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  1. Counterfactuals.David K. Lewis - 1973 - Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
    Counterfactuals is David Lewis' forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrary to fact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds and his theory of laws of nature.
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  • (2 other versions)Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1983 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
    In his new foreword to this edition, Hilary Putnam forcefully rejects these nativist claims.
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  • Philosophical explanations.Robert Nozick - 1981 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
    Nozick analyzes fundamental issues, such as the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the foundations of ethics, and the meaning of life.
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  • Epistemology and cognition.Alvin I. Goldman - 1986 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
    Against the traditional view, Alvin Goldman argues that logic, probability theory, and linguistic analysis cannot by themselves delineate principles of rationality or justified belief. The mind's operations must be taken into account.
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  • Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.Alexander Bird - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Professional philosophers and advanced students working in metaphysics and the philosophy of science will find this book both provocative and stimulating.
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  • (3 other versions)Elusive knowledge.David Lewis - 1996 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 (4):549 – 567.
    David Lewis (1941-2001) was Class of 1943 University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. His contributions spanned philosophical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology. In On the Plurality of Worlds, he defended his challenging metaphysical position, "modal realism." He was also the author of the books Convention, Counterfactuals, Parts of Classes, and several volumes of collected papers.
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  • Powers: A Study in Metaphysics.George Molnar - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Stephen Mumford.
    George Molnar came to see that the solution to a number of the problems of contemporary philosophy lay in the development of an alternative to Hume's metaphysics. This alternative would have real causal powers at its centre. Molnar set about developing a thorough account of powers that might persuade those who remained, perhaps unknowingly, in the grip of Humean assumptions. He succeeded in producing something both highly focused and at the same time wide-ranging. He showed both that the notion of (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 36 (3):602-605.
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  • (2 other versions)Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Foundations of Language 13 (1):145-151.
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  • (2 other versions)Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Philosophy of Science 42 (3):341-344.
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  • Belief, Truth and Knowledge.David M. Armstrong - 1973 - London,: Cambridge University Press.
    A wide-ranging study of the central concepts in epistemology - belief, truth and knowledge. Professor Armstrong offers a dispositional account of general beliefs and of knowledge of general propositions. Belief about particular matters of fact are described as structures in the mind of the believer which represent or 'map' reality, while general beliefs are dispositions to extend the 'map' or introduce casual relations between portions of the map according to general rules. 'Knowledge' denotes the reliability of such beliefs as representations (...)
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  • (5 other versions)Philosophical Explanations.Robert Nozick - 1981 - Mind 93 (371):450-455.
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  • (1 other version)Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1955 - Philosophy 31 (118):268-269.
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  • Assertion, knowledge, and context.Keith DeRose - 2002 - Philosophical Review 111 (2):167-203.
    This paper uses the knowledge account of assertion (KAA) in defense of epistemological contextualism. Part 1 explores the main problem afflicting contextualism, what I call the "Generality Objection." Part 2 presents and defends both KAA and a powerful new positive argument that it provides for contextualism. Part 3 uses KAA to answer the Generality Objection, and also casts other shadows over the prospects for anti-contextualism.
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  • Finkish dispositions.David Kellogg Lewis - 1997 - Philosophical Quarterly 47 (187):143-158.
    Many years ago, C.B. Martin drew our attention to the possibility of ‘finkish’ dispositions: dispositions which, if put to the test would not be manifested, but rather would disappear. Thus if x if finkishly disposed to give response r to stimulus s, it is not so that if x were subjected to stimulus r, x would give response z; so finkish dispositions afford a counter‐example to the simplest conditional analysis of dispositions. Martin went on to suggest that finkish dispositions required (...)
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  • Contextualism, skepticism, and the structure of reasons.Stewart Cohen - 1999 - Philosophical Perspectives 13:57-89.
