-
1The Simple and Complex Views of Personal Identity DistinguishedIn Valerio Buonomo (ed.), The Persistence of Persons: Studies in the Metaphysics of Personal Identity Over Time, Editiones Scholasticae. pp. 21-40. 2017.
-
640Modal Realism, Still At Your ConvenienceAnalysis. 2016.Divers (2014) presents a set of de re modal truths which, he claims, are inconvenient for Lewisean modal realism. We argue that there is no inconvenience for Lewis.
-
1Hume on Identity in Part IV of Book I of the TreatiseHistory of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 13. 2010.In Part IV of Book I of Hume’s Treatise Hume frequently appeals to an identity-ascribing mechanism of the imagination. A psychological mechanism of which it is a special case, to ‘compleat the union’, is also prominent. These mechanisms belong to the imagination narrowly conceived according to a distinction in section ix of Part III. The role and significance of these mechanisms in the development of Hume’s scepticism is explored. Appreciation of their significance is also argued to cast light o…Read more
-
1The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hume on Knowledge (JD Kenyon)Philosophical Books 43 (1): 33-34. 2002.David Hume was one of the most important British philosophers of the eighteenth century. The first part of his Treatise on Human Nature is a seminal work in philosophy. Hume on Knowledge introduces and assesses: * Humes life and the background of the Treatise * The ideas and text in the Treatise * Humes continuing importance to philosophy
-
A E Pitson: Hume's Philosophy of the Self (review)British Journal for the History of Philosophy 12 (2): 352-354. 2004.
-
83Identity Over Time, Constitution and the Problem of Personal IdentityIn Steven M. Miller (ed.), The Constitution of Phenomenal Consciousness: Toward a Science and Theory, John Benjamins. pp. 348-371. 2015.What am I? And what is my relationship to the thing I call ‘my body’? Thus each of us can pose for himself the philosophical problems of the nature of the self and the relationship between a person and his body. One answer to the question about the relationship between a person and the thing he calls ‘his body’ is that they are two things composed of the same matter at the same time (like a clay statue and the piece of clay which presently constitutes it). This is the ‘constitution view’. In thi…Read more
-
105Castles Built on Clouds: Vague Identity and Vague ObjectsIn Ken Akiba & Ali Abasnezhad (eds.), Vague Objects and Vague Identity: New Essays on Ontic Vagueness, Springer. pp. 305-326. 2014.Can identity itself be vague? Can there be vague objects? Does a positive answer to either question entail a positive answer to the other? In this paper we answer these questions as follows: No, No, and Yes. First, we discuss Evans’s famous 1978 argument and argue that the main lesson that it imparts is that identity itself cannot be vague. We defend the argument from objections and endorse this conclusion. We acknowledge, however, that the argument does not by itself establish either that there…Read more
-
26There are More, or Fewer, Things than Most of us ThinkMetaphysica. forthcoming.In Chapter 12 of his book Material Beings (Van Inwagen, Peter. 1990. Material Beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press) van Inwagen argues that there are no artefacts, or very few, certainly fewer than most people believe. Artisans very rarely create, at least in the sense of causing things to come into existence. The argument in Chapter 12 is a very powerful one. I do not think that it establishes van Inwagen’s conclusion, but it does, I think, given its (plausible) premise, establish that if t…Read more
-
16Relative IdentityIn Bob Hale, Crispin Wright & Alexander Miller (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Wiley-blackwell. 1997.This chapter considers Geach's claims solely as pertaining to the philosophy of language and philosophical logic, though much of the interest of the concept of relative identity concerns its applicability to other areas: the metaphysical controversy about personal identity and the debate in philosophical theology on the doctrine of the Trinity. It describes Geach's views under six headings: the non‐existence of absolute identity; the sortal relativity of identity; the derelativization thesis; th…Read more
-
313IdentityStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.Much of the debate about identity in recent decades has been about personal identity, and specifically about personal identity over time, but identity generally, and the identity of things of other kinds, have also attracted attention. Various interrelated problems have been at the centre of discussion, but it is fair to say that recent work has focussed particularly on the following areas: the notion of a criterion of identity; the correct analysis of identity over time, and, in particular, the…Read more
-
17Objects and Identity: An Examination of the Relative Identity Thesis and its ConsequencesPhilosophical Review 92 (4): 633. 1983.
-
15T. V. Morris, "Understanding Identity Statements" (review)Philosophical Quarterly 36 (44): 457. 1986.
-
155The Accidental Properties of Numbers and PropertiesThought: A Journal of Philosophy 1 (2): 134-140. 2012.According to genuine modal realism, some things (including numbers and properties) lack distinct counterparts in different worlds. So how can they possess any of their properties contingently? Egan (2004) argues that to explain such accidental property possession, the genuine modal realist must depart from Lewis and identify properties with functions, rather than with sets of possibilia. We disagree. The genuine modal realist already has the resources to handle Egan's proposed counterexamples. A…Read more
-
56Does ontic indeterminacy in boundaries entail ontic indeterminacy in identity?Analysis 68 (2): 174-176. 2008.
-
15All Designators are RigidMetaphysica 24 (1): 101-107. 2023.In Naming and Necessity Kripke introduces the concept of a rigid designator and argues that proper names are rigid designators. He argues that in this way they are different from typical definite descriptions (though he allows that some definite descriptions, e.g., ‘the actual winner of the lottery’, ‘the square of 3’, are rigid designators). His opponents have either argued that names can be regarded as abbreviations of rigid descriptions (e.g., ‘actualized’ ones) or have tried to deny that nam…Read more
-
25Fission, Self-Interest and Commonsense EthicsPhilosophia 51 (3): 1509-1520. 2023.Jacob Ross argues that the fission cases discussed in the personal identity literature cannot be accommodated without rejecting basic intuitions of everyday ethical thinking. He notes that many philosophers have responded to the challenge of fission ‘by rejecting the metaphysical assumptions on which it rests’. In particular, that many have denied that in fission one ceases to exist. He contends that these denials do not meet the challenge to commonsense ethical thinking. I reject these claims. …Read more
-
22Concepts May Still Be ObjectsOrganon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 2022 (3): 376-388. 2022.