•  117
    The Paradox of Identity
    Epistemologia 2 (2): 207-226. 1996.
    Call a semantics for singular terms *extensionalist* if it embraces and *classical* if it embraces. -/- 1. The meaning of a singular term is exhausted by its reference. 2. The reference of a singular term is an entity that is logically simple. -/- Call a semantics *adequate* if it distinguishes material identity from formal identity. -/- Frege reacts to the inadequacy of classical extensionalist semantics by rejecting. This he does without a sideways glance at, whose background ontology, an "ont…Read more
  •  87
    David Chalmers has proposed several principles in his attack on the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness. One of these is the principle of organizational invariance , which he asserts is significantly supported by two thought experiments involving human brains and their functional silicon-based isomorphs. I claim that while the principle is an intelligible hypothesis and could possibly be true, his thought experiments fail to provide support for it
  •  44
    Clinical Supervision of the Treatment of a Patient with Deeply Held Convictions
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 22 (4): 309-311. 2015.
    Dr. Hauptman provides us with a wonderful clinical vignette, the richness of which is measured in the range of responses it can evoke. My response will be that of a career-long psychiatric educator who has served as a clinical supervisor to many residents over the years. In this role, residents like Dr. Hauptman present their clinical work and their questions. I, in turn, try to help them to learn from their patients, improve their clinical skills, and seek answers to their questions. My task at…Read more
  •  34
    Originally published in 1985. This study concerns the problem of treating identity as a relation between an object and itself. It addresses the Russellian and Fregean solutions and goes on to present in the first part a surfacist account of belief-context ambiguity requiring neither differences in relative scope nor distinctions between sense and reference. The second part offers an account of negative existentials, necessity and identity-statements which resolves problems unlike the Russell-Fre…Read more
  •  32
    The difficulties encountered by attempts to treat identity as a relation between an object and itself are well-known: "...the sentence 'The morning star is...the morning star' is analytic and a truism, while...'The morning star is the evening star' is synthetic and represents a 'valuable extension of our knowledge'... But if {the morning star} and {the evening star} are the same object, and identity is taken as a relation holding between this object and itself, then it is impossible to explain h…Read more