39 found
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  1. How things might have been: individuals, kinds, and essential properties.Penelope Mackie - 2006 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    A novel treatment of an issue central to much current work in metaphysics: the distinction between the essential and accidental properties of individuals. Mackie challenges widely held views, and arrives at what she calls "minimalist essentialism," an unorthodox theory according to which ordinary individuals have relatively few interesting essential properties. Mackie's clear and accessible discussions of issues surrounding necessity and essentialism mean that the book will appeal as much to graduate students as it will to seasoned metaphysicians.
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  2. Perception, Mind-Independence, and Berkeley.Penelope Mackie - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (3).
    I discuss a thesis that I call ‘The Appearance of Mind-Independence’, to the effect that, to the subject of an ordinary perceptual experience, it seems that the experience involves the awareness of a mind-independent world. Although this thesis appears to be very widely accepted, I argue that it is open to serious challenge. Whether such a challenge can be maintained is especially relevant to the assessment of any theory, such as Berkeley’s idealism, according to which the only objects of which (...)
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  3. Transworld identity.Penelope Mackie - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
     
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  4.  61
    Causing, delaying, and hastening: Do rains cause fires?Penelope Mackie - 1992 - Mind 101 (403):483-500.
    This paper discusses an asymmetry in the way that we think about causation. Put roughly, the asymmetry is this. We tend to regard hastening some event or result as a way of causing it, whereas we do not tend to regard delaying an event or result as a way of causing it. In the first two sections of this paper, I illustrate the asymmetry with some examples, characterize it more precisely, and explain why I think it is puzzling. In the (...)
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  5. Sortal concepts and essential properties.Penelope Mackie - 1994 - Philosophical Quarterly 44 (176):311-333.
    The paper discusses sortal essentialism': the view that some sortal concepts represent essential properties of the things that fall under them. Although sortal essentialism is widely accepted, there is a dearth of theories purporting to explain why some sortals should have this characteristic. The paper examines two theories that do attempt this explanatory task, theories proposed by Baruch Brody and David Wiggins. It is argued that Brody's theory rests on an untenable principle about "de re" modality, while Wiggins' theory appeals (...)
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  6. Counterfactuals and the fixity of the past.Penelope Mackie - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 168 (2):1-19.
    I argue that David Lewis’s attempt, in his ‘Counterfactual Dependence and Time’s Arrow’, to explain the fixity of the past in terms of counterfactual independence is unsuccessful. I point out that there is an ambiguity in the claim that the past is counterfactually independent of the present (or, more generally, that the earlier is counterfactually independent of the later), corresponding to two distinct theses about the relation between time and counterfactuals, both officially endorsed by Lewis. I argue that Lewis’s attempt (...)
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  7. Coincidence and identity.Penelope Mackie - 2008 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 62:151-176.
    This paper is about a puzzle concerning the metaphysics of material objects: a puzzle generated by cases where material objects appear to coincide, sharing all their matter. As is well known, it can be illustrated by the example of a statue. In front of me now, sitting on my desk, is a statue – a statue of a lion. The statue is made of clay. So in front of me now is a piece of clay. But what is the relation (...)
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  8. Essence, origin and bare identity.Penelope Mackie - 1987 - Mind 96 (382):173-201.
  9. Fatalism, incompatibilism, and the power to do otherwise.Penelope Mackie - 2003 - Noûs 37 (4):672-689.
  10. Property Dualism and Substance Dualism.Penelope Mackie - 2011 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (1pt1):181-199.
    I attempt to rebut Dean Zimmerman's novel argument (2010), which he presents in support of substance dualism, for the conclusion that, in spite of its popularity, the combination of property dualism with substance materialism represents a precarious position in the philosophy of mind. I take issue with Zimmerman's contention that the vagueness of ‘garden variety’ material objects such as brains or bodies makes them unsuitable candidates for the possession of phenomenal properties. I also argue that the ‘speculative materialism’ that is (...)
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  11.  73
    Ordinary Language and Metaphysical Commitment.Penelope Mackie - 1993 - Analysis 53 (4):243 - 251.
  12.  45
    Fischer and the Fixity of the Past.Penelope Mackie - 2017 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9 (4):39-50.
