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22Eternal Life and Human Happiness in Heaven: Philosophical Problems, Thomistic SolutionsAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 96 (4): 667-670. 2022.
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18Reading ‘is’ Existentially in Republic 476–80British Journal for the History of Philosophy 19 (2): 171-183. 2011.An existential reading of ‘is’ in the argument at Republic 476–480 is widely thought to be objectionable because it commits Plato to belief in degrees of existence. In this paper, I argue that neither proposed alternative—the veridical reading or the predicative reading—can be reconciled with the text, thus forcing the existential reading upon us. Further, I show that when Plato's doctrine of existence is properly understood, his commitment to degrees of existence is not at all absurd.
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17“Stand Your Ground”: A ClarificationCriminal Justice Ethics 41 (3): 215-237. 2022.“Stand Your Ground” (SYG) laws are subject to controversy within both the philosophical literature and the legal literature; and of course they are hotly debated outside of academia as well. In this paper I show that a great part of these discussions is predicated on often very serious errors about what SYG is or isn’t, and I explain them in the context of self-defense law. Though my main purpose is clarification and the correction of some errors in the literature, I close with some brief though…Read more
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16Hylemorphic animalism and conjoined twinsPhilosophical Studies 181 (1): 205-222. 2024.Animalism is the doctrine that you and I are animals. Like any substantive philosophical position, animalism faces objections. For example, imagine a case of conjoined twins, where there are two heads, but only one “body,” and where each head seems to have its own typically human and fully discrete mental life. It would be natural to assume that each of the twins is a thing like you and me—each twin is one of us. But it appears that each twin cannot be a distinct human animal, since it appears i…Read more
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16Rejoinder to Adam Reed, "Not Even False: A Commentary on Parrish and Toner" (Spring 2008): God-Talk and the ArbitraryJournal of Ayn Rand Studies 9 (2). 2008.In this brief note, Toner discusses Adam Reed's reply ("Not Even False," The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Spring 2008) to his earlier paper, "Objectivist Atheology" (The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Spring 2007). He argues that Reed's criticisms do not hold up under scrutiny
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14On Merricks’s DictumJournal of Philosophical Research 33 293-297. 2008.Consider the claim that if there were macrophysical objects, they would cause things. Trenton Merricks takes this to be an obviously true claim, and he puts it to work in his argument for eliminating some (alleged) macrophysical objects. In this short paper, I argue that the claim in question—Merricks’s Dictum—is not obviously true, and may even be false.
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9Critical Study of Fabrizio Amerini's Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human LifeOxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 2 (1). 2014.This is a critical study of Fabrizio Amerini’s recent book, ‘Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life.’ It briefly summarizes the book’s main line of argument, and then raises some objections, principally to Amerini’s contention that St Thomas’s metaphysical views should lead the Thomistically-inclined philosopher to accept delayed hominization even given modern embryological knowledge. The topics discussed include abortion and euthanasia, although the first of these is dealt with at great…Read more
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
| Metaphysics |
| Philosophy of Religion |
| Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
| Aesthetics |