Science begins with the question, what do I want to know? Science becomes science, however, only when this question is justified and the appropriate methodology is chosen for answering the research question. Research question should precede the other questions; methods should be chosen according to the research question and not vice versa. Modern quantitative psychology has accepted method as p...

Gerald Gaus’ book The Order of Public Reason is one of the most interesting manifestations of a recent trend in moral and political philosophy. Following Rawls it blends Kantian and non-Kantian approaches supplying at least some prominent schools of moral and political philosophy with a much needed patch of overlapping consensus. In particular, Humean and Kantian considerations are merged in a ...

A child, or young human-like robot of the future, needs to develop an information-processing architecture, forms of representation, and mechanisms to support perceiving, manipulating, and thinking about the world, especially perceiving and thinking about actual and possible structures and processes in a 3-D environment. The mechanisms for extending those representations and mechanisms, are also...

I propose a non-Humean theory of causation with “tendencies” as causal connections. Not, however, as “necessary connexions”: causes are not sufficient, they do not necessitate their effects. The theory is designed to be, not an analysis of the concept of causation, but a description of what is the case in typical cases of causation. I therefore call it a metaphysical theory of causation, as opp...

One plausible interpretation of Hume’s famous claim that “reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions” holds that desires are necessary to motivation, that beliefs alone cannot motivate. Now some have held, against Hume, that there are in fact beliefs which could motivate all by themselves—namely, beliefs about what is good. For there to be such beliefs then cognitivism about value—th...

In the previous lecture I distinguished two nodes, or ‘attractors’, for the notion of representation, as it figures in contemporary philosophy. One node (‘irepresentation’) emphasises position in an inferential or functional network, the other (‘e-representation’) stresses correlation with an aspect of an external environment. I recommended that rather than trying to encompass both nodes in a s...

Dispositional essentialists are typically committed to two claims: that properties are individuated by their causal role (‘causal structuralism’), and that natural necessity is to be explained by appeal to these causal roles (‘dispositional actualism’). I argue that these two claims cannot be simultaneously maintained; and that the correct response is to deny dispositional actualism. Causal str...

On the conception of metaphysical possibility that I prefer, a metaphysical possibility is simply a coherent way for the world to be. That is a substantial view. There are conceptions of metaphysical possibility on which not every coherent way for the world to be counts as a metaphysical possibility. To illustrate this point, consider a conception of metaphysical possibility based on a simplifi...

In 1903 G.E. Moore celebrated a robust nonnaturalistic form of moral realism with the publication of his Principia Ethica. Subsequent years have witnessed the development and refinement of a number of views motivated at least in part by a deep resistance to the metaphysical and epistemological commitments of nonnaturalism. Over time, Moore’s view arguably has become the position of last resort ...

In a recent book (The Metaphysics within Physics), Tim Maudlin reconstructs metaphysics by taking inspiration from the gauge theories interpreted in the fiber bundle framework. I call his project the “fiber bundle metaphysics”. Primarily targeted not to Humean Supervenience, but to any metaphysics employing the relation of resemblance among objects (D. Lewis, D. Armstrong), Maudlin’s project is...