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25Commentary on: Michel Dufour's "Argument and explanation in mathematics"In Dima Mohammed & Marcin Lewinski (eds.), Virtues of argumentation: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA), May 22–25, 2013, Ossa. 2014.N/A.
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24Edouard Morot-Sir, The Imagination of Reference II: Perceiving, Indicating, Naming (review)Philosophy in Review 16 (4): 270-271. 1996.
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22Douglas Walton, One-Sided Arguments: A Dialectical Analysis of Bias (review)Philosophy in Review 21 (2): 152-154. 2001.
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21Is Every Definition Persuasive?Informal Logic 43 (4): 25-47. 2022.“Is every definition persuasive?” If essentialist views on definition are rejected and a pragmatic account adopted, where defining is a speech act which fixes the meaning of a term, then a problem arises: if meanings are not fixed by the essence of being itself, is not every definition persuasive? To address the problem, we refer to Douglas Walton’s impressive intellectual heritage—specifically on the argumentative potential of definition. In finding some non-persuasive definitions, we show not …Read more
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21Commentary on Patrick Bondy, “Bias in Legitimate Ad Hominem Arguments”Argumentation, Objectivity and Bias: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA), May 18–21, 2016. 2016.
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20Queue‐jumping argumentsMetaphilosophy. forthcoming.A queue‐jumping argument concludes that some course of action is impermissible by likening it to the presumptively impermissible act of jumping a queue. Arguments of this sort may be found in a disparate range of contexts and in support of policies favoured by both left and right. Examples include arguments against private education and private health care but also arguments against accommodations for learning disabilities, refugee resettlement, and birthright citizenship. We infer that, althoug…Read more
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19Using Crowdsourced Mathematics to Understand Mathematical PracticeZDM 52 (6): 1087-1098. 2020.Records of online collaborative mathematical activity provide us with a novel, rich, searchable, accessible and sizeable source of data for empirical investigations into mathematical practice. In this paper we discuss how the resources of crowdsourced mathematics can be used to help formulate and answer questions about mathematical practice, and what their limitations might be. We describe quantitative approaches to studying crowdsourced mathematics, reviewing work from cognitive history (compar…Read more
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12Dale Jacquette, Meinongian Logic: The Semantics of Existence and Nonexistence (review)Philosophy in Review 17 (3): 176-178. 1997.
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1The companions and Socrates: Is Inara a hetaera?In Rhonda V. Wilcox & Tanya Cochran (eds.), Investigating Firefly and Serenity: Science Fiction on the Frontier, I. B. Tauris. pp. 63-75. 2008.
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Proofs and rebuttals: Applying Stephen Toulmin's layout of arguments to mathematical proofIn Marta Bílková & Ondřej Tomala (eds.), The Logica Yearbook 2005, Filosofia. pp. 11-23. 2006.This paper explores some of the benefits informal logic may have for the analysis of mathematical inference. It shows how Stephen Toulmin’s pioneering treatment of defeasible argumentation may be extended to cover the more complex structure of mathematical proof. Several common proof techniques are represented, including induction, proof by cases, and proof by contradiction. Affinities between the resulting system and Imre Lakatos’s discussion of mathematical proof are then explored.
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Balderdash and chicanery: Science and beyondIn James South (ed.), Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, Open Court. pp. 79-90. 2003.The status and limits of science are the focus of urgent public debate. This paper contributes a philosophical analysis of representations of science and the supernatural in popular culture. It explores and critiques a threefold taxonomy of supernatural narratives: (1) reduction of the supernatural to contemporary science; (2) reduction to a `future science' methodologically continuous with contemporary science; (3) the supernatural as irreducible. The means by which the TV series Buffy the Va…Read more
University of St. Andrews
PhD, 2001
Melbourne, Florida, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Mathematics |
Disagreement |
Epistemic Virtues |