29 found
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  1. Identity.Harold Noonan & Benjamin L. Curtis - 2022 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Much of the debate about identity in recent decades has been about personal identity, and specifically about personal identity over time, but identity generally, and the identity of things of other kinds, have also attracted attention. Various interrelated problems have been at the centre of discussion, but it is fair to say that recent work has focussed particularly on the following areas: the notion of a criterion of identity; the correct analysis of identity over time, and, in particular, the disagreement (...)
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  2. A Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Time.Benjamin L. Curtis & Jon Robson - 2016 - New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
    What is the nature of time? Does it flow? Do the past and future exist? Drawing connections between historical and present-day questions, A Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Time provides an up-to-date guide to one of the most central and debated topics in contemporary metaphysics. Introducing the views and arguments of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Newton and Leibniz, this accessible introduction covers the history of the philosophy of time from the Pre-Socratics to the beginning of the 20th Century. The (...)
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  3. The Rumble in the Bundle.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2012 - Noûs 48 (2):298-313.
    In 1952, two well-known characters called ‘A’ and ‘B’ met for the first time to argue about the Identity of Indiscernibles (Black, 1952). A argued that the principle is true, and B that it is false. By all accounts A took a bit of a beating and came out worst-off. Forty-three years later John O’Leary-Hawthorne offered a response on behalf of A that looked as if it would work so long as A was willing to accept the universal-bundle theory of (...)
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  4. To be fair.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2014 - Analysis 74 (1):47-57.
    In this article I present a theory of what it is to be fair. I take my cue from Broome’s well known 1990 account of fairness. Broome’s basic thesis is that fairness is the proportional satisfaction of claims, and with this I am in at least partial agreement. But neither Broome nor anyone else (so far as I know) has laid down a theory of precisely what one must do in order to be fair. The theory offered here does just (...)
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  5. On Moral Status.Benjamin L. Curtis & Simo Vehmas - 2021 - In Simo Vehmas & Reetta Mietola (eds.), Narrowed Lives: Meaning, Moral Value, and Profound Intellectual Disability. pp. 185-212.
     
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  6.  92
    Identity Over Time, Constitution and the Problem of Personal Identity.Benjamin L. Curtis & Harold W. Noonan - 2015 - In Steven M. Miller (ed.), The Constitution of Phenomenal Consciousness: Toward a Science and Theory. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. pp. 348-371.
    What am I? And what is my relationship to the thing I call ‘my body’? Thus each of us can pose for himself the philosophical problems of the nature of the self and the relationship between a person and his body. One answer to the question about the relationship between a person and the thing he calls ‘his body’ is that they are two things composed of the same matter at the same time (like a clay statue and the piece (...)
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  7.  83
    What Is an Antique?Benjamin L. Curtis & Darrin Baines - 2016 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74 (1):75-86.
    Antiques are undoubtedly objects worthy of aesthetic appreciation, but do they have a distinctive aesthetic value in virtue of being antiques? In this article we give an account of what it is to be an antique that gives the thesis that they do have a distinctive aesthetic value a chance of being true and suggests what that distinctive value consists in. After introducing our topic in Section I, in Section II we develop and defend the Adjectival Thesis: the thesis that (...)
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  8. On There Being Infinitely Many Thinkable Thoughts: A Reply to Porpora and a Defence of Tegmark.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2015 - Philosophia 43 (1):35-42.
    Porpora offers an a priori argument for the conclusion that there are infinitely many thoughts that it is physically possible for us to think. That there should be such an a priori argument is astonishing enough. That the argument should be simple enough to teach to a first-year undergraduate class in about 20 min, as Porpora’s is, is more astonishing still. Porpora’s main target is Max Tegmark’s recent argument for the claim that if current physics is right, then there are (...)
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  9. Can Essence Provide Knowledge of Metaphysical Necessity? A Reply to Jago.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2020 - Philosophia 48 (3):931-933.
    In this paper I argue against Mark Jago’s recent suggestion that ordinary knowers can move from knowledge of essence to knowledge of metaphysical necessity.
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  10. Lewisian quidditism, humility, and diffidence.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (11):3081-3099.
