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10European and American PhilosophersIn Robert L. Arrington (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophers, Blackwell. 2017.Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categ…Read more
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9Transcendental Arguments and Temporal Experience1In Heather Dyke & Adrian Bardon (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Time, Wiley. 2013.In this chapter, the author shows how certain deep points about temporal experience drive both versions of Kant's transcendental deduction of the categories – a transcendental argument that he called a “Deduction” not because of its deductive structure but because in German the term “Deduktion” had a legal meaning signifying establishment of the right or title to something, in this case the right to apply Kant's categorical concepts – and their sequel in the Analogies of Experience. The author a…Read more
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10Hume and Induction: Merely Cognitive Psychology?Hume Studies 48 (1): 79-116. 2023.Abstract:The purpose of Hume’s argument about induction, contra “literalist” interpretations that see it merely as psychology, is to show that induction cannot be justified. Hume maintains that the only way to justify induction would be to demonstrate or to produce a good inductive argument for the uniformity principle (UP). His most famous point is that any attempt to justify UP inductively would be circular. One may retort that no inductive argument can be circular, for a circular argument mus…Read more
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39“Cogito, Ergo Sum”: Proof or Petitio?The European Legacy 27 (3-4): 269-282. 2022.ABSTRACT E. M. Curley has said that Descartes’ cogito, ergo sum “is as obscure on examination as it is compelling at first glance.” Why should that be? Maybe because the cogito raises so many textual and interpretive questions. Is it an argument or an intuition? If it is an argument, does it require an additional premise? Is it best interpreted as a “performance?” Is it best seen as the discovery that any reason proposed for doubting its success entails the meditator’s existence? And so on. But …Read more
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19Georges Dicker here provides a commentary on John Locke's masterwork, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding-the foundational work of classical Empiricism. Dicker's commentary is an accessible guide for students who are reading Locke for the first time; a useful research tool for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students; and a contribution to Locke scholarship for professional scholars. It is designed to be read alongside the Essay, but does not presuppose familiarity with it.
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4The Problem of Perception, by A. D. Smith (review)European Journal of Philosophy 14 (3): 423-430. 2006.
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95Two Arguments From Perceptual Relativity in Berkeley's Dialogues Between Hylas and PhilonousSouthern Journal of Philosophy 20 (4): 409-422. 1982.I argue that philonous gives two versions of the argument from perceptual relativity--One for the secondary qualities and another for the primary. Further, Both versions ultimately turn on the epistemological assumption that every case of perceiving, Regardless of the conditions of observation, Is a case of "knowing" the character of some "object". This assumption is made in order to avoid a vicious regress that arises when one tries to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible
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107Kant's refutation of idealism: A reply to ChignellPhilosophical Quarterly 61 (242): 175-183. 2011.I reply to the most important criticisms made by Chignell of my ‘Kant's Refutation of Idealism’. I also introduce a new consideration which brings out more fully the power of Kant's argument
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23John Dewey: Instrumentalism in Social ActionTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 7 (4). 1971.
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45Berkeley on the Impossibility of Abstracting Primary from Secondary Qualities: Lockean RejoindersSouthern Journal of Philosophy 39 (1): 23-45. 2001.
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61Regularity, Conditionality, and Asymmetry in CausationThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 7 129-138. 2000.In this paper I explore the relationship between the “Humean” regularity view of causation, the view that a cause is a necessary condition of its effect, and the asymmetry of causation—the principle that if an event e1 causes e2, then it is false that e2 causes e1. I argue that the regularity view, in combination with the view that a cause is a necessary condition of its effect, is inconsistent with the asymmetry of causation, and that the inconsistency can be removed by a modification of the vi…Read more
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27Kant’s Transcendental Proof of Realism (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (3): 740-745. 2008.
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19Dinesh C. Mathur, 1919-2006Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 81 (2). 2007.
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90Descartes: an analytical and historical introductionOxford University Press. 1993.A solid grasp of the main themes and arguments of the seventeenth century philosopher Rene Descartes is an essential tool towards understanding modern thought, and a necessary entree to the work of the empiricists and Immanuel Kant, and to the study of contemporary epistemology and philosophy of mind. Clear and accessible, this book serves as an introduction to Descartes's ideas for undergraduates and as a sophisticated companion to his Meditations for more advanced readers. After a thorough dis…Read more
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202Berkeley's idealism: a critical examinationOxford University Press. 2011.Berkeley's Idealism both advances Berkeley scholarship and serves as a useful guide for teachers and students.
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95Primary and Secondary Qualities: A Proposed Modification of the Lockean AccountSouthern Journal of Philosophy 15 (4): 457-471. 1977.
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84Kant's Refutation of Idealism: Once More Unto the BreachKantian Review 17 (2): 191-195. 2012.In ‘Kant's Refutation of Idealism’ (Noûs, 47), I defend a version of the Refutation, pioneered by Paul Guyer inKant and the Claims of Knowledge, whose core idea is that the only way that one can know the order of one's own past experiences, except in certain rare cases, is by correlating them with the successive states of perceived external objects that caused the experiences. Andrew Chignell has offered a probing critique of my reconstruction of Kant's argument (Philosophical Quarterly, 60), an…Read more
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Gerard Deledalle, L'Idée D'Expérience dans la Philosophie de John Dewey (review)Journal of Value Inquiry 7 (4): 309. 1973.
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |