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71Taking Pascal’s Wager: Faith, Evidence and the Abundant Life. By Michael Rota (review)American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 91 (2): 328-331. 2017.
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69The logic of causal explanation an axiomatizationStudia Logica 77 (3). 2004.Three-valued (strong-Kleene) modal logic provides the foundation for a new approach to formalizing causal explanation as a relation between partial situations. The approach makes fine-grained distinctions between aspects of events, even between aspects that are equivalent in classical logic. The framework can accommodate a variety of ontologies concerning the relata of causal explanation. I argue, however, for a tripartite ontology of objects corresponding to sentential nominals: facts, tropes (…Read more
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69Advancing the Aristotelian Project in Contemporary Metaphysics: A Review EssayPhilosophia Christi 21 (2): 435-442. 2019.In a recent book, Substance and the Fundamentality of the Familiar, Ross Inman demonstrates the contemporary relevance of an Aristotelian approach to metaphysics and the philosophy of nature. Inman successfully applies the Aristotelian framework to a number of outstanding problems in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of physics. Inman tackles some intriguing questions about the ontological status of proper parts, questions which constitute a central focus of ongoing debate and …Read more
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68Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency, by Timothy O'ConnorMind 118 (471): 862-867. 2009.
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64Hylomorphic EscalationAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92 (1): 159-178. 2018.Defenders of physicalism often point to the reduction of chemistry to quantum physics as a paradigm for the reduction of the rest of reality to a microphysical foundation. This argument is based, however, on a misreading of the philosophical significance of the quantum revolution. A hylomorphic (from Aristotle’s concepts of hyle, matter, and morphe, form) interpretation of quantum thermodynamics and chemistry, in which parts and wholes stand in a mutually determining relationship, better fits bo…Read more
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59Aristotelians and the A/B Theory Debate about TimeAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 94 (3): 463-474. 2020.
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56A representational account of mutual beliefSynthese 81 (1). 1989.Although the notion of common or mutual belief plays a crucial role in game theory, economics and social philosophy, no thoroughly representational account of it has yet been developed. In this paper, I propose two desiderata for such an account, namely, that it take into account the possibility of inconsistent data without portraying the human mind as logically and mathematically omniscient. I then propose a definition of mutual belief which meets these criteria. This account takes seriously th…Read more
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54Some Puzzles about Molinist ConditionalsRoczniki Filozoficzne 70 (1): 137-154. 2022.William Hasker has been one of the most trenchant and insightful critics of the revival of Molinism. He has focused on the “freedom problem”, a set of challenges designed to show that Molinism does not secure a place for genuinely free human action. These challenges focus on a key element in the Molinist story: the counterfactual conditionals of creaturely freedom. According to Molinism, these conditionals have contingent truth-values that are knowable to God prior to His decision of what world …Read more
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51Doxastic paradoxes without self-referenceAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 68 (2). 1990.This Article does not have an abstract
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44Bob and Carol and tess and AliSophia 45 (2): 117-122. 2006.Conflicting religious experiences in different traditions do not necessarily defeat the rationality of conflicting beliefs sustained by those experiences in those traditions. The circularity that protects religious beliefs from such mutual defeat is not vicious. Moreover, the lack of ‘epistemological humility’ exhibited by such believers poses no threat to world peace. In fact, a campaign for compulsory humility would itself constitute a much greater threat
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42Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science (edited book)Routledge. 2017.The last two decades have seen two significant trends emerging within the philosophy of science: the rapid development and focus on the philosophy of the specialised sciences, and a resurgence of Aristotelian metaphysics, much of which is concerned with the possibility of emergence, as well as the ontological status and indispensability of dispositions and powers in science. Despite these recent trends, few Aristotelian metaphysicians have engaged directly with the philosophy of the specialised …Read more
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36Book Review: Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap. The Revision Theory of Truth (review)Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 35 (4): 606-631. 1994.
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36Book Review: Scott Soames. Understanding Truth (review)Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 41 (1): 77-94. 2000.
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36Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, edited by Ken PerszykFaith and Philosophy 30 (3): 345-353. 2013.
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34Remnants of Substances: A Neo-Aristotelian Resolution of the PuzzlesQuaestiones Disputatae 10 (2): 53-68. 2020.
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34Physical Causation (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (1): 244-248. 2003.In Physical Causation, Phil Dowe proposes a Conserved Quality account of causation and offers criticisms of several alternatives, including Humean, counter-factual, and mark transmission accounts. Dowe eschews “conceptual analysis” and instead offers his theory as an “empirical account of causation at it is in the actual world.” Dowe takes this as absolving him of the responsibility of giving an account of the essence of causation, threatening to turn his metaphysical account into a watered-down…Read more
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33Epistemological objections to materialismIn Robert C. Koons & George Bealer (eds.), The Waning of Materialism: New Essays, Oxford University Press. pp. 281--306. 2009.This chapter argues that materialism is vulnerable to two kinds of epistemological objections: transcendental arguments, that show that materialism is incompatible with the very possibility of knowledge; and defeater arguments, that show that belief in materialism provides an effective defeaters to claims to knowledge. It constructs objections of these two kinds in three areas of epistemology: our knowledge of the laws of nature (and of scientific essences), our knowledge of the ontology of mate…Read more
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33Letters to the EditorProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 62 (4). 1989.
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32Metaphysics: The FundamentalsWiley-Blackwell. 2014.The book covers a broad range of key topics, including theories of properties and particulars, the notion of truth-makers, powers and possibilities, material composition, and a variety of issues related to time and causation.
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29Review of Nicholas Rescher, Presumption and the Practices of Tentative Cognition (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (7). 2007.
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29Classical Theism: New Essays on the Metaphysics of God (edited book)Routledge. 2023.This volume provides a contemporary account of classical theism. It features sixteen original essays from leading scholars that advance the discussion of classical theism in new and interesting directions. It's safe to say that classical theism--the view that God is simple, omniscient, and the greatest possible being--is no longer the assumed view in analytic philosophy of religion. It is often dismissed as being rooted in outdated metaphysical systems of the sort advanced by ancient and medieva…Read more
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24Probability and conditionals, Belief revision and rational decision, edited by Eells Ellery and Skyrms Brian, Cambridge studies in probability, induction, and decision theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York, and Oakleigh, Victoria, 1994, viii+ 207 pp (review)Journal of Symbolic Logic 62 (1): 330-335. 1997.
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21A Lutheran’s Path to CatholicismIn Brian Besong & Jonathan Fuqua (eds.), Faith and Reason: Philosophers Explain Their Turn to Catholicism, Ignatius Press. pp. 175-204. 2019.
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20Dynamics of argumentation systems: A division-based methodArtificial Intelligence 175 (11): 1790-1814. 2011.
Austin, Texas, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |