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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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125Distinctness 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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28From 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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40Resemblance 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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24Difficulties 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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31Causal Dependence and MultiplicityPhilosophy 60 (232): 215-230. 1985.In "Causes and "If P, Even If X, still Q," Philosophy 57 (July 1982), Ted Honderich cites my "The Direction of Causation and the Direction of Conditionship," journal of Philosophy 73 (April 22, 1976) as an example of an account of causal priority that lacks the proper character. After emending Honderich's description of the proper character, I argue that my attempt to account for one-way causation in terms of one-way causal conditionship does not totally lack it. Rather than emphasize the singul…Read more
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67If P, Then Q: Conditionals and the Foundations of ReasoningRoutledge. 1989.This new edition includes three new chapters, updating the book to take into account developments in the field over the past fifteen years.
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114Determinates vs. determinablesStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.Everything red is colored, and all squares are polygons. A square is distinguished from other polygons by being four-sided, equilateral, and equiangular. What distinguishes red things from other colored things? This has been understood as a conceptual rather than scientific question. Theories of wavelengths and reflectance and sensory processing are not considered. Given just our ordinary understanding of color, it seems that what differentiates red from other colors is only redness itself. The …Read more
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3Temporal Parts. Temporal Portions, and Temporal Slices: An Exercise in Naive MereologyActa Analytica 15 21-33. 2000.Naive mereology studies ordinary conceptions of part and whole. Parts, unlike portions, have objective boundaries and many things, such as dances and sermons have temporal parts. In order to deal with Mark Heller's claim that temporal parts "are ontologically no more or less basic than the wholes that they compose," we retell the story of Laplace's Genius, here named "Swifty." Although Swifty processes lots of information very quickly, his conceptual repertoire need not extend beyond fundamental…Read more
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161Begging the QuestionAnalysis 32 (6): 197-199. 1972.A primary purpose of argument is to increase the degree of reasonable confidence that one has in the truth of the conclusion. A question begging argument fails this purpose because it violates what W. E. Johnson called an epistemic condition of inference. Although an argument of the sort characterized by Robert Hoffman in his response (Analysis 32.2, Dec 71) to Richard Robinson (Analysis 31.4, March 71) begs the question in all circumstances, we usually understand the charge that an argument is …Read more
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50Can there be one-way causal conditionship?Synthese 76 (3). 1988.I defend my attempt to explain causal priority by means of one-way causal conditionship by answering an argument by J. A. Cover about Charles'' law. Then I attempt to say what makes a philosophical analysis a counterfactual analysis, so I can understand Cover''s claim that my account is at its base a counterfactual one. Finally I examine Cover''s discussion of my contention that necessary for in the circumstances is nontransitive.
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37The Inductive Support of Inductive Rules: Themes from Max BlackDialectica 44 (1‐2): 23-41. 1990.Overall, Max Black's defense of the inductive support of inductive rules succeeds. Circularity is best explained in terms of epistemic conditions of inference. When an inference is circular, another inference token of the same type may, because of a difference of surrounding circumstances, not be circular. Black's inductive arguments in support of inductive rules fit this pattern: a token circular in some circumstances may be noncircular in other circumstances.
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255Contraries and subcontrariesNoûs 2 (1): 95-96. 1968.If two statements are contraries if and only if they cannot both be true, but can both be false, then some corresponding A and E categorical statements are not contraries, even on the presupposition that something exists which satisfies the subject term. For some such statements are necessarily true and thus cannot be false. There is a similar problem with subcontraries.
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