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  13.  78
    Mumford and Anjum on incompatibilism, powers and determinism.Penelope Mackie - 2014 - Analysis 74 (4):593-603.
    Mumford and Anjum (2014) present a new argument for the incompatibility of free will and causal determinism. Although their argument depends on the assumption that free will is, or is the exercise of, a causal power, it does not appeal to any special features of this power. Their new argument does, however, depend upon a general thesis of the incompatibility of causal powers with causal determinism. I argue that Mumford and Anjum have provided no justification for this general thesis. As (...)
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  14.  47
    Ability, relevant possibilities, and the fixity of the past.Penelope Mackie - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 179 (6):1873-1892.
    In several writings, John Martin Fischer has argued that those who deny a principle about abilities that he calls ‘the Fixity of the Past’ are committed to absurd conclusions concerning practical reasoning. I argue that Fischer’s ‘practical rationality’ argument does not succeed. First, Fischer’s argument may be vulnerable to the charge that it relies on an equivocation concerning the notion of an ‘accessible’ possible world. Secondly, even if Fischer’s argument can be absolved of that charge, I maintain that it can (...)
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  15. Identity, time, and necessity.Penelope Mackie - 1998 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 98 (1):59–78.
    The paper offers an explanation of the intuitive appeal of Saul Kripke's necessity of origin thesis, exhibiting it as the consequence of a temporally asymmetrical 'branching model' of possibilities which, in turn, rests on two plausible principles concerning possibility, time, and identity. Unlike some other accounts, my explanation dissociates the necessity of origin thesis from a commitment to individual essences or other sufficient conditions for identity across possible worlds. I conclude that although the branching model is not irresistible, its rejection (...)
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  16. How Things Might Have Been: A Study in Essentialism.Penelope Mackie - 1987 - Dissertation, University of Oxford (United Kingdom)
    Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;The main part of the thesis concerns how things, in the sense of individuals, might have been. The topic is what limits there are on the counterfactual possibilities for individuals: in other words, what essential properties, if any, they have. ;In Chapters 3-6 three answers to this question that have been given in recent philosophical literature are examined. They are: that each thing has a unique individual essence ; (...)
     
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  17.  68
    Causing, enabling, and counterfactual dependence.Penelope Mackie - 1991 - Philosophical Studies 62 (3):325 - 330.
  18. Persistence and modality.Penelope Mackie - 2018 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 6):1425-1438.
    It seems plausible to say that what changes an entity can or cannot survive depends on its persistence conditions, and that these depend, in turn, on its sortal kind. It might seem to follow that an entity cannot belong to two sortal kinds with potentially conflicting persistence conditions. Notoriously, though, this conclusion is denied by ‘contingent identity’ theorists, who hold, for example, that a permanently coincident statue and piece of clay are identical, although the persistence conditions associated with the kinds (...)
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  19. Mind-Body Dualism.Dean Zimmerman & Penelope Mackie - 2011 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (2pt2):181 - 199.
    I attempt to rebut Dean Zimmerman's novel argument (2010), which he presents in support of substance dualism, for the conclusion that, in spite of its popularity, the combination of property dualism with substance materialism represents a precarious position in the philosophy of mind. I take issue with Zimmerman's contention that the vagueness of 'garden variety' material objects such as brains or bodies makes them unsuitable candidates for the possession of phenomenal properties. I also argue that the 'speculative materialism' that is (...)
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  20. A modern metaphysical song.Penelope Mackie - 2000 - Mind 109:39 - 40.
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  21.  21
    IV*—Identity, Time, and Necessity.Penelope Mackie - 1998 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 98 (1):59-78.
    Penelope Mackie; IV*—Identity, Time, and Necessity, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 98, Issue 1, 1 June 1998, Pages 59–78, https://doi.org/10.11.
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  22.  29
    Mellor on Causes, Chances and Degrees of Effectiveness.Penelope Mackie - 2000 - Analysis 60 (1):63-71.
  23.  60
    Sortal concepts and modality.Penelope Mackie - 2013 - In Christian Hubert-Rodier (ed.), None. Hôtel des Bains Éditions.
