All Outputs (41)

What Is so Bad about Permanent Coincidence without Identity? (2024)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (in press). What Is so Bad about Permanent Coincidence without Identity?. Organon F,

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
Noonan, H. (in press). Scepticism About Neo-Aristotelian Essences. Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia,

The Fission Argument for The Unimportance of Identity Cannot Be Correct (2024)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (in press). The Fission Argument for The Unimportance of Identity Cannot Be Correct. Argumenta,

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 iden-tity. 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.

Concepts May Still Be Objects (2022)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2022). Concepts May Still Be Objects. Organon F, 29(3), 376-388. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2022.29304

All Designators are Rigid (2022)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2023). All Designators are Rigid. Metaphysica, 24(1), 101-107. https://doi.org/10.1515/mp-2021-0040

In Naming and Necessity Kripke introduces the concept of a rigid designator and argues that proper names are rigid designators. He argues that in this way they are different from typical definite descriptions (though he allows that some definite desc... Read More about All Designators are Rigid.

The Personite Problem and the Stage-Theoretic Reply (2022)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2022). The Personite Problem and the Stage-Theoretic Reply. Organon F, 29(2), 275-282. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2022.29206

Personites are shorter-lived, person-like things that extend across part of a person’s life. Their existence follows from the standard perdurance view of persons. Johnston argues that it has bizarre moral consequences. For example, it renders morally... Read More about The Personite Problem and the Stage-Theoretic Reply.

Kripke was right even if he was wrong: Sherlock Holmes and the unicorns (2021)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2021). Kripke was right even if he was wrong: Sherlock Holmes and the unicorns. Disputatio, 13(60), 51-69. https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2021-0003

In the Addenda to Naming and Necessity (1980), Kripke famously argues that it is false that there could have been unicorns, or more properly, that ‘no counterfactual situation is properly describable as one in which there would have been unicorns.’ H... Read More about Kripke was right even if he was wrong: Sherlock Holmes and the unicorns.

Personal Identity and the Hybrid View: A Middle Way (2021)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2021). Personal Identity and the Hybrid View: A Middle Way. Metaphysica, 22(2), 263-283. https://doi.org/10.1515/mp-2020-0007

Two of the main contenders in the debate about personal persistence over time are the neo-Lockean psychological continuity view and animalism as defended by Olson and Snowdon. Both are wrong. The position I shall argue for, which I call, following Ol... Read More about Personal Identity and the Hybrid View: A Middle Way.

No Trust is Hybrid: Reply to Faulkner (2021)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2021). No Trust is Hybrid: Reply to Faulkner. Philosophia, 49(5), 2189 - 2195. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00341-7

There is a well-developed literature on trust. In his important article Paul Faulkner (2015) distinguishes three-place, two-place and one-place trust predicates. He then argues that our more basic notions of trust are expressed by the one-place and t... Read More about No Trust is Hybrid: Reply to Faulkner.

Critical Note on Williamson: A defence of the Actualism-Possibilism Debate (2021)
Journal Article
Curtis, B. L., & Noonan, H. (2021). Critical Note on Williamson: A defence of the Actualism-Possibilism Debate. Philosophical Forum, 52(1), 91-96. https://doi.org/10.1111/phil.12283

In his book Modal Logic as Metaphysics (2013) 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 Wil... Read More about Critical Note on Williamson: A defence of the Actualism-Possibilism Debate.

From Essence to Metaphysical Modality? (2020)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (2022). From Essence to Metaphysical Modality?. Axiomathes, 32(2), 345-354. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-020-09527-2

How can we acquire knowledge of metaphysical modality? How can someone come to know that he could have been elsewhere right now, or an accountant rather than a philosophy teacher, but could not have been a turnip? Jago proposes an account of a route... Read More about From Essence to Metaphysical Modality?.

Are personites a problem for endurantists? (2020)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2020). Are personites a problem for endurantists?. Philosophical Forum, 51(4), 399-409. https://doi.org/10.1111/phil.12270

The Great Western Railway (2020)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (2020). The Great Western Railway. Philosophia, 49(2), 741-744. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00260-z

In On The Plurality of Worlds Lewis presents the case of the Great Western Railway as a candidate counter-example, along with the usual suspects, to the thesis that two things cannot be in the same place at the same time. Typically, pluralists or man... Read More about The Great Western Railway.

Blackburn’s Supervenience Argument Against Moral Realism: Revisited (2020)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2020). Blackburn’s Supervenience Argument Against Moral Realism: Revisited. Metaphysica, 21(1), 151–165. https://doi.org/10.1515/mp-2020-0004

Blackburn argues against naturalistic moral realism. He argues that there is no conceptual entailment from satisfying a naturalistic predicate to satisfying a moral predicate. But the moral is conceptually supervenient on the natural. However, this c... Read More about Blackburn’s Supervenience Argument Against Moral Realism: Revisited.

Presentism, Endurance and Object-Dependence (2019)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (2020). Presentism, Endurance and Object-Dependence. Inquiry, 63(9-10), 1115-1122. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2019.1698458

According to the presentist the present time is the only one that there is. Nevertheless, things persist. Most presentists think that things persist by enduring. Employing Jonathan Lowe’s notion of identity-dependence, Tallant argues that presentism... Read More about Presentism, Endurance and Object-Dependence.

The Possibility of Unity (2019)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2019). The Possibility of Unity. Philosophical Quarterly, 70(279), 407-409. https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqz038

In One Priest argues for the contradictoriness of Unity. The argument is that the unity of complex things is contradictory. It is contradictory that there are complex wholes composed of many parts. But there are. Thus, the explanation of unity has to... Read More about The Possibility of Unity.

The Challenge to Nihilism (2019)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (2019). The Challenge to Nihilism. Analytic Philosophy, 60(1), 55-66. https://doi.org/10.1111/phib.12142

Personal identity: the simple and complex views revisited (2019)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2019). Personal identity: the simple and complex views revisited. Disputatio, 11(52), 9-22. https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2019-0001

Eric Olson has argued, startlingly, that no coherent account can be given of the distinction made in the personal identity literature between ‘complex views’ and ‘simple views’. ‘We tell our students,’ he writes, ‘that accounts of personal identity o... Read More about Personal identity: the simple and complex views revisited.