Peter Menzies
(1953 - 2015)

  •  1771
    Nonreductive physicalism and the limits of the exclusion principle
    Journal of Philosophy 106 (9): 475-502. 2009.
    It is often argued that higher-level special-science properties cannot be causally efficacious since the lower-level physical properties on which they supervene are doing all the causal work. This claim is usually derived from an exclusion principle stating that if a higher-level property F supervenes on a physical property F* that is causally sufficient for a property G, then F cannot cause G. We employ an account of causation as difference-making to show that the truth or falsity of this princ…Read more
  •  1332
    Abductive inference and delusional belief
    with Max Coltheart and John Sutton
    Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 15 (1): 261-287. 2010.
    Delusional beliefs have sometimes been considered as rational inferences from abnormal experiences. We explore this idea in more detail, making the following points. Firstly, the abnormalities of cognition which initially prompt the entertaining of a delusional belief are not always conscious and since we prefer to restrict the term “experience” to consciousness we refer to “abnormal data” rather than “abnormal experience”. Secondly, we argue that in relation to many delusions (we consider eight…Read more
  •  572
    Causation as a secondary quality
    with Huw Price
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (2): 187-203. 1993.
    In this paper we defend the view that the ordinary notions of cause and effect have a direct and essential connection with our ability to intervene in the world as agents.1 This is a well known but rather unpopular philosophical approach to causation, often called the manipulability theory. In the interests of brevity and accuracy, we prefer to call it the agency theory.2 Thus the central thesis of an agency account of causation is something like this: an event A is a cause of a distinct event B…Read more
  •  463
    Probabilistic causation and causal processes: A critique of Lewis
    Philosophy of Science 56 (4): 642-663. 1989.
    This paper examines a promising probabilistic theory of singular causation developed by David Lewis. I argue that Lewis' theory must be made more sophisticated to deal with certain counterexamples involving pre-emption. These counterexamples appear to show that in the usual case singular causation requires an unbroken causal process to link cause with effect. I propose a new probabilistic account of singular causation, within the framework developed by Lewis, which captures this intuition
  •  378
    This book advocates dispositional essentialism, the view that natural properties have dispositional essences.1 So, for example, the essence of the property of being negatively charged is to be disposed to attract positively charged objects. From this fact it follows that it is a law that all negatively charged objects will attract positively 10 charged objects; and indeed that this law is metaphysically necessary. Since the identity of the property of being negatively charged is determined by it…Read more
  •  297
    The Two Envelope 'Paradox'
    Analysis 54 (1). 1994.
    This paper discusses the finite version of the two envelope paradox. (That is, we treat the paradox against the background assumption that there is only a finite amount of money in the world.)
  •  264
    The Oxford Handbook of Causation (edited book)
    Oxford University Press UK. 2009.
    Causation is a central topic in many areas of philosophy. In metaphysics, philosophers want to know what causation is, and how it is related to laws of nature, probability, action, and freedom of the will. In epistemology, philosophers investigate how causal claims can be inferred from statistical data, and how causation is related to perception, knowledge and explanation. In the philosophy of mind, philosophers want to know whether and how the mind can be said to have causal efficacy, and in et…Read more
  •  211
    Counterfactual theories of causation
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
    The basic idea of counterfactual theories of causation is that the meaning of causal claims can be explained in terms of counterfactual conditionals of the form “If A had not occurred, C would not have occurred”. While counterfactual analyses have been given of type-causal concepts, most counterfactual analyses have focused on singular causal or token-causal claims of the form “event c caused event e”. Analyses of token-causation have become popular in the last thirty years, especially since the…Read more
  •  154
    Causal models, token causation, and processes
    Philosophy of Science 71 (5): 820-832. 2004.
    Judea Pearl (2000) has recently advanced a theory of token causation using his structural equations approach. This paper examines some counterexamples to Pearl's theory, and argues that the theory can be modified in a natural way to overcome them.
