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124On Presentism, Endurance, and ChangeCanadian Journal of Philosophy 32 (4). 2002.There has been much recent debate about Presentism among those who believe the doctrine to be nontrivial and true, those who believe it to be nontrivial and false, and those who believe it to be trivial — either trivially true or trivially false. Formulating Presentism precisely is problematic, which accounts for some of the controversy.
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233Will I Be a Dead Person?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (1): 167-171. 1999.Eric Olsen argues from the fact that we once existed as fetal individuals to the conclusion that the Standard View of personal identity is mistaken. I shall establish that a similar argument focusing upon dead people opposes Olson’s favored Biological View of personal identity.
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48Reflections on Non-naturalized NecessityPhilo 7 (2): 156-162. 2004.Modal properties are notorious epistemic trouble-makers. That theme is very much at the heart of Michael Rea’s thesis that the Discovery Problem (roughly, the problem of explaining how we know when ascriptions of modal properties are true) has no naturalistic resolution. That might encourage the thought that supernaturalism will somehow resolve the problem. This paper argues that supernaturalism is unlikely to offer a solution of the Discovery Problem.
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157Our bodies, our selvesAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 66 (3): 308-319. 1988.This Article does not have an abstract
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54Metaphysical boundaries: A question of independenceAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 67 (3). 1989.This Article does not have an abstract
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169How to Change Your MindCanadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (1). 1989.It no longer is true in a metaphorical sense only that a person can have a change of heart. We might grant this much — allow that a person may have one heart at one time and have another heart at still another time — and also resist the idea that a person can have a change of mind in anything other than a qualitative sense. In the discussion that follows, this standard view of the matter is called into question. If the argument presented here is sound, it can happen both that one person has nume…Read more
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82Artifacts of theseus: Fact and fissionAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (3). 1983.This Article does not have an abstract
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32Elements of MetaphysicsTemple University Press. 1989.Addresses many issues including the nature of mind, matter, ideas, and substance; the debate between those who believe human beings have free will and those who subscribe to determinism; fatalism, realism, and personal identity; and ...
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3On the Scope of Justice and the Community of PersonsTulane Studies in Philosophy 31 155-168. 1982.
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17Mapping Semantic Paths: Is Essentialism Relevant?Midwest Studies in Philosophy 11 (1): 53-73. 1986.
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27‘Partist’ Resistance to the Many (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (3). 2004.We are confronted by a metaphysical problem and discover, to our dismay, that standard proposals for its resolution have strongly counterintuitive corollaries. That naturally encourages consideration of previously overlooked or neglected ways out of the problem. As it turns out, one of these unorthodox proposals has a leg up on the various standard ways out of our problem. Metaphysical progress.
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74Dion’s Left FootPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (2): 371-379. 1997.Two recent papers by Michael Burke bearing upon the persistence of people and commonplace things illustrate the fact that the quest for synchronic ontological economy is likely to encourage a disturbing diachronic proliferation of entities. This discussion argues that Burke's promise of ontological economy is seriously compromised by the fact that his proposed metaphysic does violence to standard intuitions concerning the persistence of people and commonplace things. In effect, Burke would have …Read more
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151An unstable eliminativismPacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (1). 2005.In his book Objects and Persons, Trenton Merricks has reoriented and fine-tuned an argument from the philosophy of mind to support a selective eliminativism about macroscopic objects.1 The argument turns on a rejection of systematic causal overdetermination and the conviction that microscopic things do the causal work that is attributed to a great many (though not all) macroscopic things. We will argue that Merricks’ argument fails to establish his selective eliminativism.
