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  1. Powers and the hard problem of consciousness: conceivability, possibility and powers.Sophie R. Allen - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (2):1-33.
    Do conceivability arguments work against physicalism if properties are causal powers? By considering three different ways of understanding causal powers and the modality associated with them, I will argue that most, if not all, physicalist powers theorists should not be concerned about the conceivability argument because its conclusion that physicalism is false does not hold in their favoured ontology. I also defend specific powers theories against some recent objections to this strategy, arguing that the conception of properties as powerful blocks (...)
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  2.  72
    Can Metaphysical Structuralism Solve the Plurality Problem?Sophie R. Allen - 2018 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 26 (5):722-746.
    ABSTRACTMetaphysics has a problem with plurality: in many areas of discourse, there are too many good theories, rather than just one. This embarrassment of riches is a particular problem for metaphysical realists who want metaphysics to tell us the way the world is and for whom one theory is the correct one. A recent suggestion is that we can treat the different theories as being functionally or explanatorily equivalent to each other, even though they differ in content. The aim of (...)
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  3.  72
    Kinds behaving badly: intentional action and interactive kinds.Sophie R. Allen - 2018 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 12):2927-2956.
    This paper investigates interactive kinds, a class of kinds suggested by Ian Hacking for which classification generates a feedback loop between the classifiers and what is classified, and argues that human interactive kinds should be distinguished from non-human ones. First, I challenge the claim that there is nothing ontologically special about interactive kinds in virtue of their members being classified as such. To do so, I reject Cooper’s counterexample to Hacking’s thesis that kind descriptions are necessary for intentional action, arguing (...)
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  4. On an Alleged Case of Propaganda: Reply to McKinnon.Sophie R. Allen, Elizabeth Finneron-Burns, Mary Leng, Holly Lawford-Smith, Jane Clare Jones, Rebecca Reilly-Cooper & R. J. Simpson - manuscript
    In her recent paper ‘The Epistemology of Propaganda’ Rachel McKinnon discusses what she refers to as ‘TERF propaganda’. We take issue with three points in her paper. The first is her rejection of the claim that ‘TERF’ is a misogynistic slur. The second is the examples she presents as commitments of so-called ‘TERFs’, in order to establish that radical (and gender critical) feminists rely on a flawed ideology. The third is her claim that standpoint epistemology can be used to establish (...)
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  5.  70
    From Possibility to Properties? Or from Properties to Possibility?Sophie R. Allen - 2017 - Philosophy 92 (1):21-49.
    This paper contrasts two metaphysical accounts of modality and properties: Modal Realism which treats possible entities as primitive; and Strong Dispositionalism in which metaphysical possibility and necessity are determined by actually existing dispositions or powers. I argue that Strong Dispositionalism loses its initial advantages of simplicity and parsimony over Modal Realism as it is extended and amended to account for metaphysical rather than just causal necessity. Furthermore, to avoid objections to its material and formal adequacy, Strong Dispositionalism requires a richer (...)
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  6.  60
    Curiosity Kills the Categories: A Dilemma about Categories and Modality.Sophie R. Allen - 2015 - Metaphysica 16 (2).
  7.  73
    What Matters in (Naturalized) Metaphysics?Sophie R. Allen - 2012 - Essays in Philosophy 13 (1):212-242.
    Can metaphysics ever really be compatible with science? In this paper, I investigate the implications of the methodological approach to metaphysical theorizing known as naturalized metaphysics. In the past, metaphysics has been rejected entirely by empirically-minded philosophers as being too open to speculation and for relying on methods which are not conducive to truth. But naturalized metaphysics aims to be a less radical solution to these difficulties, treating metaphysical theorizing as being continuous with science and restricting metaphysical methods to empirically (...)
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  8.  89
    Can Theoretical Underdetermination support the Indeterminacy of Translation? Revisiting Quine's ‘Real Ground’.Sophie R. Allen - 2010 - Philosophy 85 (1):67-90.
    It is commonly believed that Quine's principal argument for the Indeterminacy of Translation requires an untenably strong account of the underdetermination of theories by evidence, namely that that two theories may be compatible with all possible evidence for them and yet incompatible with each other. In this article, I argue that Quine's conclusion that translation is indeterminate can be based upon the weaker, uncontroversial conception of theoretical underdetermination, in conjunction with a weak reading of the ‘Gavagai’ argument which establishes the (...)
