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186On an argument of Peacocke's about physicalism and counterfactualsAnalysis 41 (3): 124-125. 1980.
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146Direct realism: Proximate causation and the missing object (review)Acta Analytica 20 (36): 3-6. 2005.Direct Realists believe that perception involves direct awareness of an object not dependent for its existence on the perceiver. Howard Robinson rejects this doctrine in favour of a Sense-Datum theory of perception. His argument against Direct Realism invokes the principle ‘same proximate cause, same immediate effect’. Since there are cases in which direct awareness has the same proximate cerebral cause as awareness of a sense datum, the Direct Realist is, he thinks, obliged to deny this causal …Read more
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125The Multiplication of Utility: N. M. L. NathanUtilitas 6 (2): 217-218. 1994.Some people have supposed that utility is good in itself, non-in-strumentally good, as distinct from good because conducive to other good things. And in modern versions of this view, utility often means want-satisfaction, as distinct from pleasure or happiness. For your want that p to be satisfied, is it necessary that you know or believe that p, or sufficient merely that p is true? However that question is answered, there are problems with the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental g…Read more
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91Naturalism and self-defeat: Plantinga's versionReligious Studies 33 (2): 135-142. 1997.In "Warrant and Proper Function" Plantinga argues that atheistic Naturalism is self-defeating. What is the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable, given this Naturalism and an evolutionary explanation of their origins? Plantinga argues that if the Naturalist is modest enough to believe that it is irrational to have any belief as to the value of this probability, then he is irrational even to believe his own Naturalism. I suggest that Plantinga's argument has a false premise, and t…Read more
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87Substance Dualism FortifiedPhilosophy 86 (2): 201-211. 2011.You have a body, but you are a soul or self. Without your body, you could still exist. Your body could be and perhaps is outlasted by the immaterial substance which is your soul or self. Thus the substance dualist. Most substance dualists are Cartesians. The self, they suppose, is essentially conscious: it cannot exist unless it thinks or wills or has experiences. In this paper I sketch out a different form of substance dualism. I suggest that it is not consciousness but another immaterial featu…Read more
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86Jewish monotheism and the Christian GodReligious Studies 42 (1): 75-85. 2006.Some Christians combine a doctrine about Christ which implies that there is more than one divine self with the doctrine that God revealed to the Jews a monotheism according to which there is just one divine self. I suggest that it is less costly for such Christians to achieve consistency by abandoning the second of these doctrines than to achieve it by abandoning the first.
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72Exclusion and sufficient reasonPhilosophy 85 (3): 391-397. 2010.I argue for two principles by combining which we can construct a sound cosmological argument. The first is that for any true proposition p's if 'there is an explanation for p's truth' is consistent then there is an explanation for p's truth. The second is a modified version of the principle that for any class, if there is an explanation for the non-emptiness ofthat class, then there is at least one non-member ofthat class which causes it not to be empty
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71Murder and the death of ChristThink 9 (26): 103-107. 2010.Some people believe that God made it a condition for His forgiveness even of repentant sinners that Jesus died a sacrificial death at human hands. Often, in the New Testament, this doctrine of Objective Atonement seems to be implied, as when Jesus spoke of his blood as ‘shed for many for the remission of sins’ , or when St Paul said that ‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ . And for many centuries the doctrine was indeed accepted by most if not all Christian theologians. It se…Read more
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56On the Justification of DemocracyThe Monist 55 (1): 89-120. 1971.1. The ideal of spatio-temporally unrestricted generalisation, which marks all post-mythological thinking about nature, marks no more than the continuity of totemism in political casuistry. No unrestricted principle of Socialism or Conservatism or Liberal Democracy is defensible unless it is accorded a moral ultimacy which almost no one fully conscious of what he was about would actually want to accord it. If this bare platitude is to be fully assimilated, it needs both concrete exemplification …Read more
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45Self and willInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 5 (1). 1997.When do two mental items belong to the same life? We could be content with the answer -just when they have certain volitional qualities in common. An affinity is noted between that theory and Berkeley's early doctrine of the self. Some rivals of the volitional theory invoke a spiritual or physical owner of mental items. They run a risk either of empty formality or of causal superstition. Other rivals postulate a non-transitive and symmetrical relation in the set of mental items. They must allow …Read more
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42Exclusion and Sufficient ReasonPhilosophy 85 (3): 391-397. 2010.I argue for two principles by combining which we can construct a sound cosmological argument. The first is that for any true proposition p's if ‘there is an explanation for p's truth’ is consistent then there is an explanation for p's truth. The second is a modified version of the principle that for any class, if there is an explanation for the non-emptiness of that class, then there is at least one non-member of that class which causes it not to be empty.
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41Necessity, Inconceivability and the "A Priori"Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 56 (1). 1982.
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38Evidence and AssuranceCambridge University Press. 1980.A systematic study of rational or justified belief, which throws fresh light on current debates about foundations and coherence theories of knowledge, the validation of induction and moral scepticism. Dr Nathan focuses attention on the largely unsatisfiable desires for active and self-conscious assurance of truth liable to be engendered by philosophical reflection about total belief-systems and the sources of knowledge. He extracts a kernel of truth from the doctrine that a regress of justificat…Read more
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37VI*—Scepticism and the Regress of JustificationProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 75 (1): 77-88. 1975.N. M. L. Nathan; VI*—Scepticism and the Regress of Justification, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 77–88, https:/
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32On the non-causal explanation of human actionPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 6 (3): 241-243. 1976.
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics |
20th Century Philosophy |