Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

HAROLD NOONAN's Outputs (50)

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?.

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.

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’.

Personal Identity and Morality (2022)
Book Chapter
Noonan, H. (2022). Personal Identity and Morality. In K. Tobia (Ed.), Experimental Philosophy of Identity and the Self (87-97). Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350246928.0011

Does the true account of personal identity undermine everyday moral thinking? Do every day moral practices presuppose a false account of our nature and persistence conditions? I shall consider the three main accounts of personal identity in the conte... Read More about Personal Identity and Morality.

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.

Frege, Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob (1848-1925) (2021)
Book Chapter
Noonan, H. (2021). Frege, Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob (1848-1925). In Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon. Nordhausen, Germany: Verlag Traugott Bautz

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.

The problem of reference change (2020)
Book Chapter
Noonan, H. (2020). The problem of reference change. In S. Biggs, & H. Geirsson (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of linguistic reference (600). Routledge

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?.

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.

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.

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. Neunkirchen-Seelscheid, Germany: Editiones Scholasticae

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.

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.

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). Berlin: 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.