This paper argues that, while there is a difference between personal and sub‐personal explanation, claims of autonomy should be treated with scepticism. It distinguishes between horizontal and vertical explanatory relations that might hold between facts at the personal and farts at the sub‐personal level. Noting that many philosophers are prepared to accept vertical explanatory relations between the two levels, I argue for the stronger claim that, in the case of at least three central personal level phenomena, the demands of explanatory (...) adequacy require postulating horizontal explanatory relations. (shrink)

Autobiographical memories typically give rise either to memory reports (“I remember going swimming”) or to first person past-tense judgements (“I went swimming”). This article focuses on first person past-tense judgements that are (epistemically) based on autobiographical memories. Some of these judgements have the IEM property of being immune to error through misidentification. This article offers an account of when and why first person past-tense judgements have the IEM property.

This paper critically evaluates Jonathan Lowe's arguments for his non-Cartesian substance dualism. Sections 1 and 2 set out the principal claims of NCSD. The unity argument proposed in Lowe is discussed in Section 3. Throughout his career Lowe offered spirited attacks on reductionism about the self. Section 4 evaluates the anti-reductionist argument that Lowe offers in Subjects of Experience, an argument based on the individuation of mental events. Lowe offers an inventive proposal that the semantic distinction between direct and indirect (...) reference delineates the metaphysical boundary between self and world, and uses this as a further argument against reductionism about the self. This proposal is discussed in Sections 5 and 6. (shrink)