-
Perceiving Design? Reid's Design DiscourseJournal of the History of Philosophy 62 (2): 239-262. 2024.Thomas Reid, I argue in this paper, holds that the belief that the works of nature are the effects of an intelligent cause is an instinctive or natural belief that may also be rational. After presenting the details of Reid's design argument, I turn to his account of human perception of the inner states of other human beings. I argue that perceptual beliefs of inner states, and hence beliefs in mental qualities such as intelligence and wisdom, involve natural signs that are both instinctive and r…Read more
-
Thinking About Different Nonexistents of the Same Kind: Reid's Account of the Imagination and its Nonexistent ObjectsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (3): 627-649. 2015.How is it that, as fiction readers, we are nonplussed by J. K. Rowling's prescription to imagine Ronan, Bane, and Magorian, three different centaurs of the Forbidden Forrest at Hogwarts? It is usually held in the philosophical literature on fictional discourse that singular imaginings of fictional objects are impossible, given the blatant nonexistence of such objects. In this paper, I have a dual purpose: on the one hand, to show that, without being committed to Meinongeanism, we can explain the…Read more
-
Time for Hume’s Unchanging ObjectsPhilosophers' Imprint 23 (16). 2023.In his discussion of our idea of time in the Treatise, Hume makes the perplexing claim that unchanging objects cannot be said to endure. While Hume is targeting the Newtonian conception of absolute time, it is not at all clear how his denial that unchanging objects are in time fits with this target. Moreover, Hume diagnoses our belief that unchanging objects endure as the product of a psychological fiction, but his account of this fiction is also riddled with puzzling claims about our experien…Read more
-
Headaches for epistemologistsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2): 408-433. 2022.Imagine that one must either lose all of one’s certainty about some very important topic – about the meaning of life, for example – or a small amount of certainty about each of one’s more “mundane” beliefs – beliefs about the color of one’s socks, where one’s keys are, whether it will rain, etc. One ought to take the latter loss, no matter how many mundane beliefs are at stake. Conversely, if one had to give up a tiny bit of certainty about the important topic, or all of one’s certainty about …Read more
-
Two Problems in Spinoza's Theory of MindOxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind 2 337-378. 2022.My aim in what follows is to expound and (if possible) resolve two problems in Spinoza’s theory of mind. The first problem is how Spinoza can accept a key premise in Descartes’s argument for dualism—that thought and extension are separately conceivable, “one without the help of the other”—without accepting Descartes’s conclusion that no substance is both thinking and extended. Resolving this problem will require us to consider a crucial ambiguity in the notion of conceiving one thing without ano…Read more
-
Scientific Progress and Collective AttitudesEpisteme 1-20. 2021.Psychological-epistemic accounts take scientific progress to consist in the development of some psychological-epistemic attitude. Disagreements over what the relevant attitude is – true belief, knowledge, or understanding – divide proponents of thesemantic,epistemic,andnoeticaccounts of scientific progress, respectively. Proponents of all such accounts face a common challenge. On the face of it, only individuals have psychological attitudes. However, as I argue in what follows, increases in indi…Read more
-
Expanding the Canon of Scottish Philosophy: The Case for Adding Lady Mary ShepherdJournal of Scottish Philosophy 15 (3): 275-293. 2017.Lady Mary Shepherd argued for distinctive accounts of causation, perception, and knowledge of an external world and God. However, her work, engaging with Berkeley and Hume but written after Kant, does not fit the standard periodisation of early modern philosophy presupposed by many philosophy courses, textbooks, and conferences. This paper argues that Shepherd should be added to the canon as a Scottish philosopher. The practical reason for doing so is that it would give Shepherd a disciplinary h…Read more
-
A Mistaken Attribution to Lady Mary ShepherdJournal of Modern Philosophy 2 (1): 5. 2020.
