Peter Menzies
BA ANU, MPhil St And., PhD Stan., FAHA
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Peter has a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from the ANU, an M.Phil in Logic and Metaphysics from St Andrews University, and a PhD in Philosophy from Stanford University. Before coming to Macquarie in 1995, he was Tutor in the Department of Traditional & Modern Philosophy, University of Sydney, an ARC Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, and a Research Fellow at the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. He is an Associate Editor of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. He was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities in 2007. |
Teaching
Peter currently teaches or has taught the following units:
- PHIL131 Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics
- PHIL137 Critical Thinking
- PHIL232 Philosophy of Science
- PHIL249 Biology, Mind and Culture
- PHIL262 Body and Mind
- PHIL358 Metaphysics
- Honours seminars:
Consciousness
Causation, Mental Causation, and Free Will
- Derek Harding, MA Hons thesis “Towards an Ontology and Logic of the Dynamics of Nature”, 2005
- Thomas Evans MA Hons thesis “Freedom and Contextualism”, 2005
- Rawdon Waller, MA Hons thesis “The Theory-Ladeness of Observation in the Context of Contemporary Cognitive Science”, 2005
- Maria Trochatos, PhD thesis “Psychological Essentialism”, 2006
- David Wilson, PhD thesis “Free Will”, 2006
- Suzanne Bliss, PhD thesis “The Exclusion Problem and Mental Causation”, 2007
- Joel Stafford, PhD candidate, Topic: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Statistics
- Wilson Cooper, PhD candidate, Topic: Mental Causation
- Lise Marie Andersen, PhD candidate, Topic: Mental Causation
- Melanie Rosen, PhD candidate, Topic: Phenomenal Experience in Dreams (cosupervisor)
Selected publications
Edited Book
The Oxford Handbook of Causation, co-eds. Helen Beebee and Christopher Hitchcock. Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
Chapters in Edited Books“Platitudes and Counterexamples” in Beebee, Hitchcock, and Menzies (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Causation, Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
(with Christian List) “The Causal Autonomy of the Special Sciences” in Graham and Cynthia Macdonald (eds.), Emergence, Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
“John Leslie Mackie (1917-1981)”, entry in Australian Dictionary of Biography, forthcoming.
“Causal Exclusion, the Determination Relation, and Contrastive Causation”, in Jesper Kallestrup and Jakob Hohwy (eds.), Being Reduced: New Essays on Reductive Explanation and Special Science Causation, Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
“Reasons and Causes Revisited” in Mario de Caro and David Macarthur (eds.), Normativity and Naturalism, Columbia University Press, forthcoming.
(with Huw Price) “Does the Canberra Plan Provide its own Semantic Foundations?” in D. Braddon Mitchell and R. Nola (eds.), Naturalistic Analysis, MIT Press, forthcoming.
“The Folk Theory of Colours and the Causes of Colour Experience”, in Ian Ravenscroft (ed.), Mind, Conditionals and Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of Frank Jackson, Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
“Mental Causation on the Program Model”, in Geoffrey Brennan, Robert Goodin, and Michael Smith (eds.), The Common Mind: Essays in Honour of Philip Pettit, OUP.
“Causation in Context”, Huw Price and Richard Corry (eds.), Causation, Physics and the Constitution of Reality: Russell’s Republic Revisited, OUP, 2007, pp.191-223.
“Causation: Further Themes” in E. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online, London: Routledge, 2005. Internet reference: http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/N114
"Difference-Making in Context", in J. Collins, N. Hall, and L. Paul (eds.), Counterfactuals and Causation, MIT Press, 2004, pp. 139-80.
"The Causal Efficacy of Mental States", in S. Walter and H. Heckmann (eds.), Physicalism and Mental Causation, Imprint Academic, 2003, pp.195-223.
“A Efiacia does Estados Mentais”, in J. Saagua (ed.), A Explicacao da Interpretacao Humana: Actas da Conferencia Mente e Accao II-Maio 2001. Edicos Colibri, pp.161-189.
"Is Causation a Genuine Relation?", in Real Metaphysics: Festschrift for D.H. Mellor, ed. G. Rodriguez-Pereya and H. Lillehammer, Routledge, 2003, pp.120-136.
"Counterfactual Theories of Causation" for online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2001 and revised 2008. Internet reference: http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html#c
“Dispositions", in D. Garrett and E. Barbanell, eds., The Encyclopedia of Empiricism, Greenwood Press, 1997, pp.87-90
"Laws of Nature, Modality, and Humean Supervenience" in Ontology, Causality, and Mind: Essays in Honour of D.M. Armstrong, (ed. K. Campbell et al), Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp.195-225
"Probabilistic Causation and Causal Processes: A Critique of Lewis", in Analytical Metaphysics, ed., M. Tooley, Garland Publishing Inc., 1999, pp.222-243. Reprinted from Philosophy of Science, 56(1989), pp.642-64.
"Intrinsic versus Extrinsic Conceptions of Causation", in Laws and Causation: Australasian Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, ed. H. Sankey, Kluwer, 1999, pp. 313-329.
