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Outputs (53)

A flaw in Sider’s vagueness argument for perdurantism: endurantism endures (2025)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2025). A flaw in Sider’s vagueness argument for perdurantism: endurantism endures. Analytic Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1111/phib.12386

Sider’s vagueness argument for perdurantism (2001: 126ff.) has long been seen as one of the most powerful, or perhaps the most powerful, in the perdurantist’s arsenal. In its absence the case against endurantism is significantly weakened. Despite its... Read More about A flaw in Sider’s vagueness argument for perdurantism: endurantism endures.

The personite problem remains: reply to Montmini and Russo (2025)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (2025). The personite problem remains: reply to Montmini and Russo. Inquiry, https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2025.2495645

Personites are shorter-lived person-like things temporarily coincident with persons. According to the four-dimensional view, they exist. Mark Johnston argues that acknowledging their existence renders activities which we ought to regard as wholly unp... Read More about The personite problem remains: reply to Montmini and Russo.

No reason to doubt desert: reply to Pummer (2025)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (2025). No reason to doubt desert: reply to Pummer. Inquiry, https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2025.2465355

Pummer argues against the thesis: 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 culpa... Read More about No reason to doubt desert: reply to Pummer.

What Is so Bad about Permanent Coincidence without Identity? (2024)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (2024). What Is so Bad about Permanent Coincidence without Identity?. Organon F, 31(4), 388-398. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.21403

What is so bad about permanent coincidence without identity?’ (Mackie 2008: 163). This is the very question at the heart of the debate between pluralists and monists about constitution (Baker 1997, Fine 2003, Gibbard 1975, Johnston 1992, Lewis 1986,... Read More about What Is so Bad about Permanent Coincidence without Identity?.

Scepticism About Neo-Aristotelian Essences (2024)
Journal Article
Curtis, B., & Noonan, H. (2024). Scepticism About Neo-Aristotelian Essences. Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, 80(4), 885-904. https://doi.org/10.17990/RPF/2024_80_4_0885

Many philosophers today accept the broadly Aristotelian view that one can explain de re necessary properties by invoking essence. These ‘Neo-Aristotelian essentialists’ hold that a property F is an essential property of x iff specifying F gives a cor... Read More about Scepticism About Neo-Aristotelian Essences.

The Fission Argument for the Unimportance of Identity Cannot Be Correct (2024)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2024). The Fission Argument for the Unimportance of Identity Cannot Be Correct. Argumenta, 2024(19), 369-373. https://doi.org/10.14275/2465-2334/202419.noo

Eric Olson has made an important addition to the discussion started by Parfit of the argument from the possibility of fission to the unimportance of personal identity. Olson’s discussion is challenging. I want, more briefly, to highlight what is the... Read More about The Fission Argument for the Unimportance of Identity Cannot Be Correct.

There are more, or fewer, things than most of us think (2024)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (2024). There are more, or fewer, things than most of us think. Metaphysica, 25(2), 193-203. https://doi.org/10.1515/mp-2023-0035

In Chapter 12 of his book Material Beings (Van Inwagen, Peter. 1990. Material Beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press) van Inwagen argues that there are no artefacts, or very few, certainly fewer than most people believe. Artisans very rarely create... Read More about There are more, or fewer, things than most of us think.

Fission, Self-Interest and Commonsense Ethics (2023)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2023). Fission, Self-Interest and Commonsense Ethics. Philosophia, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00611-6

Jacob Ross argues that the fission cases discussed in the personal identity literature cannot be accommodated without rejecting basic intuitions of everyday ethical thinking. He notes that many philosophers have responded to the challenge of fission... Read More about Fission, Self-Interest and Commonsense Ethics.

The First Person and ‘The First Person’ (2022)
Book Chapter
Noonan, H. (2022). The First Person and ‘The First Person’. In R. Teichmann (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of Elizabeth Anscombe (397-412). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190887353.013.25

In ‘The First Person’ Anscombe argues that ‘I’ is not a referring expression: ‘I’ is neither a name nor another kind of expression whose logical role is to make a reference, at all. Her no-reference thesis has met with general incredulity. This chapt... Read More about The First Person and ‘The First Person’.