PAPERS
AND IDEAS
Here are
some of my PAPERS.
Works
in
(varrying degress of)
progress:
Abstract: Suppose
you are
somewhat persuaded by the arguments for Eliminative Materialism, but
are put off
by the view itself. For instance, you might be sympathetic to one or
more of the
following considerations: (1) that folk psychology is a bad theory and
will be
soon replaced by cognitive science or neuroscience, (2) that folk
psychology
will never be vindicated by cognitive science, (3) that folk psychology
makes
ontological commitments to weird or spooky things that no proper
science will
admit the existence of, (4) that folk psychology seems to lead to a
sort of
epiphenomenalism (which is yet another thing that’s weird
and
spooky), and
(5) that folk psychology seems to lead to the conclusion that mental
content is
either determined by things outside the head or is completely indeterminate,
neither of which is appealing. Yet in spite of your sympathy for any
one of
(1)-(5), you may nonetheless cringe at the consequence of them—that is,
you may
be unwilling to accept the Eliminative Materialist’s radical claim that
(i)
there are no beliefs, desires, etc., and (ii) we should stop all talk
to that
quantifies to the contrary. To relieve the conflict, I propose Mental
Fictionalism: the view that we are fictionalists about mental states.
Abstract:
David Lewis adopts
a counterpart theory of individuals to account for how it is that
Humphrey has
the modal property of ‘could have won the election.’ Once counterpart
theory is
taken on board, however, I think that the motivation for having a
plurality of
worlds is untenable. I will claim that counterpart theory with respect
to
individuals invites counterpart theory with respect to propertie,
which in turn invites an analysis of modality that involves only one
possible
world, viz., the actual world.
Abstract: David
Sedley
(2004) argues that the key to understanding how it is that philosophers
are willing to rule in the Kallipolis is to look back at Book I, and to
the discussion of what counts as ‘compulsion.’ It is here that we see
that the coercion or punishment that the ‘true’ leaders face when they
finally (albeit initially unwillingly) elect to rule, is the threat of
being ruled by their inferiors. It is the counterfactual consequences
of non-philosophers ruling that acts as a threat or compulsion.
However, I think there are some key passages in Book III that show that
Sedley’s account cannot be the correct one—in particular, Plato’s
discussion of ‘victims of magic.’ I will then suggest an alternative
account that relies on an important symmetry between the cave analogy
and the ascension of love described in the Symposium.
Abstract: Virtue
Ethicists typically hold that the weak-willed person is less morally
culpable than the vicious person. However, I have reasons to think that
this intuition is incorrect. What’s more, I think that insofar as there
is an asymmetry in the moral culpability between the weak-willed and
the vicious, the asymmetry works the opposite way. Moreover, I think
that Virtue Ethicists should think this, too. In the following paper, I
will first discuss the plausibility of the vicious agent as someone who
is merely mistaken about what the good is. Then I will explain and
critique two of the reasons a Virtue Ethicist might give in arguing for
the claim that the weak-willed agent is less culpable than the vicious
agent: (i) that the weak-willed agent has a ‘general commitment to the
good’, whereas the vicious agent does not, and (ii) that it is the
internal struggle or conflict within the weak-willed person that
deserves merit or praise (as opposed to the vicious agent who doesn’t
struggle at all). Finally, I will outline some additional reasons
why the Virtue Ethicist should think that the vicious person is less
culpable than the weak-willed, followed by some brief comments about
the role of internalism in all of this.
Abstract: There
are
two sorts of views about the relationship between parts and wholes:
Either the parts that compose the whole are literally identical to the
whole, or they are not. Most mereologists claim the latter. I, however,
will claim that the parts that compose any whole are literally
identical to the whole. To support my thesis I will (i) invoke a notion
of relative counting and (ii) utilize a logic and language of plurals.
My strategy will be to take the arguments against the claim that
composition is identity and show why these arguments are ineffective,
provided we’ve got a notion of relative counting and a language of
plurals. If I am successful, then I wil not only have shown how
composition can be identity, but also how a mereologist could plausibly
maintain that her thesis is truly ontologically innocent.
Abstract:
“Slingshot”
arguments are all the rage. And no
wonder. For if they turn out to be sound, our approach to most of
metaphysics,
philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language would be brutally
undermined. In
this paper I will (i) explore Stephen Neale’s recent reformulation
of Gödel’s slingshot, and his claims that such an argument
provides a
descriptive constraint for certain theories of facts, and (ii) address
Graham Oppy’s recent objections to Neale, detailing why I think at
least one of them is fairly
successful. My ultimate aim in this paper, however, is (iii) to present
a revised version of the slingshot
argument—one that piggy-backs on Neale’s formulation, but one that
strategically
avoids Oppy’s objections. This revised version will rely on Kaplan’s
notion of
‘dthat’—a
stipulated, technical operator that will allow us to secure a
referential
treatment of the terms used in the principles underlying the argument.
I hope
that this will show that whatever our
treatment of descriptions, the
slingshot can still be found to be threatening, perhaps even
devastating.
Here
are
some
of my IDEAS.
Some may argue that these are for entertainment purposes only.
Currently, I
have only TWO ideas:
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Updated: Nov. 27, 2007