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  • (3 other versions)Elusive Knowledge.David Lewis - 2000 - In Sven Bernecker & Fred I. Dretske, Knowledge: readings in contemporary epistemology. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  • (3 other versions)Elusive Knowledge.David Lewis - 1999 - In Keith DeRose & Ted A. Warfield, Skepticism: Contemporary Readings. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  • Putting Skeptics in Their Place: The Nature of Skeptical Arguments and Their Role in Philosophical Inquiry.John Greco - 2000 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    This book, first published in 2000, is about the nature of skeptical arguments and their role in philosophical inquiry. John Greco delineates three main theses: that a number of historically prominent skeptical arguments make no obvious mistake, and therefore cannot be easily dismissed; that the analysis of skeptical arguments is philosophically useful and important, and should therefore have a central place in the methodology of philosophy; and that taking skeptical arguments seriously requires us to adopt an externalist, reliabilist epistemology. Greco (...)
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  • (1 other version)Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.The Philosophy of Nature.Edward H. Madden, Nelson Goodman & Andrew G. Van Melsen - 1955 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 16 (2):271.
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  • Masked Abilities and Compatibilism.M. Fara - 2008 - Mind 117 (468):843-865.
    An object's disposition to A in circumstances C is masked if circumstances C obtain without the object Aing. This paper explores an analogous sense in which abilities can be masked, and it uses the results of this exploration to motivate an analysis of agents' abilities in terms of dispositions. This analysis is then shown to provide the resources to defend a version of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities against Frankfurt-style counterexamples. Although this principle is often taken to be congenial to (...)
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  • (1 other version)Defining 'intrinsic'.Rae Langton & David Lewis - 1998 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (2):333-345.
    Something could be round even if it were the only thing in the universe, unaccompanied by anything distinct from itself. Jaegwon Kim once suggested that we define an intrinsic property as one that can belong to something unaccompanied. Wrong: unaccompaniment itself is not intrinsic, yet it can belong to something unaccompanied. But there is a better Kim-style definition. Say that P is independent of accompaniment iff four different cases are possible: something accompanied may have P or lack P, something unaccompanied (...)
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  • Three theses about dispositions.Elizabeth W. Prior, Robert Pargetter & Frank Jackson - 1982 - American Philosophical Quarterly 19 (3):251-257.
    I. Causal Thesis: Dispositions have a causal basis. II. Distinctness Thesis: Dispositions are distinct from their causal basis. III. Impotence Thesis: Dispositions are not causally active.
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  • On linking dispositions and conditionals.David Manley & Ryan Wasserman - 2008 - Mind 117 (465):59-84.
    Analyses of dispositional ascriptions in terms of conditional statements famously confront the problems of finks and masks. We argue that conditional analyses of dispositions, even those tailored to avoid finks and masks, face five further problems. These are the problems of: (i) Achilles' heels, (ii) accidental closeness, (iii) comparatives, (iv) explaining context sensitivity, and (v) absent stimulus conditions. We conclude by offering a proposal that avoids all seven of these problems.
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  • Quantitative parsimony.Daniel Nolan - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (3):329-343.
    In this paper, I motivate the view that quantitative parsimony is a theoretical virtue: that is, we should be concerned not only to minimize the number of kinds of entities postulated by our theories (i. e. maximize qualitative parsimony), but we should also minimize the number of entities postulated which fall under those kinds. In order to motivate this view, I consider two cases from the history of science: the postulation of the neutrino and the proposal of Avogadro's hypothesis. I (...)
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  • Belief, Truth and Knowledge.Peter D. Klein - 1976 - Philosophical Review 85 (2):225.
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  • (1 other version)Dispositions.Shungho Choi & Michael Fara - 2012 - The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    This is a perfect overview article that serves as a general introduction to the topic of dispositions. It is composed of six sections that review the main philosophical approaches to the most important questions: Analysis of disposition ascription, the dispositional/categorical distinction, dispositions and categorical bases, the intrinsicness of dispositions and the causal efficacy of dispositions.
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  • A case for extrinsic dispositions.Jennifer McKitrick - 2003 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (2):155 – 174.