    In ‘Ramseyan Humility’ Lewis presents the Permutation Argument for quidditism. As he presents it the argument is simple enough, but once one digs beneath its surface, and attempts to understand it in strictly Lewisian terms, difficulties arise. The fundamental difficulty is that, as he presents it, the argument only seems to be sound if one rejects views that Lewis explicitly holds. One aim of this paper is to clarify the argument to show that one can make sense of it in (...)
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  11. A zygote could be a human: A defence of conceptionism against fission arguments.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2010 - Bioethics 26 (3):136-142.
    In this paper I defend the view that a zygote is a human from the fission objection that is widely thought to be decisive against the view. I do so, drawing upon a recent discussion of this issue by John Burgess, by explaining in detail the metaphysical position the proponent of the view should adopt in order to rebut the objection.
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  12.  34
    (1 other version)Moral Enhancement as Rehabilitation?Benjamin L. Curtis - 2012 - American Journal of Bioethics (Neuroscience) 3:23-24.
  13. The Simple and Complex Views of Personal Identity Distinguished.Harold Noonan & Benjamin L. Curtis - 2017 - In Valerio Buonomo (ed.), The Persistence of Persons: Studies in the Metaphysics of Personal Identity Over Time. Editiones Scholasticae. pp. 21-40.
     
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  14.  38
    ‘Or both’: A reply to Lajevardi on the alleged exclusivity of disjunction in English.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2022 - Analysis (1):29-30.
    Exclusivists interpret the ‘or’ of English (and other natural languages) exclusively, but may wish to introduce an inclusive sense of disjunction. A common natu.
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  15. Castles Built on Clouds: Vague Identity and Vague Objects.Benjamin L. Curtis & Harold W. Noonan - 2014 - In Ken Akiba & Ali Abasnezhad (eds.), Vague Objects and Vague Identity: New Essays on Ontic Vagueness. Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer. pp. 305-326.
    Can identity itself be vague? Can there be vague objects? Does a positive answer to either question entail a positive answer to the other? In this paper we answer these questions as follows: No, No, and Yes. First, we discuss Evans’s famous 1978 argument and argue that the main lesson that it imparts is that identity itself cannot be vague. We defend the argument from objections and endorse this conclusion. We acknowledge, however, that the argument does not by itself establish (...)
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  16.  65
    The divine hiddenness objection is not costly for atheists.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2021 - Analysis 81 (3):402-404.
    Perry Hendricks has recently argued that endorsing the divine hiddenness objection to the existence of God ‘eliminates’ or ‘does away with’ all de jure objections to theism. So, he says, anyone who endorses the divine hiddenness objection must ‘reject’ any de jure objection. ‘And this,’ he says, ‘means that the argument from divine hiddenness is costly for atheists’. However, although Hendricks's argument is an interesting one, it does not establish any of these things, at least on any natural understanding of (...)
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  17.  71
    Critical note on Williamson: A defence of the actualism‐possibilism debate.Benjamin L. Curtis & Harold W. Noonan - 2021 - Philosophical Forum 52 (1):91-96.
    In his book Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Williamson argues that the traditional actualist‐possibilist debate should be abandoned as hopelessly unclear and that we should get on with the clearer contingentism‐necessitism debate. We think that Williamson’s pessimism is not warranted by the brief arguments he gives. In this paper, we explain why and provide a clear formulation of the traditional actualist‐possibilist debate.
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  18. Moral Worth and Severe Intellectual Disability – A Hybrid View.Benjamin L. Curtis & Simo Vehmas - 2013 - In Jerome E. Bickenbach, Franziska Felder & Barbara Schmitz (eds.), Disability and the Good Human Life. Cambridge University Press. pp. 19-49.
    Consider: You can save either a human or a normal adult dog from a burning building (with no risk to yourself and at little cost), but not both. However, the human is a human with a severe intellectually disability (or, as we shall say, a “SID”). -/- Which one should you save? There is disagreement in the literature about which this issue. Two opposing camps exist, which we call “the intrinsic property camp ” and “the special relations camp.” Those in (...)
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  19. There’s No Need to Rethink Desert: A Reply to Pummer.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2015 - Philosophia 43 (4):999-1010.
