Recent Papers and Reviews

 

 

submitted, Cohesion, Gene Flow, and the Nature of Species (with Matt Barker). Articulates then critiques the influential idea that species are held together by gene flow, and examines its implications for a number of popular claims about species and evolutionary forces. Journal of Philosophy, in press [9300 words]

 

in press, Extended Vision. Defends the view that vision is an extended cognitive process, with reference to the protestations of Ned Block, Fred Adams, and Ken Azawai. To appear in N. Gangopadhyay, M. Madary, and F. Spicer (eds.), Perception, Action, and Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press. A memorial volume for Susan Hurley. [10 000 words]

 

in press, Primary and Secondary Qualities. Review article on Locke on primary and secondary qualities. To appear in M. Stuart (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Locke. [9000 words]

 

in press, When Traditional Essentialism Fails: Biological Natural Kinds. Jointly authored with Matt Barker and Ingo Brigandt. Develops the homeostatic property cluster view along the lines defended in earlier works, but with a bit more beef. To appear in Philosophical Topics, special issue on natural kinds. [12000 words]

 

in press, Meaning Making and the Mind of the Externalist in Richard Menary (editor), The Extended Mind.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.  Explores the problem of intentionality, given the assumption that the mind is extended.  Note that previously listed as to be published by Ashgate. [8500 words]

2009, The Transitivity of Material Constitution, Nous 43(20), June 2009, pp.364-378. Examines the assumption that material constitution is transitive and the work that it does in simple arguments about what constitutes what. Draws some parallels with the concept of realization in challenging this assumption.

 

2008, The Drink You Have When You Are Not Having a Drink. Book symposium on Peter Carruthers, The Architecture of the Mind for Mind and Language. Co-symposiasts: Edouard Machery, Fiona Cowie, and Peter Carruthers. Published June 2008. [4000 words]

 

2008, Material Constitution and the Many-Many Problem , Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38(2), June 2008, pp.201-218. Argues that a range of approaches to material constitution, including that of Lynne Baker, face what I call the many-many problem, and that one prima facie plausible way to address it doesn't work.

 

2008, How to Situate Cognition: Letting Nature Take its Course (with Andy Clark) for Murat Aydede and Philip Robbins (editors), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, 2008.  Articulates and defends a conception of situated cognition as cognitive extension, using the extended mind thesis to make sense of situated cognition and respond to several recent attacks on that view. 

 

2008, A Conceptual and Empirical Framework for the Social Distribution of Cognition: The Case of Memory, Cognitive Systems Research 9(1-2) March 2008, pp.33-51. Co-authors: Amanda Barnier, John Sutton, and Celia Harris (Macquarie University). An integrated conceptual and empirical framework for exploring collective memory, building on the social manifestation thesis articulated in chh.11-12 of Boundaries of the Mind.

 

2007, A Puzzle About Material Constitution and How to Solve It: Enriching Constitution Views in Metaphysics Philosophers' Imprint 7 (July 2007), pp.1-20. Argues that there are two concepts of material constitution, the recognition of which not only solves an intuitive puzzle about constitution but enriches the space of possibilities for constitution views in metaphysics.

 

2007, Social Reality and Institutional Facts: Sociality Within and Without Intentionality in Savas L. Tsohatzidis (editor), Intentional Acts and Institutional Facts: Essays on John Searle's Social Ontology (Dordrecht: Springer). Critically explores Searle's views of sociality and its relationship to institutional facts. [7500 words]

 

2007, The Biological Notion of Individual Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Review essay that discusses organisms, groups, and other things that might be considered biological individuals. [10 000 words]

 

2007, Levels of Selection, in Mohan Matthen and Chris Stevens (editors), Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Volume 3, Philosophy of Biology Elsevier, pp.141-162. Review essay on the levels of selection.

 

2007, Realization (with Carl Craver).  in P. Thagard (editor), Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Volume 12, Psychology and Cognitive Science, Elsevier, pp.81-104.  Brings together work of the two authors on realization and mechanism, especially about the mind and brain.

 

2006, Review of Michael Wheeler, Reconstructing the Cognitive World (MIT Press, 2005), Canadian Philosophical Reviews 26 (October 2006), pp.386-388.

 

2006, Critical Notice of Mohan Matthen's Seeing, Knowing, and Doing: A Philosophical Theory of Sense Perception (Oxford, 2005) Canadian Journal of Philosophy 36 (March 2006): 117-132. Extended discussion of Matthen's views that takes up the relations between sensory systems and sensory experience and between colour vision and colour experience, as well as the possibility of extended sensory systems and the universality of colour categories.

 

2005, What Computers (Still, Still) Can't Do: Jerry Fodor on Computation and  Modularity in R, J. Stainton, M. Ezcurdia, and C. D. Viger (eds.), New Essays in Philosophy of Language and Mind.  Supp. issue 30 of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2005, pp.407-425.   Focus on Fodor's "The Mind Doesn't Work That Way", but not on its main message about evolutionary psychology.  Has Fodor become Granny?  

 

2005, Collective Memory, Group Minds, & the Extended Mind Thesis special issue Cognitive Processing, 6 (4), edited by John Sutton.  Review essay on collective memory in the biological and social sciences that draws on the extended mind thesis. [~8500 words].

 

2005, Persons, Social Agency, and Constitution Social Philosophy and Policy 22  (Summer 2005), pp.49-69.  Also published in E. Frankl Paul, Fred D. Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul (editors), Personal Identity, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2005.  Explores Lynn Baker's constitution view of persons in making sense of both individual and collective social agency.  This is the penultimate version; for the final version, see the journal or the book

 

2005, Philosophy of Psychology  Review essay for S. Sarkar and J.  Pfeiffer (eds.), The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, 2 volumes.  New York: Routledge, 2005, pp.613-619.  Commissioned as an overview essay for the phil of psych.  The version here was written in July 2001, scheduled for publication in 2002, but such is the life of encyclopedia projects ... 

 

2005, Review of Derek Melser, The Act of Thinking (MIT Press, 2004), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2005.04.02) See also NDPR itself.  [~2000 words]

 

2004, Test Cases, Resolvability, and Group Selection: A Critical Examination of the Myxoma Case Philosophy of Science 71 (July 2004): 380-401.    Discussion of the case of myxomatosis in Australian rabbits, long presented as a textbook example of group selection in the wild that reveals complexities overlooked by proponents of both individual and group selection.

 

2004, Recent Work in Individualism in the Social, Behavioural and Biological  Sciences Biology and Philosophy 19 (June 2004), pp.397-423.  Review essay that draws on work from both Boundaries of the Mind and Genes and the Agents of Life, as well as new material on evolution, cognition, and sociality.

 

2004, Review of Joseph LaPorte, Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change (Cambridge University Press), Philosophy in Review 24 (December 2004), pp.423-426.

 

2004, Critical review of Philip Kitcher, In Mendel's Mirror (Oxford University Press, 2003), Human Nature Review, 4 (1 January 2004), pp.1-13.  See also http://human-nature.com/nibbs/04/rawilson.html.