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6Theoretical Terms: Meaning and ReferenceIn W. H. Newton‐Smith (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, Blackwell. 2017.It is one thing for a scientist to speak a language in which he can conduct and communicate his investigations, another for him to possess a reflective understanding enabling him to explain the nature and workings of that language. Many who have sought such an understanding have held that the concepts of “meaning,” “reference,” and “theoretical term” play a crucial role in developing it. But others — instrumentalist skeptics about reference, Quinean skeptics about meaning, and skeptics about the…Read more
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3ProbabilityIn W. H. Newton‐Smith (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, Blackwell. 2017.The mathematical study of probability originated in the seventeenth century, when mathematicians were invited to tackle problems arising in games of chance. In such games gamblers want to know which betting odds on unpredictable events are advantageous. This amounts to a concern with probability, because probability and fair betting odds appear linked by the principle that odds of m to n for a bet on a repeatable event E are fair if and only if the probability of E is n/(m + n). For example, sup…Read more
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310 Can Novel Critical Interpretations Create Art Objects Distinct from ThemselvesIn Michael Krausz (ed.), Is There a Single Right Interpretation?, Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 181-208. 2002.
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56Epistemic Consequentialism: Philip PercivalSupplement to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 76 (1): 121-151. 2002.I aim to illuminate foundational epistemological issues by reflecting on 'epistemic consequentialism'—the epistemic analogue of ethical consequentialism. Epistemic consequentialism employs a concept of cognitive value playing a role in epistemic norms governing belief-like states that is analogous to the role goodness plays in act-governing moral norms. A distinction between 'direct' and 'indirect' versions of epistemic consequentialism is held to be as important as the familiar ethical distinct…Read more
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Beyond Reality?In Mircea Dumitru (ed.), Metaphysics, Meaning, and Modality: Themes from Kit Fine, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
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22On realism about chanceIn Fraser MacBride (ed.), Identity and Modality, Oxford University Press. pp. 74--105. 2006.
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151A note on Lewis on counterfactual dependence in a chancy worldAnalysis 59 (3). 1999.In a Postscript, David Lewis tries to extend results obtained in his "Time's Arrow and Counterfactual Dependence" from the deterministic case to the indeterministic one. In particular, he claims that under the supposition that the actual world is indeterministic, the truth of the counterfactual 'If Nixon had pressed the button, there would have been a nuclear holocaust' is reconciled with his truth conditions for counterfactual conditionals by a certain refinement of his earlier treatment. Secti…Read more
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35Stecker's dilemma: A constructive responseJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (1): 51-60. 2000.
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46Epistemic ConsequentialismAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76 (1): 121-151. 2002.I aim to illuminate foundational epistemological issues by reflecting on ‘epistemic consequentialism’—the epistemic analogue of ethical consequentialism. Epistemic consequentialism employs a concept of cognitive value playing a role in epistemic norms governing belief-like states that is analogous to the role goodness plays in act-governing moral norms. A distinction between ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ versions of epistemic consequentialism is held to be as important as the familiar ethical distinct…Read more
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106Predicate abstraction, the limits of quantification, and the modality of existencePhilosophical Studies 156 (3): 389-416. 2011.For various reasons several authors have enriched classical first order syntax by adding a predicate abstraction operator. “Conservatives” have done so without disturbing the syntax of the formal quantifiers but “revisionists” have argued that predicate abstraction motivates the universal quantifier’s re-classification from an expression that combines with a variable to yield a sentence from a sentence, to an expression that combines with a one-place predicate to yield a sentence. My main aim is…Read more
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35Is constructivism floored? Reply to SteckerJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60 (1). 2002.
