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859Leibniz über Begriffe und ihr Verhältnis zu den SinnenIn Dominik Perler & Markus Wild (eds.), Sehen und Begreifen: Wahrnehmungstheorien in der frühen Neuzeit, Walter De Gruyter. pp. 235-264. 2008.Despite holding that all concepts are strictly speaking innate, Leibniz attempts to accommodate the common belief that at least some concepts are adventitious by appealing to his theory of ideal action. The essential idea is that an innate concept can be considered adventitious, in a sense, just in case its ideal cause is to be found outside the mind of the one who possesses the concept. I explore this attempt at accommodation and argue that it fails. [See external link for English draft.]
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1316Idealism and Scepticism: A Reply to BruecknerTheoria 79 (4): 290-293. 2012.Anthony Brueckner argues that Berkeleyan idealism lacks anti-sceptical force because of the way Berkeley draws the appearance/reality distinction. But Brueckner's case rests on a misunderstanding of Berkeley's view. Properly understood, Berkeleyan idealism does indeed have anti-sceptical force
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977Motion in Leibniz's Middle Years: A Compatibilist ApproachOxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 6 135-170. 2012.In the texts of the middle years (roughly, the 1680s and 90s), Leibniz appears to endorse two incompatible approaches to motion, one a realist approach, the other a phenomenalist approach. I argue that once we attend to certain nuances in his account we can see that in fact he has only one, coherent approach to motion during this period. I conclude by considering whether the view of motion I want to impute to Leibniz during his middle years ranks as a kind of realism or rather as some kind of ph…Read more
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1544Finitism, Divisibilty, and the Beginning of the Universe: Replies to Loke and DumsdayAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (4): 808-813. 2016.Some philosophers contend that the past must be finite in duration, because otherwise reaching the present would have involved the sequential occurrence of an actual infinity of events, which they regard as impossible. I recently developed a new objection to this finitist argument, to which Andrew Ter Ern Loke and Travis Dumsday have replied. Here I respond to the three main points raised in their replies.
APA Eastern Division
Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
| Metaphysics |
| Ethics |
| 17th/18th Century Philosophy |
| 19th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
| Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
| Social and Political Philosophy |