Journal Articles(with Christian List) “Non-Reductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion Problem”, forthcoming.
“Causal Models, Token Causation, and Processes”, Philosophy of Science, 71(2004), Number 5, pp.820-832 . (Supplementary Volume, Invited Papers to PSA2002). Long version archived at http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001039.
"Capacities, Models, and Pluralism: A New Metaphysics for Science?", Philosophical Books, (43)2002, pp.261-270.
Special issue of The Monist, 81(1998), "Secondary Qualities Generalised", pp.1-190. Articles by M. Johnston, C. Daly, N. Miscevic, M. Smith and D. Stoljar, P. Pettit, R. M. Sainsbury, K. Mulligan.
"Possibility and Conceivability: A Response-Dependent Account of their Connections", European Review of Philosophy, 3 (1998), pp.255-77.
"Are Humean Doubts about Singular Causation Justified?", Communication and Cognition, 31(1998), pp.339-364.
"Probabilistic Causation and the Pre-emption Problem", Mind, 104(1996), pp.85-117.
(with Frank Jackson and Graham Oppy) 'The Two Envelope "Paradox"', Analysis, 54(1994), pp.43-45.
(with Philip Pettit) "A Defence of Modal Fictionalism", Analysis, 54(1994), pp.27-36. Reprinted in Japanese journal Gendai-Shisou(revue de pensee d'aujourdhui), 1995.
(with Philip Pettit) "Found: The Missing Explanation", Analysis, 53(1993), pp.100-109.
(with Huw Price) "Causation as a Secondary Quality", British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 44(1993), pp.187-203.
(with Graham Oddie) "An Objectivist's Guide to Subjective Value", Ethics, 102(1992), pp.512-533.
(with Karen Neander) “David Owens on Levels of Explanation”, Mind, 99(1990), pp.459-466.
“Probabilistic Causation and Causal Processes: A Critique of Lewis”, Philosophy of Science, 56(1989), pp.642-664.
“A Unified Theory of Causal Relata”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 76(1989), pp.59-83.
“Against Causal Reductionism”, Mind, 98(1988), pp.551-574.
“Wittgenstein and Kripke on Following Rules”, Proceedings of the Russellian Society, 9(1984), pp.17-36.
ReviewsReview of P. Pietroski’s “Causing Actions”, Mind and Language, 18(2003),pp.440-446
Review of J. Woodward’s “Making Things Happen”, Mind, 115 (1996), pp.821-26.
Review of L. Sklar’s “Theory and Truth” and I. Niiniluoto’s “Critical Scientific Realism”, in Times Literary Supplement, 2001.
Review of D. Owen's “Causes and Coincidences”, in Mind, 104(1994), pp.216-9.
Review of P. Gardenfors' “Knowledge in Flux, in Philosophical Review, 103(1994),pp.159-63.
Review of B. van Fraassen's “Laws and Symmetry”, in Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 71(1993), pp.94-7.
Review of D. Armstrong's “A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility”, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1992, pp.731-34.
Review of M. Tooley's “Causation: A Realist Approach”, in Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 67(1989), pp.230-233.
Review of I. Block's “Perspectives on the Philosophy of Wittgenstein”, B. McGuiness's “Wittgenstein and his Times”, and B. McGuiness's “Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle”, in Critical Philosophy, 2(1985), pp.77-81.
Review of I. Hacking's “Representing and Intervening”, in Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 63(1985), pp.540-43.
Review of G. Schelsinger's “Metaphysics”, in Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 63(1985), pp.103-5.
Review of E. Sarinen's “Game-Theoretic Semantics”, in Philosophical Quarterly, 30(1980), pp.377-78.
Current Research Grants
- MQ Research Innovation Grant: “From Neuron to Self: Human Nature and the New Cognitive Neurosciences”, 2007-10, $250,000. (With Amanda Barnier, Tim Bayne, Max Coltheart, Stephen Crain, Robyn Langdon, Catriona Mackenzie, John Sutton)
- ARC Discovery Grant:“Mental Causation in a Physical World”, 2006-2008. $80,000.
- ARC International Linkage Grant for exchange program with Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS, Paris: “Developing a Two Factor Model of Delusions: Experience, Belief and Folk Psychology”, $22,500. (With Tim Bayne, Martin Davies
Current research
Peter’s current research interests include metaphysics (causation, free will, mental causation), philosophy of science (probability theory, Bayesian networks and structural equations modelling, scientific models and idealization, reductionism), philosophy of mind (levels of explanation, status of folk psychology, consciousness), epistemology (rationality, realism and anti-realism), and the philosophy of logic (modality, conditionals).
Administrative responsibilities
Current
- Director of Postgraduate Studies, Philosophy, Second Semester 2008
Contact details
Location: Building W6A Room 725
Phone: (61 2) 9850 8876
Fax: (61 2) 9850 8892
Email: pmenzies@scmp.mq.edu.au
Office hours: to be advised