    What is the modal significance of sortal concepts? It is generally accepted that sortal concepts provide persistence conditions with modal implications that are de re, and not merely de dicto. I do not think that this important assumption has received the scrutiny that it deserves. In this paper, I examine the contrast between a ‘pure de dicto’ theory of the persistence conditions associated with sortal concepts and a variety of de re theories, both essentialist and non-essentialist. I conclude that although (...)
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  24.  88
    (1 other version)Compatibilism, Indeterminism, and Chance.Penelope Mackie - 2018 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 82:265-287.
    Many contemporary compatibilists about free will and determinism are agnostic about whether determinism is true, yet do not doubt that we have free will. They are thus committed to the thesis that free will is compatible with both determinism and indeterminism. This paper explores the prospects for this version of compatibilism, including its response to the argument that indeterminism would introduce an element of randomness or chance or luck that is inimical to free will and moral responsibility.
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  25.  34
    Sortals, Timelessness, and Transcendental Truth.Penelope Mackie - 2021 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 95 (1):287-307.
    I discuss the application, to the case of sortal concepts, of Kit Fine’s conception of the species of necessary truth that he characterizes as ‘transcendental truth’. I argue for scepticism about Fine’s thesis that substance sortals are associated with transcendental truths about contingently existing individuals. My discussion has implications for the interpretation of the type of necessity that is involved in the attribution of essential properties to contingent existents. In addition, it has implications for the question whether there are sortal (...)
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  26.  29
    Science and Necessity.Penelope Mackie - 1995 - Philosophical Quarterly 45 (180):384-387.
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  27.  13
    (1 other version)Coincidence and modal predicates.Penelope Mackie - 2007 - Analysis 67 (293):21-31.
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  28.  45
    Causes, chances, and degrees of effectiveness: reply to Mellor.Penelope Mackie - 2000 - Analysis 60 (4):359-363.
  29. Essentialism and modality.Penelope Mackie - 2018 - In Otávio Bueno & Scott A. Shalkowski (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Modality. New York: Routledge.
  30. (1 other version)Gerald Vision, Modern Anti· Realism and Manufactured Truth Reviewed by.Penelope Mackie - 1991 - Philosophy in Review 11 (5):373-375.
     
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  31.  76
    Identity and extrinsicness: Reply to Garrett.Penelope Mackie - 1989 - Mind 98 (389):105-117.
  32.  32
    Material beings.Penelope Mackie - 1993 - Philosophical Books 34 (2):75-83.
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  33.  23
    Propositional Attitudes: An Essay on Thoughts and How We Ascribe Them.Penelope Mackie - 1991 - Philosophical Books 32 (4):237-240.
  34.  32
    Sortal Concepts and Modality.Penelope Mackie - 2013 - University of Nottingham.
    What is the modal significance of sortal concepts? It is generally accepted that sortal concepts provide persistence conditions with modal implications that are de re, and not merely de dicto. I do not think that this important assumption has received the scrutiny that it deserves. In this paper, I examine the contrast between a ‘pure de dicto’ theory of the persistence conditions associated with sortal concepts and a variety of de re theories, both essentialist and non-essentialist. I conclude that although (...)
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  35. Selected Papers, vol. 1 : Logic and knowledge ; vol. 2 : Persons and values.John L. Mackie, Joan Mackie & Penelope Mackie - 1988 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (2):215-216.
     
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  36.  48
    Material Objects and Metaphysics. [REVIEW]Penelope Mackie - 2008 - Journal of Philosophy 105 (12):756-771.
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  37.  99
    Mere Possibilities: Metaphysical Foundations of Modal Semantics by Robert Stalnaker. [REVIEW]Penelope Mackie - 2014 - Journal of Philosophy 111 (1):50-54.
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  38.  11
    No Title available: New books. [REVIEW]Penelope Mackie - 1997 - Philosophy 72 (279):143-147.
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  39.  30
    Explaining Attitudes: A Practical Approach to the Mind By Baker Lynne Rudder Cambridge University Press, 1995, xi + 246 pp., £12.95 & £37.50. ISBN 0 521 42190 X; 0 521 42053 9. [REVIEW]Penelope Mackie - 1997 - Philosophy 72 (279):143-.