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11435Different Voices or Perfect Storm: Why Are There So Few Women in Philosophy?Journal of Social Philosophy 43 (3): 227-255. 2012.
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1237The openness of illusionsPhilosophical Issues 21 (1): 25-44. 2011.Illusions are thought to make trouble for the intuition that perceptual experience is "open" to the world. Some have suggested, in response to the this trouble, that illusions differ from veridical experience in the degree to which their character is determined by their engagement with the world. An understanding of the psychology of perception reveals that this is not the case: veridical and falsidical perceptions engage the world in the same way and to the same extent. While some contemporar…Read more
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694Atheism, Naturalism, and MoralityIn Raymond Arragon & Michael Peterson (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons. pp. 66-78. 2020.It is a commonly held view that the existence of moral value somehow depends upon the existence of God. Some proponents of this view take the very strong position that atheism entails that there is no moral value; but most take the weaker position that atheism cannot explain what moral value is, or how it could have come into being. Call the first position Incompatibility, and the second position Inadequacy. In this paper, I will focus on the arguments for Inadequacy. There are two main ar…Read more
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518Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life (edited book)Oup Usa. 2010.Atheists are frequently demonized as arrogant intellectuals, antagonistic to religion, devoid of moral sentiments, advocates of an "anything goes" lifestyle. Now, in this revealing volume, nineteen leading philosophers open a window on the inner life of atheism, shattering these common stereotypes as they reveal how they came to turn away from religious belief. These highly engaging personal essays capture the marvelous diversity to be found among atheists, providing a portrait that will surpris…Read more
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362Feminism Without Metaphysics or a Deflationary Account of GenderErkenntnis 85 (3): 529-549. 2020.I argue for a deflationary answer to the question, “What is it to be a woman?” Prior attempts by feminist theorists to provide a metaphysical account of what all and only women have in common have all failed for the same reason: there is nothing women have in common beyond being women. Although the social kinds man and woman are primitive, their existence can be explained. I say that human sex difference is the material ground of systems of gender; gender systems serve to enable male control of …Read more
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335Feeling fine about the mindPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (2): 381-87. 1997.The article presents a critique of John Searle's attack on computationalist theories of mind in his recent book, The Rediscovery of the Mind. Searle is guilty of caricaturing his opponents, and of ignoring their arguments. Moreover, his own positive theory of mind, which he claims "takes account of" subjectivity, turns out to offer no discernible advantages over the views he rejects
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275Anomalous monism and the problem of explanatory forcePhilosophical Review 98 (April): 153-87. 1989.Concern about two problems runs through the work of davidson: the problem of accounting for the "explanatory force" of rational explanations, and the problem posed for materialism by the apparent anomalousness of psychological events. davidson believes that his view of mental causation, imbedded in his theory of "anomalous monism," can provide satisfactory answers to both questions. however, it is argued in this paper that davidson's program contains a fundamental inconsistency; that his metaphy…Read more
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262PHILOSOPHY OF PERSONS: “Human Nature” and Its Role in Feminist TheoryIn Janet A. Kourany (ed.), Philosophy in a Feminist Voice: Critiques and Reconstructions, Princeton University Press. pp. 63-91. 1997.
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185Not Rational, But Not Brutely Causal Either: A response to Fodor on concept acquisitionTheoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science 35 (1): 45-57Jerry Fodor has argued that concept acquisition cannot be a psychological or “rational-causal” process, but can only be a “brute-causal” process of acquisition. This position generates the “doorknob DOORKNOB” problem: why are concepts typically acquired on the basis of experience with items in their extensions? I argue that Fodor’s taxonomy of causal processes needs supplementation, and characterize a third type: what I call “intelligible-causal processes.” Armed with this new category I pr…Read more
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167Because I Said So: Toward a Feminist Theory of AuthorityHypatia 20 (4): 59-79. 2005.Feminism is an antiauthoritarian movement that has sought to unmask many traditional “authorities” as ungrounded. Given this, it might seem as if feminists are required to abandon the concept of authority altogether. But, we argue, the exercise of authority enables us to coordinate our efforts to achieve larger social goods and, hence, should be preserved. Instead, what is needed and what we provide for here is a way to distinguish legitimate authority from objectionable authoritarianism.
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162Realization theory and the philosophy of mind: comments on Sydney Shoemaker’s physical realizationPhilosophical Studies 148 (1): 89-99. 2010.
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157Situating Feminist EpistemologyThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 8 31-40. 2000.I understand feminist epistemology to be epistemology put at the service of feminist politics. That is, a feminist epistemology is dedicated to answering the many questions about knowledge that arise in the course of feminist efforts to understand and transform patriarchal structures, questions such as: Why have so many intellectual traditions denigrated the cognitive capacities of women? Are there gender differences in epistemic capacities or strategies, and what would be the implications for e…Read more
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148Review of The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century by Amia SrinivasanPhilosophical Review 132 (1): 158-163. 2023.
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142Meaning and semantic knowledge: Louise M. AntonyAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 71 (1). 1997.
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138Multiple Realizability, Projectibility, and the Reality of Mental PropertiesPhilosophical Topics 26 (1-2): 1-24. 1999.
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134Naturalized Epistemology, Morality, and the Real WorldCanadian Journal of Philosophy 30 (sup1): 103-137. 2000.
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134The mental and the physicalIn Robin Le Poidevin, Simons Peter, McGonigal Andrew & Ross P. Cameron (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, Routledge. 2009.
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