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493Mental causationPhilosophical Perspectives 21 (1). 2007.Suppose that, for every event, whether mental or physical, there is some physical event causally sufficient for it. Suppose, moreover, that physical reductionism in its various forms fails—that mental properties cannot be reduced to physical properties and mental events cannot be reduced to physical events. In this case, how could there be mental causation? More specifically, how could mental events cause other mental events, physical events, and intentional actions? The primary goal of this pap…Read more
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339Foundations without SetsAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 18 (4). 1981.The dominant school of logic, semantics, and the foundation of mathematics construct its theories within the framework of set theory. There are three strategies by means of which a member of this school might attempt to justify his ontology of sets. One strategy is to show that sets are already included in the naturalistic part of our everyday ontology. If they are, then one may assume that whatever justifies the everyday ontology justifies the ontology of sets. Another strategy is to show that …Read more
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4The rejection of the identity thesisIn The Mind-Body Problem: A Guide to the Current Debate, Blackwell. 1994.In this paper, the arguments against the mind-body identity thesis from the author’s [1994] paper, “Mental Properties,” are presented but in significantly more detail. It is shown that, because of scientific essentialism, two currently popular arguments against the identity thesis -- the multiple-realizability argument and the Nagel-Jackson knowledge argument -- are unsatisfactory as they stand and that their problems are incurable. It is then shown that a refutation of the identity thesis in it…Read more
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2143A theory of concepts and concepts possessionPhilosophical Issues 9 261-301. 1998.The paper begins with an argument against eliminativism with respect to the propositional attitudes. There follows an argument that concepts are sui generis ante rem entities. A nonreductionist view of concepts and propositions is then sketched. This provides the background for a theory of concept possession, which forms the bulk of the paper. The central idea is that concept possession is to be analyzed in terms of a certain kind of pattern of reliability in one’s intuitions regarding the behav…Read more
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29The A PrioriIn John Greco & Ernest Sosa (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Blackwell. 2017.In the history of epistemology, discussions of the a priori have been bound up with discussions of necessity and analyticity, often in confusing ways. Disentangling these confusions is an essential step in the study of the a priori. This will be the aim of my introductory remarks. The goal of the remainder of the paper will then be to try to develop a unified account of the a priori, dealing with the notions of intuition and a priori evidence, the question of why intuitions qualify as evidence, …Read more
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701A definition of necessityPhilosophical Perspectives 20 (1). 2006.In the history of philosophy, especially its recent history, a number of definitions of necessity have been ventured. Most people, however, find these definitions either circular or subject to counterexamples. I will show that, given a broadly Fregean conception of properties, necessity does indeed have a noncircular counterexample-free definition.
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1552Quality and conceptOxford University Press. 1982.This study provides a unified theory of properties, relations, and propositions (PRPs). Two conceptions of PRPs have emerged in the history of philosophy. The author explores both of these traditional conceptions and shows how they can be captured by a single theory.
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1073On the possibility of philosophical knowledgePhilosophical Perspectives 10 1-34. 1996.The paper elaborates upon various points and arguments in the author’s “A Priori Knowledge and the Scope of Philosophy” (Philosophical Studies, 1993), in which the author defends the autonomy of philosophy from the empirical sciences. It provides, for example, an extended defense of the modal reliabilist theory of basic evidence, including a new argument against evolutionary explanations of the reliability of intuitions. It also contains a fuller discussion of how to neutralize the threat of sci…Read more
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Intensional LogicIn D. M. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Supplement, Macmillan. pp. 262-264. 1996.
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677Universals and propertiesIn S. Laurence C. MacDonald (ed.), Contemporary Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics, Blackwell. pp. 131. 1998.This paper summarizes and extends the transmodal argument for the existence of universals (developed in full detail in "Universals"). This argument establishes not only the existence of universals, but also that they exist necessarily, thereby confirming the ante rem view against the post rem and in re views (and also anti-existentialism against existentialism). Once summarized, the argument is extended to refute the trope theory of properties and is also shown to succeed even if possibilism is …Read more
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508Concept possessionPhilosophical Issues 9 331-338. 1998.This paper answers critical responses to the author’s “A Theory of Concepts and Concept Possession.” The paper begins with a discussion of candidate counterexamples to the proposed analysis of concept possession -- including, e.g., a discussion of its relationship to Frank Jackson’s Mary example. Second, questions concerning the author’s general methodological approach are considered. For instance, it is shown that -- contrary to the critics’ suggestions -- an analysis of concept possession cann…Read more
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942The origins of modal errorDialectica 58 (1): 11-42. 2004.Modal intuitions are the primary source of modal knowledge but also of modal error. According to the theory of modal error in this paper, modal intuitions retain their evidential force in spite of their fallibility, and erroneous modal intuitions are in principle identifiable and eliminable by subjecting our intuitions to a priori dialectic. After an inventory of standard sources of modal error, two further sources are examined in detail. The first source - namely, the failure to distinguish bet…Read more
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882A priori knowledge: Replies to William Lycan and Ernest SosaPhilosophical Studies 81 (2-3): 163-174. 1996.This paper contains replies to comments on the author's paper "A Priori Knowledge and the Scope of Philosophy." Several points in the argument of that paper are given further clarification: the notion of our standard justificatory procedure, the notion of a basic source of evidence, and the doctrine of modal reliabilism. The reliability of intuition is then defended against Lycan's skepticism and a response is given to Lycan's claim that the scope of a priori knowledge does not include philosoph…Read more
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256Review: Terence Parsons, Nonexistent Objects (review)Journal of Symbolic Logic 49 (2): 652-655. 1984.
