-
15Why beliefs are not dispositional stereotypesTheoria 89 (4): 483-494. 2023.In a series of papers, Schwitzgebel has attempted to revive the dispositionalist account of belief by tweaking it a little and claiming a previously unconsidered advantage over representationalism. The tweaks are to include phenomenal and cognitive responses, in addition to overt behaviour, in the manifestations of a given belief; and to soften the account of dispositions by allowing for dispositional stereotypes. The alleged advantage is that dispositionalism can deal with what Schwitzgebel cal…Read more
-
262Enhanced action control as a prior function of episodic memoryBehavioral and Brain Sciences 41. 2018.Improved control of agency is likely to be a prior and more important function of episodic memory than the epistemic-communicative role pinpointed by Mahr and Csibra. Taking the memory trace upon which scenario construction is based to be a stored internal model produced in past perceptual processing promises to provide a better account of autonoetic character than metarepresentational embedding.
-
51Right and Wrong Reasons in Folk‐Psychological ExplanationInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 17 (4). 2009.Davidson argued that the fact we can have a reason for acting, and yet not be the reason why we act, requires explanation of action in terms of the agent's reasons to be causal. The present paper agrees with Dickenson (_Pacific Philosophical Quarterly_, 2007) in taking this argument to be an inference to the best explanation. However, its target phenomenon is the very existence of a case in which an agent has more than one reason, but acts exclusively becaue of one reason. Folk psychology appear…Read more
-
172Contrastive explanation and the many absences problemSynthese 190 (16): 3495-3510. 2013.We often explain by citing an absence or an omission. Apart from the problem of assigning a causal role to such apparently negative factors as absences and omissions, there is a puzzle as to why only some absences and omissions, out of indefinitely many, should figure in explanations. In this paper we solve this ’many absences problem’ by using the contrastive model of explanation. The contrastive model of explanation is developed by adapting Peter Lipton’s account. What initially appears to be …Read more
-
71The Philosophy of PsychologyCambridge University Press. 1999.What is the relationship between common-sense, or 'folk', psychology and contemporary scientific psychology? Are they in conflict with one another? Or do they perform quite different, though perhaps complementary, roles? George Botterill and Peter Carruthers discuss these questions, defending a robust form of realism about the commitments of folk psychology and about the prospects for integrating those commitments into natural science. Their focus throughout the book is on the ways in which cogn…Read more
-
57Learning from Error: Karl Popper's Psychology of LearningPhilosophical Books 27 (2): 98-100. 1986.
-
3Theory and Understanding: A Critique of Interpretive Social SciencePhilosophical Books 28 (1): 54-57. 1987.
-
Human nature and folk psychologyIn Christopher Gill (ed.), The Person and the Human Mind: Issues in Ancient and Modern Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 1990.
-
17Review of Sergio Moravia and Scott Staton: The Enigma of the Mind: The Mind-Body Problem in Contemporary Thought (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (2): 328-330. 1996.
-
124Effective Intentions: The Power of Conscious Will * By ALFRED R. MELE (review)Analysis 70 (2): 395-398. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation)
-
19
-
33Sergio Moravia, The Enigma of the Mind: The Mind–Body Problem in Contemporary Thought. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, cloth £35.00, paper £12.95 (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (2): 328-330. 1996.
-
23Particles and Ideas: Bishop Berkeley's Corpuscularian Philosophy (review)Philosophical Books 31 (2): 75-77. 1990.
-
20Folk psychology and theoretical statusIn Peter Carruthers & Peter K. Smith (eds.), Theories of Theories of Mind, Cambridge University Press. pp. 105--118. 1996.
-
225Contrast, inference and scientific realismSynthese 160 (2): 249-267. 2008.The thesis of underdetermination presents a major obstacle to the epistemological claims of scientific realism. That thesis is regularly assumed in the philosophy of science, but is puzzlingly at odds with the actual history of science, in which empirically adequate theories are thin on the ground. We propose to advance a case for scientific realism which concentrates on the process of scientific reasoning rather than its theoretical products. Developing an account of causal–explanatory inferenc…Read more
-
77The internal problem of dreaming: Detection and epistemic riskInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 16 (2). 2008.There are two epistemological problems connected with dreaming, which are of different kinds and require different treatment. The internal problem is best seen as a problem of rational consistency, of how we can maintain all of: Dreams are experiences we have during sleep. Dream-experiences are sufficiently similar to waking experiences for the subject to be able to mistake them for waking experiences. We can tell that we are awake. (1)-(3) threaten to violate a requirement on discrimination: th…Read more
-
260Hume on Liberty and NecessityIn Peter Millican (ed.), Reading Hume on Human Understanding: Essays on the First Enquiry, Oxford University Press. 2001.
-
42The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism, and David Hume (review)Philosophical Books 31 (4): 203-205. 1992.
-
16Scientism. Philosophy and the Infatuation with SciencePhilosophical Books 34 (4): 232-234. 1993.
Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland