•  3
    Book reviews (review)
    with Roderick M. Chisholm, John Corcoran, Jorge Gracia, T. N. Pelegrinis, Alfred L. Ivry, D. S. Clarke, Leo Rauch, Robert Young, Michael J. Loux, Rita Nolan, Gerald Vision, E. D. Klemke, Ruth Anna Putnam, Edward S. Reed, Maurice Mandelbaum, John Wettersten, and Rachel Shihor
    Philosophia 13 (1-2): 81-191. 1983.
  •  100
    Book reviews (review)
    with Roderick M. Chisholm, John Corcoran, Jorge Gracia, T. N. Pelegrinis, Alfred L. Ivry, D. S. Clarke, Leo Rauch, Robert Young, Michael J. Loux, Rita Nolan, Gerald Vision, E. D. Klemke, Ruth Anna Putnam, Edward S. Reed, Maurice Mandelbaum, John Wettersten, and Rachel Shihor
    Philosophia 13 (1-2): 359-362. 1983.
  •  6
    Blind Realism (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (3): 715-719. 1995.
  •  7
    Event Identity and a Significant Physicalism
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 19 (2): 171-180. 1981.
  • The Objects of Perception and Belief
    Dissertation, Stanford University. 1967.
  •  21
    Book reviews and critical studies (review)
    Philosophia 9 (3-4): 379-389. 1981.
  •  77
    Immediate and mediate perception
    Journal of Philosophy 66 (July): 391-403. 1969.
  •  173
    The causal theory of knowledge
    Philosophia 6 (2): 237-257. 1976.
  •  231
    Perversity
    Philosophical Quarterly 26 (104): 229-242. 1976.
    I argue that there are perverse actions, in the sense that they are acts performed in the belief that they are wrong. They are also, however, acts done in the belief that they are right. What makes them perverse is, not only that they have conflicting motivations, but that the motivation that wins out is not in accord with reason. That is, a perverse act is one resulting from one's strongest motivation but not based on all one's available reasons.
  • Definitions and Disembodied Minds
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 55 (4): 334. 1974.
  •  9
    An analysis of empirical knowledge
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 9 (1): 3-11. 1971.
  •  19
    Experience And The Objects Of Perception
    University Press Of America. 1967.
    This work argues for a Direct Realist view of the perception of public objects. It argues against the need for special intermediary sensory objects, or sense impressions, requiring only stages in a physical process beginning with events at the surface of a physical object, the resultant stimulation of one's sense organs, and finally the excitation of the sensory portions of one's brain.
  •  6
    The Roots of Knowledge
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 74 (2): 81-95. 1993.
    I defend the view that propositional knowledge can be defined as follows: A knows that p if and only if A believes that p because p. Spelling out the meaning of 'because' in this formula results in a causal-explanatory view of knowledge.
  •  19
    Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties
    Philosophical Review 95 (3): 437. 1986.
  •  27
    Meaning and proper names
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 9 (3): 237-245. 1971.
  •  15
    Blind Realism (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (3): 715-719. 1995.
    I argue that Robert Almeder's "Blind Realism," although instructive, fails to show that recourse to completely justified belief defuses Gettier counterexamples. This is because Almeder's notion of complete justification involves conflating truth with "warranted assertibility," thus making truth relative to what was scientifically fashionable at the time
  •  10
    This book offers a causal-explanatory account of knowledge as true belief caused by the worldly state of affairs that explains its existence. It also defends a contextual account of epistemic reasons, arguing that both foundationalism and coherentism cannot provide a satisfactory account of such reasons. Skeptical arguments are answered against a historical background from Plato to the present day.
  • Professor Shaffer's Refutation of Behaviourism
    Mind 82 (326): 249-252. 1973.
  •  53
    An analysis of empirical knowledge
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 9 (1): 3-11. 1971.
  •  37
    Perception and Animal Belief
    Philosophy 55 (212). 1980.
    I argue that sentences ascribing beliefs to non-human animals have the same logical form as sentences of the "perceives that" variety. Pace D.M. Armstrong, I argue that animal belief sentences can be referentially opaque, just as perception sentences containing a propositional clause are. In both cases, referential opacity requires our assuming that the animal believer and the human perceiver has each identified the object of the belief or perception.
  •  26
    Skepticism Disarmed
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 13 (1). 1983.
    If skepticism is once again fashionable, then much of the credit must go to Peter Unger who gives a sustained defense of an ultra-pyrrhonian position in his book, Ignorance: A case for Skepticism. Starting with a version of the traditional argument that we know nothing about the external world, Unger plunges deeper into skeptical waters by next arguing that there is at most hardly anything which we know to be so; and he scarcely pauses before proceeding to defend the stronger conclusion of ‘univ…Read more
  •  58
    Out-Gunning Skepticism
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17 (3). 1987.
    Bredo C. Johnsen1 misconceives my strictures concerning acceptance of the following principle : If A both knows that p and knows that p entails q, then A can come to know that q.Johnsen seems unaware that my criticism was intended to apply only after is made to appear in its most plausible light; that is, only after its consequent is interpreted as: ’It is logically possible for A to know that q.’ Without this interpretation might be dismissed simply on the grounds that A suffers from some physi…Read more
  •  5
    Critical Review: Thought (review)
    Journal of Critical Analysis 5 (4): 146-150. 1975.
  •  15
    The Irreducibility of Knowledge
    Logique Et Analyse 77 (Sommaire): 167-176. 1977.
    In this article it is argued that it is impossible to give a reductive analysis of knowledge, given that knowledge is an "epistemic" concept with these marks: (1) like necessity, it is only partially truth-functional; and, (2) unlike necessity, it includes an "intentional" component (belief) which is completely non-truth-functional. a reductive analysis would have to contain at least one extensional component, one intentional component, and none that is itself epistemic. but any plausible analys…Read more
  •  39
    Abortion and the Right to Life
    Social Theory and Practice 3 (Fall): 381-401. 1975.
  •  42
    The impossibility of massive error
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (2): 405-409. 1993.
    I argue that Davidson's anti-skeptical thesis can survive objections made against it by treating skepticism as logically possible, but not epistemically possible. That is, the skeptical hypothesis of massive error conflicts with what we must take ourselves to know if we are to have coherent thought and speech.