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432Property TheoriesIn Dov Gabbay & Frans Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Volume 10, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 143-248. 2003.Revised and reprinted; originally in Dov Gabbay & Franz Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Volume IV. Kluwer 133-251. -- Two sorts of property theory are distinguished, those dealing with intensional contexts property abstracts (infinitive and gerundive phrases) and proposition abstracts (‘that’-clauses) and those dealing with predication (or instantiation) relations. The first is deemed to be epistemologically more primary, for “the argument from intensional logic” is perhaps th…Read more
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1859Modal Epistemology and the Rationalist RenaissanceIn Tamar Szabo Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Conceivability and Possibility, Oxford University Press. pp. 71-125. 2002.The paper begins with a clarification of the notions of intuition (and, in particular, modal intuition), modal error, conceivability, metaphysical possibility, and epistemic possibility. It is argued that two-dimensionalism is the wrong framework for modal epistemology and that a certain nonreductionist approach to the theory of concepts and propositions is required instead. Finally, there is an examination of moderate rationalism’s impact on modal arguments in the philosophy of mind -- for exam…Read more
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586IntuitionIn D. M. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Supplement, Macmillan. pp. 262-264. 1996.
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418The self-consciousness argument: Why Tooley's criticisms failPhilosophical Studies 105 (3): 281-307. 2001.Ontological functionalism's defining tenet is that mental properties can be defined wholly in terms of the general pattern of interaction of ontologically prior realizations. Ideological functionalism's defining tenet is that mental properties can only be defined nonreductively, in terms of the general pattern of their interaction with one another. My Self-consciousness Argument establishes: ontological functionalism is mistaken because its proposed definitions wrongly admit realizations into th…Read more
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2062A Theory of the a PrioriPhilosophical Perspectives 13 29-55. 1999.The topic of a priori knowledge is approached through the theory of evidence. A shortcoming in traditional formulations of moderate rationalism and moderate empiricism is that they fail to explain why rational intuition and phenomenal experience count as basic sources of evidence. This explanatory gap is filled by modal reliabilism -- the theory that there is a qualified modal tie between basic sources of evidence and the truth. This tie to the truth is then explained by the theory of concept po…Read more
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442The boundary between philosophy and cognitive scienceJournal of Philosophy 84 (10): 553-55. 1987.Abstract of a paper to be presented in an APA symposium on Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind, December 28, 1987, commenting on papers by Alvin I. Goldman and Patricia Smith Churchland.
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839An inconsistency in functionalismSynthese 38 (July): 333-372. 1978.This paper demonstrates that there is an inconsistency in functionalism in psychology and philosophy of mind. Analogous inconsistencies can be expected in functionalisms in biology and social theory. (edited).
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215Review: David Greenwood, Truth and Meaning (review)Journal of Symbolic Logic 40 (4): 579-580. 1975.
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1262PropositionsMind 107 (425): 1-32. 1998.Recent work in philosophy of language has raised significant problems for the traditional theory of propositions, engendering serious skepticism about its general workability. These problems are, I believe, tied to fundamental misconceptions about how the theory should be developed. The goal of this paper is to show how to develop the traditional theory in a way which solves the problems and puts this skepticism to rest. The problems fall into two groups. The first has to do with reductionism, s…Read more
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929Mind and anti-mind: Why thinking has no functional definitionMidwest Studies in Philosophy 9 (1): 283-328. 1984.Functionalism would be mistaken if there existed a system of deviant relations (an “anti-mind”) that had the same functional roles as the standard mental relations. In this paper such a system is constructed, using “Quinean transformations” of the sort associated with Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation. For example, a mapping m from particularistic propositions (e.g., that there exists a rabbit) to universalistic propositions (that rabbithood is manifested). Using m, a deviant re…Read more
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1229IntroductionIn Robert C. Koons & George Bealer (eds.), The Waning of Materialism: New Essays, Oxford University Press. 2010.In this introduction, before summarizing the contents of the volume, the authors characterize materialism as it is understood within the philosophy of mind, and they identify three respects in which materialism is on the wane.
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504Fregean equivocation and ramsification on sparse theories: Response to McCullaghMind and Language 15 (5): 500-510. 2000.This paper begins with a brief summary of the Self-consciousness Argument, developed in the author’s paper “Self-consciousness.” (This argument is designed to refute the extant versions of functionalism -- American functionalism, Australian functionalism, and language-of-thought functionalism.) After this summary is given, two thesis are defended. The first is that the Self-consciousness Argument is not guilty of a Fregean equivocation regarding embedded occurrences of mental predicates, as has …Read more
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805Theories of properties, relations, and propositionsJournal of Philosophy 76 (11): 634-648. 1979.This is the only complete logic for properties, relations, and propositions (PRPS) that has been formulated to date. First, an intensional abstraction operation is adjoined to first-order quantifier logic, Then, a new algebraic semantic method is developed. The heuristic used is not that of possible worlds but rather that of PRPS taken at face value. Unlike the possible worlds approach to intensional logic, this approach yields a logic for intentional (psychological) matters, as well as modal ma…Read more
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207A Priori KnowledgeThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 5 1-12. 2000.This paper is a condensed version of the author’s “A Theory of the A Priori” (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2000) for the evidential status of intuitions, the incoherence of radical empiricism. the thesis of modal reliabilism, and the Autonomy of Philosophy Thesis (according to which the a priori disciplines are autonomous from empirical science).
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875Self-consciousnessPhilosophical Review 106 (1): 69-117. 1997.Self-consciousness constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to functionalism. Either the standard functional definitions of mental relations wrongly require the contents of self-consciousness to be propositions involving “realizations” rather than mental properties and relations themselves. Or else these definitions are circular. The only way to save functional definitions is to expunge the standard functionalist requirement that mental properties be second-order and to accept that they are first-…Read more
Areas of Specialization
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Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Mathematics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |