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514This paper explores the relationships between perception, representation and appetition in Leibniz's later metaphysics, and defends four theses. First, for Leibniz perceptions are not the carriers of content, but they are identical to representational content. Second, Leibniz's appetitions are the carriers of content and he should be taken at his word when he declares, "Thought consists in conatus". Third, while it is true that for Leibniz representational content is determined by a species o…Read more
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5Modern Philosophy of LanguageIn Gillian Russell & Delia Graff Fara (eds.), Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language, Routledge. pp. 841-851. 2014.A survey of the emergence of the philosophy of language in 17th- and 18th-century European philosophy as an independent subdiscipline of philosophy.
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The Concept of Linguistic Reference Before FregeIn Stephen Biggs and Heimir Geirsson (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Reference, Routledge. pp. 17-29. 2021.This essay traces the concept of linguistic reference and its role in the determination of linguistic meaning in the history of philosophy before Frege.
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The History of the Philosophy of Language before FregeIn Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.), Cambridge Handbook of the Philosoph of Language, Cambridge University Press. pp. 51-70. 2021.
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104Leibniz and the rational order of nature (review)Philosophical Review 109 (1): 94-98. 2000.In this comprehensive study of Leibniz’s mature metaphysics, Donald Rutherford attempts to recover Leibniz’s theodicy as an essential part of his philosophy. Although Rutherford does not succeed in showing that the theodicy is essential to Leibniz’s metaphysics, he effectively uses the theodicy as an entry into Leibniz’s metaphysics and he highlights the many links between them. Of course, there are other significant ways of entering Leibniz’s philosophy—he wanted to “do justice to theology as t…Read more
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359Plantinga and the Problem of EvilThe Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 8 109-113. 2006.The logical problem of evil centers on the apparent inconsistency of the following two propositions: God is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good, and There is evil in the world. This is the problem that Alvin Plantinga takes to task in his celebrated response to the problem of evil. Plantinga denies that and are inconsistent, arguing that J.L. Mackie's principle - that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do - is false. We challenge Plantinga, and defend Mackie's view
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33Review of Brook (2007): The Prehistory of Cognitive Science (review)Pragmatics and Cognition 16 (1): 185-189. 2008.
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32Hume's Skepticism and the Whimsical ConditionHume Studies 43 (1): 29-59. 2017.At a crucial point in the final section 12 of Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding he refers to "the whimsical condition of mankind".1 This occurs in his concluding remarks about the untenability of what he calls "Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism" that set the stage for "mitigated scepticism, or ACADEMICAL philosophy", which then culminates in the famous agitated final paragraph of the first Enquiry that advocates "havoc" and committing certain kinds of books "to the flames".I wish t…Read more
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1Logic and Language in Early Modern PhilosophyIn Donald Rutherford (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. pp. 170-197. 2006.
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112Lenz on Locke on Language (review)Historiographia Linguistica 40 477-487. 2013.Review article of Martin Lenz, Locke's Sprachkonzeption, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010.
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48Roger Woolhouse, Locke: A Biography (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 46 (1): 175-176. 2008."A man of versatile mind"—a remark from a letter to Locke by a life-long friend—is the subtitle of the first chapter of this biography. It could also be the book's subtitle. Relying on Locke's correspondence, manuscripts, and mostly unpublished journals, Woolhouse pieces together a detailed quilt that exhibits the tremendous variety of Locke's interests and activities. Locke, who admitted to wandering interests , wrote about medicine, horticulture, religion, education, economics, government, and…Read more
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111Emdedded systems vs. individualismMinds and Machines 5 (3): 357-71. 1995.The dispute between individualism and anti-individualism is about the individuation of psychological states, and individualism, on some accounts, is committed to the claim that psychological subjects together with their environments do not constitute integrated computational systems. Hence on this view the computational states that explain psychological states in computational accounts of mind will not involve the subject''s natural and social environment. Moreover, the explanation of a system''…Read more
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37Abstraction, covariance, and representationPhilosophical Studies 70 (2). 1993.According to a simple similarity theory of representation, x represents y because x and y share some properties. In Meaning and Mental Representation, Robert Cummins rejects this account for representations that play a role in cognition because, among other things, a similarity theory of representation precludes a satisfactory account of an essential cognitive task, namely abstraction. Intelligent beings have representations of classes and properties, and we need an account for such representati…Read more
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341The Preoccupation and Crisis of Analytic PhilosophyEuropean Journal of Analytic Philosophy 10 (1): 5-20. 2014.I propose to reconsider Gilbert Ryle’s thesis in 1956 in his introduction to The Revolution of Philosophy that “the story of twentieth-century philosophy is very largely the story of this notion of sense or meaning” and, as he writes elsewhere, the “preoccupation with the theory of meaning is the occupational disease of twentieth-century Anglo-Saxon and Austrian philoso- phy.” Ryle maintains that this preoccupation demar- cates analytic philosophy from its predecessors and that it gave philosoph…Read more
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2Patricia S. Churchland and Terrence J. Sejnowski, The Computational Brain Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 13 (4): 142-144. 1993.
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Locke on meaning and significationIn Graham Alan John Rogers (ed.), Locke's Philosophy: Content and Context, Oxford University Press. 1994.
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25Idealism, cataclysms, and the facts of referenceAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (1). 1983.A theory of reference for proper names according to which reference is fixed solely in terms of the contents of language users' minds is an idealist theory. A theory of reference for proper names in which reference is fixed not in terms of the contents of language users' minds, but in terms of causal chains connecting users to referents is a materialist theory. A dualist theory is one in which reference is fixed both by the contents of minds and causal chains. The main reason materialists…Read more
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99The Completeness of Kant's Table of JudgmentsDuke University Press. 1992.English translation by Kneller and Losonsky of Klaus Reich, Die Vollständigkeit der Kantischen Urteilstafel "This classic of Kant scholarship, whose first edition appeared in 1932, deals with one of the most controversial and difficult topics in the Critique of Pure Reason: Kant's table of judgments and their connection to the table of categories. Kant's attempt to derive the latter from the former is called the "Metaphysical Deduction," and it paves the way for the Transcendental Deduction tha…Read more
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42Beginning metaphysics: an introductory text with readings (edited book)Blackwell. 1991.This flexible textbook is both an introduction and a reader in metaphysics combining original discussion with selections from primary sources.
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58No problem for actualismPhilosophical Review 95 (1): 95-97. 1986.Alan mcmichaels has argued that actualism, The view that there are no non-Actual entities, Has a problem with iterated modalities. This paper argues that this is not the case
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A Defense of an Idealist Theory of Reference for Proper NamesDissertation, The University of Rochester. 1982.According to an idealist theory of reference for proper names the reference of proper names is fixed by what name users express in their beliefs, intentions, thoughts, and so forth. My task is to show that an idealist can defend himself against the proponent of the causal theory of reference, who claims that reference cannot be fixed solely by what is expressed in name users' minds. An idealist can handle certain facts of reference the causal theorist believes idealists cannot handle. Moreover, …Read more
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125On language: on the diversity of human language construction and its influence on the mental development of the human species (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 1999.Wilhelm von Humboldt's classic study of human language was first published in 1836, as a general introduction to his three-volume treatise on the Kawi language of Java. It is the final statement of his lifelong study of the nature of language, exploring its universal structures and its relation to mind and culture. Empirically wide-ranging - Humboldt goes far beyond the Indo-European family of languages - it remains one of the most interesting and important attempts to draw philosophical conclus…Read more
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45Passionate thought: Computation, thought and action in HobbesPragmatics and Cognition 1 (2): 245-266. 1993.According to a computational view of mind, thinking is identified with the manipulation of internal mental representations and intelligent behavior is the output of these computations. Although Thomas Hobbes's philosophy of mind is taken by many to be a precursor of this brand of cognitivism, this is not the case. For Hobbes, not all thinking is the manipulation of language-like symbols, and intelligent behavior is partly constitutive of cognition. Cognition requires a 'passionate thought', and …Read more
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Locke on Meaning and SignificanceIn G. A. J. Rogers (ed.), Locke's Philosophy: Content and Context, Clarendon Press. 1996.The author argues that Locke's theory of signification in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a theory of meaning and defends it against criticisms.
Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
The Argument from Evil |
The Nature of Analytic Philosophy |