All Outputs (52)

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 (2019)
Book
Noonan, H. (2019). Personal Identity. (3rd). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315107240

Who am I? What is a person? What does it take for a person to persist from one time to another? What is the relation between the mind and the body? These are just some of the questions that constitute the problem of personal identity, one of the olde... Read More about Personal Identity.

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.

Criteria of identity, personal identity and the simple view (2018)
Book Chapter
Noonan, H. (2018). Criteria of identity, personal identity and the simple view. In T. Tambassi (Ed.), Studies in the Ontology of E.J. Lowe (159-178). Editiones Scholasticae

Presentism and actualism (2018)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2019). Presentism and actualism. Philosophia, 47(2), 489–497. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-018-9993-6

Presentism, some say, is either the analytic triviality that the only things that exist now are ones that exist now or the obviously false claim that the only things that have ever existed or will are ones that exist now. I argue that the correct und... Read More about Presentism and actualism.

The new Aristotelian essentialists (2017)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2018). The new Aristotelian essentialists. Metaphysica, 19(1), https://doi.org/10.1515/mp-2018-0004

In recent years largely due to the seminal work of Kit Fine and that of Jonathan Lowe there has been a resurgence of interest in the concept of essence and the project of explaining de re necessity in terms of it. Of course, Quine rejected what he ca... Read More about The new Aristotelian essentialists.

The Simple and Complex Views of Personal Identity Distinguished (2017)
Book Chapter
Noonan, H., & Curtis, B. L. (2017). The Simple and Complex Views of Personal Identity Distinguished. In V. Buonomo (Ed.), The Persistence of Persons: Studies in the Metaphysics of Personal Identity Over Time. Editiones Scholasticae

Modal realism, still at your convenience (2017)
Journal Article
Noonan, H., & Jago, M. (in press). Modal realism, still at your convenience. Analysis, 77(2), https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anx037

Divers (2014) presents a set of de re modal truths which, he claims, are inconvenient for Lewisean modal realism. We argue that there is no inconvenience for Lewis.

Additional reflections on Putnam, Wright and Brains in Vats (2016)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (2016). Additional reflections on Putnam, Wright and Brains in Vats. Metaphysica, 17(2), https://doi.org/10.1515/mp-2016-0016

Putnam’s argument against the sceptical Brain-in-a-Vat hypothesis continues to intrigue. I argue in what follows that the argument refutes a particular kind of sceptic and make a proposal about its more general significance. To appreciate the soundne... Read More about Additional reflections on Putnam, Wright and Brains in Vats.

Plenitude, pluralism and neo-Lockean persons (2015)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (2015). Plenitude, pluralism and neo-Lockean persons. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 22(11-12),

Against strong pluralism (2015)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (in press). Against strong pluralism. Philosophia, 43(4), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-015-9640-4

Strong pluralists hold that not even permanent material coincidence is enough for identity. Strong pluralism entails the possibility of purely material objects -- even if not coincident -- alike in all general respects, categorial and dispositional,... Read More about Against strong pluralism.

Identity over time, constitution and the problem of personal identity (2015)
Book Chapter
Curtis, B. L., & NOONAN, H. W. (2015). Identity over time, constitution and the problem of personal identity. In S. M. Miller (Ed.), The Constitution of Phenomenal Consciousness: Toward a science and theory (348-371). John Benjamins Publishing Co

The Passage of Time (2015)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. W. (2015). The Passage of Time. Metaphysica, 16(1), https://doi.org/10.1515/mp-2015-0006

Eric Olson argues that the dynamic view of time must be false. It requires that the question ‘How fast does time pass?’ has an answer. But its only possible answer, one second per second, is not an answer. I argue that Olson has failed to identify wh... Read More about The Passage of Time.

Two boxing is not the rational option (2015)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (in press). Two boxing is not the rational option. Ratio, 29(2), https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12093

In the standard Newcomb scenario two-boxing is not the rational act and, in general, in Newcomb-style cases the ‘two-boxing’ choice is not the rational act. Hence any decision theory which recommends two-boxing is unacceptable.

Two-boxing is irrational (2015)
Journal Article
Noonan, H. (in press). Two-boxing is irrational. Philosophia, 43(2), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-015-9589-3

Philosophers debate whether one-boxing or two-boxing is the rational act in a Newcomb situation. I shall argue that one-boxing is the only rational choice. This is so because there is no intelligible aim by reference to which you can justify the choi... Read More about Two-boxing is irrational.

Castles Built on Clouds: Vague Identity and Vague Objects (2014)
Book Chapter
Curtis, B., & NOONAN, H. (2014). Castles Built on Clouds: Vague Identity and Vague Objects. In K. Akiba, & A. Abasnezhad (Eds.), Vague Objects and Vague Identity: New Essays on Ontic Vagueness (305-326). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7978-5

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 chapter, we answer these questions as follows: no, no, and yes. First, we discuss Evans’s famous 1978 a... Read More about Castles Built on Clouds: Vague Identity and Vague Objects.