  •  146
    In the history of modern philosophy systematic connections were assumed to hold between the modal concepts of logical possibility and necessity and the concept of conceivability. However, in the eyes of many contemporary philosophers, insuperable objections face any attempt to analyze the modal concepts in terms of conceivability. It is important to keep in mind that a philosophical explanation of modality does not have to take the form of a reductive analysis. In this paper I attempt to provide…Read more
  •  145
    Modal functionalism is the view that talk about possible worlds should be construed as talk about fictional objects. The version of modal fictionalism originally presented by Gideon Rosen adopted a simple prefixing strategy for fictionalising possible worlds analyses of modal propositions. However, Stuart Brock and Rosen himself in a later article have independently advanced an objection that shows that the prefixing strategy cannot serve fictionalist purposes. In this paper we defend fictionali…Read more
  •  142
    An objectivist's guide to subjective value
    Ethics 102 (3): 512-533. 1992.
  •  128
    A unified account of causal relata
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 67 (1). 1989.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  125
    Against causal reductionism
    Mind 97 (388): 551-574. 1988.
  •  121
    This paper criticizes a recent account of token causation that states that negative causation involving absences of events is of a fundamentally different kind from positive causation involving events. The paper employs the structural equations framework to advance a theory of token causation that applies uniformly to positive and negative causation alike.
  •  120
    The causal efficacy of mental states
    In Sven Walter & Heinz-Dieter Heckmann (eds.), Physicalism and Mental Causation, Imprint Academic. pp. 195--223. 2003.
    You are asked to call out the letters on a chart during an eyeexamination: you see and then read out the letters ‘U’, ‘R’, and ‘X’. Commonsense says that your perceptual experiences causally control your calling out the letters. Or suppose you are playing a game of chess intent on winning: you plan your strategy and move your chess pieces accordingly. Again, commonsense says that your intentions and plans causally control your moving the chess pieces. These causal judgements are as plain and evi…Read more
  •  111
    Nature's metaphysics
    Analysis 69 (4): 769-778. 2009.
    This book advocates dispositional essentialism, the view that natural properties have dispositional essences. 1 So, for example, the essence of the property of being negatively charged is to be disposed to attract positively charged objects. From this fact it follows that it is a law that all negatively charged objects will attract positively charged objects; and indeed that this law is metaphysically necessary. Since the identity of the property of being negatively charged is determined by its …Read more
  •  97
    The causal structure of mechanisms
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43 (4): 796-805. 2012.
    Recently, a number of philosophers of science have claimed that much explanation in the sciences, especially in the biomedical and social sciences, is mechanistic explanation. I argue the account of mechanistic explanation provided in this tradition has not been entirely satisfactory, as it has neglected to describe in complete detail the crucial causal structure of mechanistic explanation. I show how the interventionist approach to causation, especially within a structural equations framework, …Read more
  •  79
    Norms, Causes, and Alternative Possibilities
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (4): 346-347. 2010.
    I agree with Knobe's claim in his “Person as Scientist, Person as Moralist” article that moral considerations are integral to the workings of people's competence in making causal judgments. However, I disagree with the particular explanation he gives of the way in which moral considerations influence causal judgments. I critically scrutinize his explanation and outline a better one.
  •  78
    Causing Actions (review)
    Mind and Language 18 (4): 440-446. 2003.
    Paul Pietroski presents an original philosophical theory of actions and their mental causes. We often act for reasons, deliberating and choosing among options, based on our beliefs and desires. But because bodily motions always have biochemical causes, it can seem that thinking and acting are biochemical processes. Pietroski argues that thoughts and deeds are in fact distinct from, though dependent on, underlying biochemical processes within persons
  •  62
    Mental causation in the physical world
    In Sophie C. Gibb & Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson (eds.), Mental Causation and Ontology, Oxford University Press. 2013.
  •  61
    Non-reductive physicalism is the view that mental events cause other events in virtue of their mental properties and that mental properties supervene on, without being identical to, physical properties. Jaegwon Kim has presented several much-discussed arguments against this view. But the much simpler causal closure argument, which purports to establish that every mental property is identical to a physical property, has received less attention than Kim’s arguments. This paper aims to show how a n…Read more
  •  60
  •  60
    Platitudes and counterexamples
    In Helen Beebee, Peter Menzies & Christopher Hitchcock (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Causation, Oxford University Press. pp. 341--367. 2009.
    27 page
  •  36
    A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility, by D. M. Armstrong (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (3): 731-734. 1992.