    Pummer : 43–77, 2014) ingeniously wraps together issues from the personal identity literature with issues from the literature on desert. However, I wish to take issue with the main conclusion that he draws, namely, that we need to rethink the following principle: Desert.: When people culpably do very wrong or bad acts, they deserve punishment in the following sense: at least other things being equal they ought to be made worse off, simply in virtue of the fact that they culpably (...)
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  20.  19
    Must Antiques Be Technically Excellent? A Rejoinder to Killin.Darrin Baines & Benjamin L. Curtis - 2019 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 77 (1):83-85.
    In his response to an earlier paper of ours Anton Killin takes issue with a certain aspect of our definition of an antique. He agrees with our view that the concept of an antique is an adjectival one and is at least happy to grant that those elements of the definition that relate to age are correct. But he takes issue with the idea that technical excellence is a necessary condition for being an antique. In addition to this, he also (...)
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  21. A new look at Berkeley's idealism.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2009 - Heythrop Journal 50 (2):189-194.
    In this note I firstly give a formulation of Berkeleyean Idealism in modern anti‐realist terms. Secondly, I supply a reading of Berkeley that serves to do three things: 1. It makes clear that the formulation of the position in modern terms is acceptable. 2. It offers a revealing insight into the reasons why Berkeley accepted the position. 3. It allows us to see that these reasons are, in fact, bad ones.
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  22.  40
    Brain Neoplasm and Strict Identity.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2010 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 1 (3):10-11.
  23.  32
    Barely true subjunctive conditionals and anti-realism.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2008 - Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 7.
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  24. Material constitution, the neuroscience of consciousness, and the temporality of experience.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2015 - In Steven M. Miller (ed.), The Constitution of Phenomenal Consciousness: Toward a Science and Theory. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. pp. 433-444.
    In this paper I argue that if a completed neuroscience of consciousness is to be attained, we must give the synchronic and diachronic application conditions for brain states and phenomenal states. I argue that, due to the temporal nature of our experiences, such states must be viewed as being temporally extended events, and illustrate how to give such application conditions using examples of other temporally extended events. However, I also raise some difficulties for the project of giving application conditions for (...)
     
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  25.  47
    Non‐Therapeutic Modification and Self‐Interest: Reply to Schramme.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2008 - Bioethics 22 (8):455-456.
    In this article I reply to Thomas Schramme's argument that there are no good reasons for the prohibition of severe forms of voluntary non‐therapeutic body modification. I argue that on paternalistic assumptions there is, in fact, a perfectly good reason.
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  26. "Tarski" "Brouwer" "Whitehead" "Quine's Mathematical Logic".Benjamin L. Curtis - 2010 - In Jon Williamson & Federica Russo (eds.), Key Terms in Logic. Continuum Press.
     
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  27.  78
    Relativism and the foundations of philosophy – Stephen Hales.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2009 - Philosophical Quarterly 59 (234):170-173.
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  28.  38
    The Repeatability Argument Poses No New Threat for Bundle Theorists: A Reply to Benocci.Benjamin L. Curtis - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (4):826-830.
    Matteo Benocci [AJP, 2018] has presented a new argument, the Repeatability Argument, against any version of the Bundle Theory that includes a commitment to the principle that concrete particulars constituted by exactly the same universals are identical. In this discussion note, I argue that the Repeatability Argument fails because defenders of the Bundle Theory can reject one of its key steps on principled grounds. I thus conclude that Benocci provides Bundle Theorists with no new threat.
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  29.  36
    Trendsetters, Trend Followers, and Individual Players: Obtaining Global Counterterror Actor Types from Proscribed Terror Lists.Ethem Ilbiz & Benjamin L. Curtis - 2015 - Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 38:36-61.
    This article seeks to conceptualize global counterterror actor types by examining the designated terrorist organizations lists of six countries; the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Russia, and China. It is argued that these countries should be placed into one of three distinct categories: Trendsetters, Trend Followers, and Individual Players. Being able to classify countries according to these categories is important for global policymakers. It raises awareness of the differences between countries, and emphasizes that “one-fits-all” policies are inappropriate and (...)
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