This paper presents a metaphysical argument against physicalism based on the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties. It argues that the physical, as physicalism must understand it, consists entirely of extrinsic properties, whereas consciousness involves at least some intrinsic properties. It concludes that consciousness has non-physical properties and that physicalism is false. The paper then defends its premises against current physicalist thinking. As much as possible, it offers metaphysical arguments about physical and conscious properties rather than epistemological arguments about our physical and phenomenal concepts.

One of the difficulties in understanding the meaning of perception in Merleau-Ponty’s work comes from the ambiguous tone of his descriptions. Therefore, to understand it thoroughly one should question the origin of this tone and inquire about the relationship between perception and language and, more particularly, between philosophy and literature. This is what is at stake in his last courses at the Collège de France, where Merleau-Ponty envisages perception as being associated with literature and as having a special kinship to the notion of “poetic vision,” which appears in Rimbaud’s first ‘Letter from the Seer’.

Amartya Sen argues that a conception of impartiality built upon “trans-positional objectivity” provides a potential remedy to conflicts of distributive justice by securing the most “reasonable reasons” in a debate. This article undertakes a critical analysis of Sen’s theory by contrasting it with Paul Ricoeur’s claim that impartiality is a normative concept and therefore that the demand faced within the arena of competing distributive claims is not one of providing the most reasonable reasons but of exposing and understanding the role of convictions that underwrite normative frameworks, or ethical orders.

Almost everyone has had an intuitive experience of authenticity that seems to reveal a glimmer of one’s true identity. Yet by positing the existence of a ‘true self,’ authenticity introduces metaphysical challenges that resist systematic solutions. I argue that authenticity properly analyzed demands an essentialist structure that strains to be applied to personal identity. I then assess the three most influential types of accounts in modern philosophical discussions against this framework: Romanticism and autonomy; late existentialism; and virtue conceptions of authenticity. This analysis casts doubt on the possibility of generating a complete philosophical account of authenticity.

I argue that Quineans who are sceptical about the analytic/synthetic distinction should be equally sceptical about the distinction between verbal and factual disputes. I develop an objection to the distinction between verbal and factual disputes, derived from objections to the analytic/synthetic distinction. I then explain what the resulting scepticism consists in. Ultimately, such sceptics should agree that there is a distinction between verbal and factual disputes, but think that it cannot perform certain philosophical tasks.

The immediate infinite mode of extension is one of the more mysterious elements of Spinoza’s ontology. Despite its importance to Spinoza’s metaphysical system, Spinoza tells us very little about this mode. In the effort to make some progress on this question, I examine three prominent hypotheses about this mode’s identity: the Force Interpretation, the Nomic Interpretation, and the Kinetic Interpretation. I argue, first, that both the Force Interpretation and the Nomic Interpretation are subject to a number of serious objections. Second, I argue that in spite of scholars’ claims to the contrary, the Kinetic Interpretation is a live option.