    Many philosophers think that dispositions are necessarily intrinsic. However, there are no good positive arguments for this view. Furthermore, many properties (such as weight, visibility, and vulnerability) are dispositional but are not necessarily shared by perfect duplicates. So, some dispositions are extrinsic. I consider three main objections to the possibility of extrinsic dispositions: the Objection from Relationally Specified Properties, the Objection from Underlying Intrinsic Properties, and the Objection from Natural Properties. These objections ultimately fail.
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  • Psychophysical supervenience.Jaegwon Kim - 1982 - Philosophical Studies 41 (January):51-70.
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  • (1 other version)Powers: A Study in Metaphysics.George Molnar & Stephen Mumford - 2006 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2):485-487.
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  • (2 other versions)Natural kinds.Emma Tobin & Alexander Bird - 2009 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • Dispositions: A Debate.D. Armstrong, C. B. Martin & U. T. Place (eds.) - 1996 - New York: Routledge.
    'Why did the window break when it was hit by the stone? Because the window is brittle and the stone is hard; hardness and brittleness are powers, dispositional properties or dispositions.' Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. This book is a record of the debate on the nature of dispositions between three distinguished philosophers - D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin and U. T. Place - who have been thinking about dispositions all their working lives. Their distinctive (...)
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  • (3 other versions)Brains and behavior.Hilary Putnam - 1965 - In Sydney Shoemaker, Analytical Philosophy. Duke University Press.
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  • Simplicity.Alan Baker - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • Dispositional properties and counterfactual conditionals.Sungho Choi - 2008 - Mind 117 (468):795-841.
    For the last several decades, dispositional properties have been one of the main topics in metaphysics. Still, however, there is little agreement among contemporary metaphysicians on the nature of dispositional properties. Apparently, though, the majority of them have reached the consensus that dispositional ascriptions cannot be analysed in terms of simple counterfactual conditionals. In this paper it will be brought to light that this consensus is wrong. Specifically, I will argue that the simple conditional analysis of dispositions, which is generally (...)
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  • The nature of narrow content.David J. Chalmers - 2003 - Philosophical Issues 13 (1):46-66.
    A content of a subject's mental state is narrow when it is determined by the subject's intrinsic properties: that is, when any possible intrinsic duplicate of the subject has a corresponding mental state with the same content. A content of a subject's mental state is..
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  • Epistemology Modalized.Kelly Becker - 2007 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Heather Dyke.
    This book sets out first to explain how two fairly recent developments in philosophy, externalism and modalism, provide the basis for a promising account of knowledge, and then works through the different modalized epistemologies extant in the literature, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, the author proposes the theory that knowledge is reliably formed, sensitive true belief, and defends the theory against objections.
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  • Philosophy of Mathematics.Paul Benacerraf & Hilary Putnam - 1985 - Philosophy of Science 52 (3):488-489.
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  • (2 other versions)Natural kinds.Alexander Bird & Emma Tobin - 1995 - In Edward N. Zalta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University.
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  • Reliabilism.Alvin Goldman - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Reliabilism is a general approach to epistemology that emphasizes the truth conduciveness of a belief forming process, method, or other epistemologically relevant factor. The reliability theme appears both in theories of knowledge and theories of justification. ‘Reliabilism’ is sometimes used broadly to refer to any theory of knowledge or justification that emphasizes truth getting or truth indicating properties. These include theories originally proposed under different labels, such as ‘tracking’ theories. More commonly, ‘reliabilism’ is used narrowly to refer to process reliabilism (...)
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  • (1 other version)Putting Skeptics in Their Place: The Nature of Skeptical Arguments and Their Role in Philosophical Inquiry.John Greco - 2001 - Philosophical Quarterly 51 (204):398-401.
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  • A gradable approach to dispositions.David Manley & Ryan Wasserman - 2007 - Philosophical Quarterly 57 (226):68–75.