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  9.  17
    Powers, persistence, and the problem of temporary intrinsics.Sophie R. Allen - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies:1-30.
    David Lewis uses the problem of temporary intrinsics to motivate a perdurantist account of persistence in which four-dimensional individuals consist of temporal parts. Other philosophers use his argument to conclude that apparently persisting individuals are collections of temporal stages. In this paper, I investigate whether this argument is as effective in an ontology in which properties are causal powers and thus how seriously the problem should be taken. I go back to first principles to examine the ways in which individuals (...)
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  10.  50
    Intrinsicality, Independence and Grounding.Sophie R. Allen - 2020 - Metaphysica 21 (1):71-97.
    This paper investigates the plausibility of Witmer, Butchard and Trogdon’s proposal to distinguish intrinsic properties from extrinsic ones in terms of independence from accompaniment and grounding. I argue that the proposed criterion is not adequate to determine intrinsicality, since according to it some intuitively extrinsic properties turn out to be intrinsic. I suggest and evaluate two responses: first, one could characterize a conception of independence which is specific to the individual instantiating the property; and second, one could justify two assumptions (...)
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  11. A space oddity: Colin McGinn on consciousness and space.Sophie R. Allen - 2006 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 13 (4):61-82.
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  12. Deepening the controversy over metaphysical realism.Sophie R. Allen - 2002 - Philosophy 77 (4):519-541.
    A significant ontological commitment is required to sustain metaphysical realism—the view that there is a single, objective way the world is—in order to defend it from common sense objections. This involves presupposing the existence of properties (or tropes, or universals) and relations between them which define the objective structure of the world. This paper explores the grounds for accepting this ontological assumption and examines a sceptical argument which questions whether, having assumed the world is objectively divided into fundamental properties, we (...)
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  13.  68
    The necessity of conceivability.Sophie R. Allen & Javier Cumpa - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-18.
    In his conceivability argument, Chalmers assumes that all properties have their causal powers contingently and causal laws are also contingent. We argue that this claim conflicts with how conceivability itself must work for the conceivability argument to be successful. If conceivability is to be an effective mechanism to determine possibility, it must work as a matter of necessity, since contingent conceivability renders conceivability fallible for an ideal reasoner and the fallible conceivability of zombies would not entail their possibility. But necessary (...)
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  14.  71
    Causal Powers By Jonathan D. Jacobs.Sophie R. Allen - 2018 - Analysis 78 (3):572-577.
    _ Causal Powers _By JacobsJonathan D.Oxford University Press, 2017. xii + 232 pp.
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  15.  86
    What's the point in Scientific Realism if we don't know what's really there?Sophie R. Allen - 2007 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 61:97-123.
    The aim of this paper will be to show that certain strongly realist forms of scientific realism are either misguided or misnamed. I will argue that, in the case of a range of robustly realist formulations of scientific realism, the ‘scientific’ and the ‘realism’ are in significant philosophical and methodological conflict with each other; in particular, that there is a tension between the actual subject matter and methods of science on the one hand, and the realists' metaphysical claims about which (...)
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  16.  33
    Disorder at the Border.Sophie R. Allen - 2004 - Philo 7 (2):176-202.
    This paper concerns the conjunction of naturalism---the thesis that the methods of science, and those alone, provide the basic sources of evidence of what there is in the world-with various types of realism. First, I distinguish different forms of naturalist realism on the basis of their ontological commitments in terms of five existential presuppositions about the entities and processes which exist independently of the mind. I then argue that some of these presuppositions are in prima facie conflict with the naturalists’ (...)
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  17.  61
    Purple haze: The puzzle of consciousness by Joseph Levine, oxford: Oxford university press, 2001, pp. 204, £22.50.Sophie R. Allen - 2002 - Philosophy 77 (1):125-141.
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  18.  64
    (1 other version)World without design by Michael C. Rea, oxford university press, 2002, pp. VII and 245.Sophie R. Allen - 2004 - Philosophy 79 (2):342-348.
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  19. Metaphysics and Science. [REVIEW]Sophie R. Allen - 2015 - Analysis 75 (1):148-153.