•  764
    Spread Worlds, Plenitude and Modal Realism: A Problem for David Lewis
    with Rebecca E. B. Entwisle
    In James Maclaurin (ed.), Rationis Defensor, . 2012.
    In his metaphysical summa of 1986, The Plurality of Worlds, David Lewis famously defends a doctrine he calls ‘modal realism’, the idea that to account for the fact that some things are possible and some things are necessary we must postulate an infinity possible worlds, concrete entities like our own universe, but cut off from us in space and time. Possible worlds are required to account for the facts of modality without assuming that modality is primitive – that there are irreducibly modal fact…Read more
  •  518
    Pythagorean powers or a challenge to platonism
    with Colin Cheyne
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 (4). 1996.
    The Quine/Putnam indispensability argument is regarded by many as the chief argument for the existence of platonic objects. We argue that this argument cannot establish what its proponents intend. The form of our argument is simple. Suppose indispensability to science is the only good reason for believing in the existence of platonic objects. Either the dispensability of mathematical objects to science can be demonstrated and, hence, there is no good reason for believing in the existence of …Read more
  •  4281
    Popper revisited, or what is wrong with conspiracy theories?
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 25 (1): 3-34. 1995.
    Conpiracy theories are widely deemed to be superstitious. Yet history appears to be littered with conspiracies successful and otherwise. (For this reason, "cock-up" theories cannot in general replace conspiracy theories, since in many cases the cock-ups are simply failed conspiracies.) Why then is it silly to suppose that historical events are sometimes due to conspiracy? The only argument available to this author is drawn from the work of the late Sir Karl Popper, who criticizes what he calls "…Read more
  •  291
    Review of Sabina Lovibond:Realism and Imagination in Ethics (review)
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 62 (3): 313-315. 1984.
    A critique of a kind of 'moral realism' that is in fact a rather thinly disguised version of global historicist idealism. If you don't like the idea that facts are hard and values are soft, you can pump up the values to make them as hard as the facts or soften down the facts to make them as soggy as the values. Lovibond prefers the latter strategy. After some critical remarks about Lovibond's book (including its implicit authoritarianism) I conclude with some equally critical remarks about McD…Read more