    Previous theories of the relationship between dispositions and conditionals are unable to account for the fact that dispositions come in degrees. We propose a fix for this problem that has the added benefit of avoiding the classic problems of finks and masks.
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  • Quantitative Parsimony and Explanatory Power.Alan Baker - 2003 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 54 (2):245-259.
    The desire to minimize the number of individual new entities postulated is often referred to as quantitative parsimony. Its influence on the default hypotheses formulated by scientists seems undeniable. I argue that there is a wide class of cases for which the preference for quantitatively parsimonious hypotheses is demonstrably rational. The justification, in a nutshell, is that such hypotheses have greater explanatory power than less parsimonious alternatives. My analysis is restricted to a class of cases I shall refer to as (...)
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  • Unfinkable dispositions.Toby Handfield - 2008 - Synthese 160 (2):297 - 308.
    This paper develops two ideas with respect to dispositional properties: (1) Adapting a suggestion of Sungho Choi, it appears the conceptual distinction between dispositional and categorical properties can be drawn in terms of susceptibility to finks and antidotes. Dispositional, but not categorical properties, are not susceptible to intrinsic finks, nor are they remediable by intrinsic antidotes. (2) If correct, this suggests the possibility that some dispositions—those which lack any causal basis—may be insusceptible to any fink or antidote. Since finks and (...)
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  • Opposing powers.Randolph Clarke - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 149 (2):153 - 160.
    A disposition mask is something that prevents a disposition from manifesting despite the occurrence of that disposition’s characteristic stimulus, and without eliminating that disposition. Several authors have maintained that masks must be things extrinsic to the objects that have the masked dispositions. Here it is argued that this is not so; masks can be intrinsic to the objects whose dispositions they mask. If that is correct, then a recent attempt to distinguish dispositional properties from so-called categorical properties fails.
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  • Intrinsic finks.Randolph Clarke - 2008 - Philosophical Quarterly 58 (232):512–518.
    Dispositions can be finkish, prone to disappear in circumstances that would commonly trigger their characteristic manifestations. Can a disposition be finkish because of something intrinsic to the object possessing that disposition? Sungho Choi has argued that this is not possible, and many agree. Here it is argued that no good case has been made for ruling out the possibility of intrinsic finks; on the contrary, there is good reason to accept it.
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  • Genericity.Ariel Cohen - 2022 - In Mark Aronoff, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. pp. 1-35.
    Generics are sentences such as Birds fly, which express generalizations. They are prevalent in speech, and as far as is known, no human language lacks generics. Yet, it is very far from clear what they mean. After all, not all birds fly—penguins don’t! -/- There are two general views about the meaning of generics in the literature, and each view encompasses many specific theories. According to the inductivist view, a generic states that a sufficient number of individuals satisfy a certain (...)
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  • Intrinsic Finks and Dispositional/Categorical Distinction.Sungho Choi - 2012 - Noûs 46 (2):289-325.
    The central theme of this paper is the dispositional/categorical distinction that has been one of the top agendas in contemporary metaphysics. I will first develop from my semantic account of dispositions what I think the correct formulation of the dispositional/categorical distinction in terms of counterfactual conditionals. It will be argued that my formulation does not have the shortcomings that have plagued previously proposed ones. Then I will turn my attention to one of its consequences, the thesis that dispositional properties are (...)
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  • (1 other version)Vagueness.Roy Sorensen - 2012 - In Ed Zalta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford, CA: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • Superficial Dispositionalism.Lauren Ashwell - 2010 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (4):635-653.
    Dispositional ascriptions do not entail the counterfactuals we might expect, as interfering factors may be poised to prevent the disposition from manifesting in its very stimulus conditions. Such factors are commonly called finks and masks. It is thought, however, that finks and masks cannot be intrinsic to the disposition bearer; if an intrinsic property of the object would prevent a particular response in certain conditions, the object fails to have the corresponding disposition. I argue that we should accept intrinsic finks (...)
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