Mark Heller

The ontology of physical objects : four-dimensional hunks of matter

Preface 1. Temporal parts of four-dimensional objects 2. Conventional objects 3. The Sorites paradox 4. Appropriateness and paraphrase Index.

Hobartian Voluntarism: Grounding a Deontological Conceptionof Epistemic Justification

Our concept of epistemic justification is often thought to be deontological, so that justified and unjustified are epistemic terms of praise and blame. This conception of justification requires the truth of voluntarism - the thesis that we have control over our beliefs which seems false. I attempt to present a mostly plausible version of voluntarism by disentangling our incoherent concept of voluntary control and developing a single coherent component. I build on the work of R. E. Hobart. arguing that his compatibilistic conception of voluntary control can be generalized to allow for control over most of our beliefs.

Painted Mules and the Cartesian Circle

I begin with a brief explanation of the supposed circle. In his search for absolute certainty Descartes requires that in order for a proposition to be an instance of knowledge it must be indubitable for the knower, and in order for it to be indubitable for the knower she must be able to eliminate any possibility of the beliefs being false. It is to provide a means to satisfy this requirement that Descartes proposes the principle