-
Mary Shepherd on Mind, Soul, and SelfJournal of the History of Philosophy 58 (1): 93-112. 2020.the philosophical writings ofx Lady Mary Shepherd were apparently well regarded in her own time, but dropped out of view in the mid-nineteenth century.1 Some historians of philosophy have recently begun attending to the distinctive arguments in Shepherd's two books, but the secondary literature that exists so far has largely focused on her critiques of Hume and Berkeley. However, many other themes and arguments in Shepherd's writings have not yet been explored. This paper takes up one such issue…Read more
-
Mary Shepherd on the role of proofs in our knowledge of first principlesNoûs 56 (2): 473-493. 2022.This paper examines the role of reason in Shepherd's account of acquiring knowledge of the external world via first principles. Reason is important, but does not have a foundational role. Certain principles enable us to draw the required inferences for acquiring knowledge of the external world. These principles are basic, foundational and, more importantly, self‐evident and thus justified in other ways than by demonstration. Justificatory demonstrations of these principles are neither required, …Read more
-
Perception as a Multi-Stage Process: A Reidian AccountJournal of Scottish Philosophy 19 (1): 57-74. 2021.The starting point of this paper is Thomas Reid's anti-skepticism: our knowledge of the external world is justified. The justificatory process, in his view, starts with and relies upon one of the main faculties of the human mind: perception. Reid's theory of perception has been thoroughly studied, but there are some missing links in the explanatory chain offered by the secondary literature. In particular, I will argue that we do not have a complete picture of the mechanism of perception of bodie…Read more
-
Indirect Reports and Pragmatics in the World Languages (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2018.This volume addresses the intriguing issue of indirect reports from an interdisciplinary perspective. The contributors include philosophers, theoretical linguists, socio-pragmaticians, and cognitive scientists. The book is divided into four sections following the provenance of the authors. Combining the voices from leading and emerging authors in the field, it offers a detailed picture of indirect reports in the world’s languages and their significance for theoretical linguistics. Building on th…Read more
-
Remembering Events: A Reidean Account of (Episodic) MemoryPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (2): 304-321. 2018.Thomas Reid offers an explanation of how memory of events is possible. This paper presents, criticize,s and amends his view that memory not only preserves our knowledge of the external world, but also contributes to such knowledge, by being essential for the perception of events. Reid’s views on memory are in line with his generalanti-skeptical commitments, and thus attractive, for several reasons. One reason is that, just like perception, memory is not infallible, but it can constitute or, at l…Read more
-
Reid’s View of Memorial ConceptionJournal of Scottish Philosophy 16 (3): 211-226. 2018.Thomas Reid believed that the human mind is well equipped, from infancy, to acquire knowledge of the external world, with all its objects, persons and events. There are three main faculties that are involved in the acquisition of knowledge: (original) perception, memory, and imagination. It is thought that we cannot understand how exactly perception works, unless we have a good grasp on Reid’s notion of perceptual conception (i.e., of the conception employed in perception). The present paper arg…Read more
-
Using Benevolent Affections to Learn Our DutyMind 127 (506): 467-489. 2018.The puzzle is this: I argue that for Reid, moral sense needs benevolent affections – i.e. some of our animal, non-cognitive principles of action – to apply the rules of duty. But he also thinks that duty can conflict with benevolent affections. So what happens in these conflict cases? I will argue that Reid takes moral psychology seriously and that he believes that our natural benevolent affections can be used as indicators of duty. Although creative, his account has a major problem, because he …Read more
-
Reid’s View of Memorial ConceptionJournal of Scottish Philosophy. forthcoming.Thomas Reid believed that the human mind is well equipped, from infancy, to acquire knowledge of the external world, with all its objects, persons, and events. There are three main faculties that are involved in the acquisition of knowledge: (original) perception, memory, and imagination. It is thought that we cannot understand how exactly perception works, unless we have a good grasp on Reid’s notion of perceptual conception (i.e. of the conception employed in perception). The present paper arg…Read more
APA Central Division
Columbia, Missouri, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Language |
Nonexistent Objects |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |