Place, U. T. (1996d). A conceptualist ontology. In D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin. U. T. Place, & T. Crane (Ed.) Dispositions: A debate (Chapter 4, pp. 49-67). Routledge.
[Abstract]Nominalised predicates, opaque contexts and monadic relational predicates are cases where surface structure conceals an underlying complexity. A conceptualist picture theory of meaning allows different ways of carving up reality into atomic situations. To say that a universal exists means either that it has at least one instance or that some creature has that concept. Structural factors combine to cause dispositions. Dispositions combine with the relevant conditions to cause their manifestations. Type-identities begin as contingent hypotheses and become necessary when used in classification. The existence of individual dispositional properties, not Laws of Nature, are the truthmakers for causal counterfactuals.
Keywords: picture theory of meaning
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Download: 1996d Chapter 4 A Conceptualist Ontology.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996h). Mental causation is no different from any other kind. The British Psychological Society, History and Philosophy of Psychology Newsletter, 23, 15-20.
[Abstract]Mental causation, as the term is used here, is the relation between an individual's beliefs, desires and intentions on the one hand and the behaviour they motivate on the other. Until it was challenged by Donald Davidson (1963/1980), the accepted view amongst philosophers was that mental causation in this sense is not a causal relation ("reasons are not causes"). Now most subscribe to Davidson's view that it is a causal relation, but an anomalous one. I argue that it is a standard causal relationship which differs in no way from other non-mental cases of causation.
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Download: 1996h Mental Causation is No Different from Any Other Kind.pdf this is a shortened version of the unpublished:  1996h Full version of Mental Causation is No Different from Any Other Kind.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996p). Review of Morris (1996) Some reflections on contextualism, mechanism, and behavior analysis [Unpublished review of the manuscript submitted by Morris.]
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Download: 1996p Review of Morris (1996), Some reflections on contextualism, mechanism, and behavior analysis.pdf

Place, U. T. (1997e). On the nature of conditionals and their truthmakers. Acta Analytica, 12(18), 73-88.
[Abstract]Standard propositional and predicate logic fails both as a model for natural language and, since it cannot handle causation, as a language for science. The failure to handle causation stems from a misconstrual of the causal conditional as a relation between the truth of two propositions (If p, then q). What the causal conditional in fact specifies is a 'relation' between the possible existence or non-existence of two situations made true by the existence of the dispositional properties of the concrete particulars involved.
[References]  [Talks]  [5 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1997e On the Nature of Conditionals and Their Truthmakers.pdf

Place, U. T. (1997f). De re modality without possible worlds. Acta Analytica, 12(19), 131-145.
[Abstract]A distinction is drawn between de dicto modality which is a matter of which propositions can, cannot and must be true, given the laws of logic, and de re modality which is a matter of which situations (events or states of affairs) can, cannot and must exist, given the laws of nature. It is argued that Kripke's de re modality, defined in terms of what is true in some possible world, no possible world and all possible worlds, is an unsatisfactory amalgam of the two.
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Download: 1997f De Re Modality Without Possible Worlds.pdf

Place, U. T. (1998f). Disposizione ('Dispositions' translated into Italian by Giacomo Gava). In G. Gava, Lessico Epistemologico (Epistemological Lexicon, 2nd edition, pp. 44-51). CLEUP (Cooperativa Libraria Editrice Università di Padova).
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Download: 1998f Dispositions.pdf the English original that is translated into Italian

Place, U. T. (1999b). Intentionality and the physical - a reply to Mumford. Philosophical Quarterly, 49, 225-231. doi:10.1111/1467-9213.00139
[Abstract]Martin and Pfeifer (1986) claim "that the most typical characterizations of intentionality" proposed by philosophers are satisfied by physical dispositions. If that is correct, we must conclude either, as they and Mumford do, that the philosophers are wrong and intentionality is something else or, as I do, that intentionality is what the philosophers say it is, in which case it is the mark, not of the mental, but of the dispositional. To my contention that the intentionality of a disposition consists in its being directed towards its future manifestations Mumford objects that the notion of directedness is obscure and cannot in the light of Martin's (1994) argument be elucidated by reference to what would happen if the conditions for its manifestation are satisfied. But Martin's argument rests on the mistaken assumption that causal conditionals of which dispositional ascriptions are an instance are of the form 'If p then q'.
[References]  [Is reply to]  [10 citing publications]  [2 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1999b Intentionality and the Physical - A Reply to Mumford.pdf

Place, U. T. (2000d). The two-factor theory of the mind-brain relation. Brain and Mind, 1, 29-43. doi:10.1023/A:1010087621727
[Abstract]The analysis of mental concepts suggests that the distinction between the mental and the nonmental is not ontologically fundamental, and that, whereas mental processes are one and the same things as the brain processes with which they are correlated, dispositional mental states depend causally on and are, thus, "distinct existences" from the states of the brain microstructure with which 'they' are correlated. It is argued that this difference in the relation between an entity and its composition/underlying structure applies across the board. All stuffs and processes are the same thing as is described by a description of their microstructure. In all cases where the manifestation of a disposition extends beyond the "skin" of the dispositional property bearer, dispositions invariably depend causally on the structure, usually the microstructure, of the bearer.
[References]  [3 citing publications]  [1 referring publications by Place]  [1 reprinting collections]  
Download: 2000d The Two Factor-Theory of the Mind-Brain Relation.pdf