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  1. Meaningfulness and Identities.Wai-Hung Wong - 2008 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11 (2):123-148.
    Three distinct but related questions can be asked about the meaningfulness of one's life. The first is 'What is the meaning of life?', which can be called 'the cosmic question about meaningfulness'; the second is 'What is a meaningful life?', which can be called 'the general question about meaningfulness'; and the third is 'What is the meaning of my life?', which can be called 'the personal question about meaningfulness'. I argue that in order to deal with all three questions we (...)
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  2. What Williamson's anti-luminosity argument really is.Wai-Hung Wong - 2008 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 89 (4):536-543.
    Abstract: Williamson argues that when one feels cold, one may not be in a position to know that one feels cold. He thinks this argument can be generalized to show that no mental states are such that when we are in them we are in a position to know that we are in them. I argue that his argument is a sorites argument in disguise because it relies on the implicit premise that warming up is gradual. Williamson claims that his (...)
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  3. A normative account of the need for explanation.Zanja Yudell & Wai-Hung Wong - 2015 - Synthese 192 (9):2863-2885.
    Although explanation is a central topic in the philosophy of science, there is an important issue concerning explanation that has not been discussed much, namely, why some phenomena need an explanation while some do not. In this paper we first explain why this is an important issue, and then discuss two accounts of the need for explanation that can be gathered from the literature. We argue that both accounts are inadequate. The main purpose of the paper is, however, to offer (...)
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  4. The skeptical paradox and the indispensability of knowledge-beliefs.Wai-Hung Wong - 2005 - Synthese 143 (3):273-290.
    Some philosophers understand epistemological skepticism as merely presenting a paradox to be solved, a paradox given rise to by some apparently forceful arguments. I argue that such a view needs to be justified, and that the best way to do so is to show that we cannot help seeing skepticism as obviously false. The obviousness (to us) of the falsity of skepticism is, I suggest, explained by the fact that we cannot live without knowledge-beliefs (a knowledge-belief about the world is (...)
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  5.  69
    McTaggart's Overlooked Second Construction of the Argument against the Reality of Time in the A-Series.Wai-Hung Wong - 2023 - Journal of Philosophy 120 (5):257-282.
    McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time was first published in the 1908 article “The Unreality of Time,” and a revised version appeared in the 1927 book The Nature of Existence. I argue that these two versions are significantly different. The second construction of the argument is important because it neutralizes a compelling objection. McTaggart’s initial argument tries to show that the conception of an A-series is self-contradictory. A natural objection is that the apparent contradiction can be resolved by making (...)
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  6.  77
    The problem of insulation.Wai-hung Wong - 2002 - Philosophy 77 (3):349-373.
    Insulation is a noticeable phenomenon in the case of most non-Pyrrhonian sceptics about human knowledge. A sceptic is experiencing insulation when his scepticism does not have any effect on his common sense beliefs, and his common sense beliefs do not have any effect on his scepticism. I try to show why this is a puzzling phenomenon, and how it can be explained. It is puzzling because insulation seems to require blindness to one's own epistemic irresponsibility and irrationality, while the sceptic (...)
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  7.  75
    The cosmic lottery.Wai-Hung Wong - 2009 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 66 (3):155-165.
    One version of the argument for design relies on the assumption that the apparent fine-tuning of the universe for the existence of life requires an explanation. I argue that the assumption is false. Philosophers who argue for the assumption usually appeal to analogies, such as the one in which a person was to draw a particular straw among a very large number of straws in order not to be killed. Philosophers on the other side appeal to analogies like the case (...)
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  8.  70
    To interpret, or to be omniscient.Wai-Hung Wong - 1993 - Philosophical Papers 22 (3):189-198.
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  9.  67
    Strawson's anti-scepticism: A critical reconstruction.Wai-Hung Wong - 2003 - Ratio 16 (3):290–306.
    P. F. Strawson suggests an anti-sceptical strategy which consists in offering good reason for ignoring scepticism rather than trying to refute it, and the reason he offers is that beliefs about the external world are indispensable to us. I give an exposition of Strawson's arguments for the indispensability thesis and explain why they are not strong enough. I then propose an argument based on some of Davidson's ideas in his theory of radical interpretation, which I think can establish the indispensability (...)
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  10. How fallacious is the consequence fallacy?Wai-Hung Wong & Zanja Yudell - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (1):221-227.
    Timothy Williamson argues against the tactic of criticizing confidence in a theory by identifying a logical consequence of the theory whose probability is not raised by the evidence. He dubs it “the consequence fallacy”. In this paper, we will show that Williamson’s formulation of the tactic in question is ambiguous. On one reading of Williamson’s formulation, the tactic is indeed a fallacy, but it is not a commonly used tactic; on another reading, it is a commonly used tactic (or at (...)
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  11. The Possibility of Philosophical Understanding: Reflections on the Thought of Barry Stroud.Jason Bridges, Niko Kolodny & Wai-Hung Wong (eds.) - 2011 - , US: Oup Usa.
    Barry Stroud's work has had a profound impact on a very wide array of philosophical topics, but there has heretofore been no book-length treatment of his work. The current collection aims to redress this gap, with 13 essays on Stroud's work, all but one new to this volume.
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  12.  67
    Interpretive Charity, Massive Disagreement, and Imagination.Wai-Hung Wong - 1999 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 29 (1):49-74.
    I argue that it is a main theme of Davidson's theory of interpretation that interpretive charity implies the impossibility of massive disagreement. There is clear textual support for that. I then argue that from the first-person point of view of a full-blooded interpreter, the theme must be accepted; and that is precisely why Davidson accepts it. If massive disagreement between speaker and interpreter seems to us easy to imagine, it is only because the imagination involved is third-personal and not full-blooded.
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  13. Donald Davidson's theory of interpretation.Wai-Hung Wong - 1993 - Dissertation, University of Hong Kong
     
