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6Naturalism and the Question of RealismIn Kelly James Clark (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism, Wiley. 2016.According to naturalism, philosophy is part of science. Its aim is thus to acquire synthetic knowledge of the world. Philosophy's methods of discovery – its use of a priori reasoning, conceptual analysis, and thought experiments – are legitimate to the extent that they further this broader scientific aim, naturalists aver. A very different view of philosophy sees it as distinct from science in both aim and methods. Philosophy aims to discover analytic knowledge through a priori reasoning on this…Read more
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11True to the power of one? Cognition, argument, and reasoningBehavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2): 82-83. 2011.While impressed by much of what Mercier & Sperber (M&S) offer through their argumentative hypothesis, we question whether the specific competencies entailed in each system are adequate. In particular, whether system 2 might not require independent reasoning capabilities. We explore the adequacy of the explanations offered for confirmation bias and the Wason selection task
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8‘The Limits of Realism’, by Button, Tim: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. xii + 264, £45 (hardback) (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (3): 587-590. 2014.
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34On putting the semantic cart before the metaphysical horse - a realistic appraisal of anti-realist semanticsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (4). 1991.This Article does not have an abstract
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3"What in the world could correspond to truth?"Logique Et Analyse 43 (169-170): 109-144. 2000.This paper argues that the Correspondence Theory of Truth is not well- served by Truthmaker Theory and is better developed in a different direction. For there are reasons to believe that the main axiom of that theory (TA) which states that for every truth there is a truthmaker is either unjustified or false. Some of these reasons are already well-known. Negative existentials and universal generalizations present initial difficulties for TM theory as do necessary truths. There is a more serious p…Read more
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16Mental States Volume 1: Evolution, function, nature (edited book)John Benjamins. 2007.Collecting the work of linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, archaeologists, artificial intelligence researchers and philosophers this volume presents a richly varied picture of the nature and function of mental states. Starting from questions about the cognitive capacities of the early hominin homo floresiensis, the essays proceed to the role mental representations play in guiding the behaviour of simple organisms and robots, thence to the question of which features of its environment the …Read more
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35Naturalistic Realism and the Antirealist ChallengeBradford. 2004.In this important book, Drew Khlentzos explains the antirealist argument from a realist perspective. He defends naturalistic realism against the antirealist challenge, and he considers the consequences of his defense for our understanding of realism and truth. Khlentzos argues that the naturalistic realist view that the world exists independently of the mind must take into consideration what he calls the representation problem: if the naturalistic realist view is true, how can mental representat…Read more
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6‘The Limits of Realism’, by Button, Tim: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. xii + 264, £45 (hardback) (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (3): 587-590. 2014.No abstract
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12Naturalistic Realism and the Antirealist ChallengeNational Geographic Books. 2004.In this important book, Drew Khlentzos explains the antirealist argument from a realist perspective. He defends naturalistic realism against the antirealist challenge, and he considers the consequences of his defense for our understanding of realism and truth. Khlentzos argues that the naturalistic realist view that the world exists independently of the mind must take into consideration what he calls the representation problem: if the naturalistic realist view is true, how can mental representat…Read more
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178The logic instinctMind and Language 25 (1): 30-65. 2010.We present a series of arguments for logical nativism, focusing mainly on the meaning of disjunction in human languages. We propose that all human languages are logical in the sense that the meaning of linguistic expressions corresponding to disjunction (e.g. English or , Chinese huozhe, Japanese ka ) conform to the meaning of the logical operator in classical logic, inclusive- or . It is highly implausible, we argue, that children acquire the (logical) meaning of disjunction by observing how ad…Read more