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Rational Powers in Action: Instrumental Rationality and Extended AgencyOxford University Press. 2021.
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Verbal DisputesPhilosophical Review 120 (4): 515-566. 2011.The philosophical interest of verbal disputes is twofold. First, they play a key role in philosophical method. Many philosophical disagreements are at least partly verbal, and almost every philosophical dispute has been diagnosed as verbal at some point. Here we can see the diagnosis of verbal disputes as a tool for philosophical progress. Second, they are interesting as a subject matter for first-order philosophy. Reflection on the existence and nature of verbal disputes can reveal something ab…Read more
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A Demonstration of the Causal Power of AbsencesDialectica 70 (1): 85-85. 2016.
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To Be F Is To Be GPhilosophical Perspectives 30 (1): 39-134. 2006.
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The realistic spirit: Wittgenstein, philosophy, and the mindMIT Press. 1991.Publisher's description: The realistic spirit, a nonmetaphysical approach to philosophical thought concerned with the character of philosophy itself, informs all of the discussions in these essays by philosopher Cora Diamond. Diamond explains Wittgenstein's notoriously elusive later writings, explores the background to his thought in the work of Frege, and discusses ethics in a way that reflects his influence. Diamond's new reading of Wittgenstein challenges currently accepted interpretations an…Read more
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Why be rationalMind 114 (455): 509-563. 2005.Normativity involves two kinds of relation. On the one hand, there is the relation of being a reason for. This is a relation between a fact and an attitude. On the other hand, there are relations specified by requirements of rationality. These are relations among a person's attitudes, viewed in abstraction from the reasons for them. I ask how the normativity of rationality—the sense in which we ‘ought’ to comply with requirements of rationality—is related to the normativity of reasons—the sense …Read more
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The Life of pIn Thinking and Being, Harvard University Press. pp. 25-67. 2018.
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The Introspective Model of Genuine Knowledge in Wang YangmingPhilosophical Review 131 (2): 169-213. 2022.This article presents a new interpretation of the great Ming dynasty philosopher Wang Yangming’s celebrated doctrine of the “unity of knowledge and action”. Wang held that action was not unified with all knowledge, but only with an elevated form of knowledge, which he sometimes called “genuine knowledge”. I argue for a new interpretation of this notion, according to which genuine knowledge requires freedom from a form of doxastic conflict. I propose that, in Wang’s view, a person is free from th…Read more
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Rational PolarizationPhilosophical Review 132 (3): 355-458. 2023.Predictable polarization is everywhere: we can often predict how people’s opinions, including our own, will shift over time. Extant theories either neglect the fact that we can predict our own polarization, or explain it through irrational mechanisms. They needn’t. Empirical studies suggest that polarization is predictable when evidence is ambiguous, that is, when the rational response is not obvious. I show how Bayesians should model such ambiguity and then prove that—assuming rational updates …Read more
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