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  14.  50
    Internalism About Justification and the Skeptic’s Dilemma.Wai-Hung Wong - 2009 - Erkenntnis 71 (3):361-375.
    I first argue that the skeptic needs an internalist conception of justification for her argument for skepticism. I then argue that the skeptic also needs to show that we do not have perceptual access to the world if her skepticism is to be a real threat to human knowledge of the world. This, I conclude, puts the skeptic in a dilemma, for internalist conceptions of justification presuppose that we have perceptual access to the world.
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  15. Moore, the skeptic, and the philosophical context.Wai-Hung Wong - 2006 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (2):271–287.
    I argue that Moore's arguments have anti-skeptical force even though they beg the question against skepticism because they target the skeptic rather than skepticism directly. Moore offers two arguments which are usually conflated by his interpreters, namely, his proof of an external world and a reductio argument. I explain why the anti-skeptical force of the latter has to be derived from that of the former. I consider an objection to Moore that is based on distinguishing between the everyday and the (...)
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  16. Rational Resistance to Skepticism.Wai-Hung Wong - 2001 - Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley
    Some epistemologists resist skepticism about the external world even though they admit that it is supported by apparently convincing arguments that they do not see how to refute. I argue that such a seemingly irrational attitude towards skepticism is justified. The justification I offer consists in showing that anyone who accepts skepticism is in a patently irrational position, whereas we do not have to refute skepticism to have some reason to believe that we have knowledge of the world. Although this (...)
     
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  17. What the Skeptic Still Can't Learn from How We Use the Word 'Know'.Wai-Hung Wong - 2011 - In W. Wong, N. Kolodny & J. Bridges (eds.), The Possibility of Philosophical Understanding: Essays for Barry Stroud. Oxford University Press.
     ’ The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism has been widely read and discussed by philosophers who are interested in skepticism about our knowledge of the external world.1 Some of his later writings on the topic (such as Stroud (1989) and (1994)) are considered essential reading too. This does not, however, mean that what Stroud says about skepticism2 has as much impact on the discussion of skepticism as it deserves. It seems that his insights into the nature of skepticism have been (...)
     
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  18.  20
    Barber, Michael. The Intentional Spectrum and Intersubjectivity: Phenomenology the Pittsburgh neo-Hegelians. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011. $69.95 Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten, ed. Inception and Philosophy: Ideas to Die For. Chicago: Open Court, 2011. $19.95 pb. Bouchard, Larry D. Theater and Integrity: Emptying Selves in Drama, Ethics, and Religion. Evanston: North. [REVIEW]Jason Bridges, Mik Kolodyny & Wai-Hung Wong - forthcoming - Philosophy Today.
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