw the distinction by reference to relations between borderline cases. The crucial point about the disjoint predicate 'red or green', for example, is that no borderline case of 'red' is a borderline case of 'green'. Other varieties of disjunctive predicates are: inclusively disjunctive (suc…Read more
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254The direction of causation and the direction of conditionshipJournal of Philosophy 73 (8): 193-207. 1976.I criticize and emend J L Mackie's account of causal priority by replacing ‘fixity’ in its central clause by 'x is a causal condition of y, but y is not a causal condition of x'. This replacement works only if 'is a causal condition of' is not a symmetric relation. Even apart from our desire to account for causal priority, it is desirable to have an account of nonsymmetric conditionship. Truth, for example, is a condition of knowledge, but knowledge is not a condition of truth. My definitions of…Read more
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