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103A Presentist's Refutation of Mellor's McTaggartRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 50 91-. 2002.For twenty years, D. H. Mellor has promoted an influential defence of a view of time he first called the ‘tenseless’ view, but now associates with what he calls the ‘B-theory.’ It is his defence of this view, not the view itself, which is generally taken to be novel. It is organized around a forcefully presented attack on rival views which he claims to be a development of McTaggart's celebrated argument that the ‘A-series’ is contradictory. I will call this attack ‘Mellor's McTaggart.’ Although …Read more
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31The Explanation of Chance EventsThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 2 105-122. 1999.Quantum mechanics gives us reason to think both that the world is indeterministic, and that there are irreducibly statistical laws governing objectively chancy processes. Lewis notes that this raises a two-horned dilemma between two options deemed unacceptable: severely curtail our explanatory practices with respect to macro events, or revise our conception of the essence of chance. He maintains, however, that we can escape this dilemma by making a distinction between ‘plain’ why-questions of th…Read more
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54Knowability, actuality, and the metaphysics of context-dependenceAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (1). 1991.This Article does not have an abstract
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75Comic Normativity and the Ethics of HumourThe Monist 88 (1): 93-120. 2005.Comic moralism holds that some moral properties impact negatively on the funniness of certain items that possess them. Strong versions of the doctrine deem the impact to be devastating: the possession of such a property by one of these items ensures the item is not funny. Weak versions deem the impact merely damaging: any funniness one of the items possesses is diminished, but not destroyed, by its possession of the property. Various species of comic moralism hold, respectively, various moral pr…Read more
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Peter Carruthers, "Human Knowledge and Human Nature"International Journal of Philosophical Studies 3 (2): 338. 1995.
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86Indices of truth and temporal propositionsPhilosophical Quarterly 39 (155): 190-199. 1989.This paper is in three sections. In the first I describe and illustrate three uses of indices of truth in semantics. The way I illustrate this classification is not completely uncontroversial, but I expect that my intuitions on this matter are generally shared. In the second section I broach a question which is central to the metaphysics of time, namely: how should certain temporal indices of truth - times - be fitted within this classificatory scheme? I sketch three proposals as to how this mig…Read more
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87Absolute TruthProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 94 189-213. 1994.Philip Percival; X*—Absolute Truth, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 94, Issue 1, 1 June 1994, Pages 189–214, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelia.
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69The Pursuit of Epistemic GoodMetaphilosophy 34 (1‐2): 29-47. 2004.PaceZagzebski, there is no route from the value of knowledge to a non–reliabilist virtue–theoretic epistemology. Her discussion of the value problem is marred by an uncritical and confused employment of the notion of a “state” of knowledge, an uncritical acceptance of a “knowledge–belief” identity thesis, and an incoherent presumption that the widely held thought that knowledge is more valuable than true belief amounts to the view that knowledge is a state of true belief having an intrinsic prop…Read more
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70Lewis's dilemma of explanation under indeterminism exposed and resolvedMind 109 (433): 39-66. 2000.In a brief passage, David Lewis derives from quantum-theory a dilemma regarding the explanation of chance events which he tries to solve by first distinguishing plain from contrastive why-questions have answers. His brevity warrants elaboration and critique. I endorse his derivation, but I make a structural objection to his solution. Once a further distinction is drawn between different kinds of contrastive why-question, his solution can be modified and refined so as to go some way to meeting th…Read more
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140Epistemic ConsequentialismAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76 (1). 2002.[Philip Percival] I aim to illuminate foundational epistemological issues by reflecting on 'epistemic consequentialism'-the epistemic analogue of ethical consequentialism. Epistemic consequentialism employs a concept of cognitive value playing a role in epistemic norms governing belief-like states that is analogous to the role goodness plays in act-governing moral norms. A distinction between 'direct' and 'indirect' versions of epistemic consequentialism is held to be as important as the familia…Read more
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An empiricist critique of constructive empiricism : the aim of scienceIn Bradley John Monton (ed.), Images of Empiricism: Essays on Science and Stances, with a Reply From Bas C. Van Fraassen, Oxford University Press. 2007.
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35Review of Jonathan L. Kvanvig, The Knowability Paradox (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (3). 2007.
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125Branching of possible worldsSynthese 190 (18): 4261-4291. 2013.The question as to whether some objects are possible worlds that have an initial segment in common, i.e. so that their fusion is a temporal tree whose branches are possible worlds, arises both for those who hold that our universe has the structure of a temporal tree and for those who hold that what there is includes concrete universes of every possible variety. The notion of “possible world” employed in the question is seen to be the notion of an object of a kind such that objects of that kind p…Read more
Nottingham, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Physical Science |
Philosophy of Probability |