•  957
    Empirically-Informed Modal Rationalism
    In Bob Fischer & Felipe Leon (eds.), Modal Epistemology After Rationalism, Springer. pp. 29-45. 2016.
    In this chapter, it is suggested that our epistemic access to metaphysical modality generally involves rationalist, a priori elements. However, these a priori elements are much more subtle than ‘traditional’ modal rationalism assumes. In fact, some might even question the ‘apriority’ of these elements, but I should stress that I consider a priori and a posteriori elements especially in our modal inquiry to be so deeply intertwined that it is not easy to tell them apart. Supposed metaphysically n…Read more
  •  1416
    The starting point of this paper concerns the apparent difference between what we might call absolute truth and truth in a model, following Donald Davidson. The notion of absolute truth is the one familiar from Tarski’s T-schema: ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white. Instead of being a property of sentences as absolute truth appears to be, truth in a model, that is relative truth, is evaluated in terms of the relation between sentences and models. I wish to examine the apparent d…Read more
  •  1343
    Natural Kind Essentialism Revisited
    Mind 124 (495): 795-822. 2015.
    Recent work on Natural Kind Essentialism has taken a deflationary turn. The assumptions about the grounds of essentialist truths concerning natural kinds familiar from the Kripke-Putnam framework are now considered questionable. The source of the problem, however, has not been sufficiently explicated. The paper focuses on the Twin Earth scenario, and it will be demonstrated that the essentialist principle at its core (which I call IDENT)—that necessarily, a sample of a chemical substance, A, is …Read more
  •  375
    Empiiriset elementit modaaliepistemologiassa
    In Ilkka Niiniluoto, Tuomas Tahko & Teemu Toppinen (eds.), Mahdollisuus, Philosophical Society of Finland. pp. 154-159. 2016.
    Title in English: "Empirical elements in modal epistemology". This article examines Peter van Inwagen's modal scepticism and argues that although van Inwagen is correct to criticise modal rationalism, there are tools in modal empiricism that are promising sources of modal knowledge.
  •  2866
    An Introduction to Metametaphysics
    Cambridge University Press. 2015.
    How do we come to know metaphysical truths? How does metaphysical inquiry work? Are metaphysical debates substantial? These are the questions which characterize metametaphysics. This book, the first systematic student introduction dedicated to metametaphysics, discusses the nature of metaphysics - its methodology, epistemology, ontology and our access to metaphysical knowledge. It provides students with a firm grounding in the basics of metametaphysics, covering a broad range of topics in metaon…Read more
  •  524
    Tropes: Properties, Objects, and Mental Causation. By Douglas Ehring (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 63 (251): 379-382. 2013.
    Book review of 'Tropes: Properties, Objects, and Mental Causation' (2011, OUP). By DOUGLAS EHRING.
  •  7
    Editorial
    Studia Philosophica Estonica 7 (2): 1. 2014.
    Editorial for the SPE Special Issue on Aristotelian Metaphysics: Essence and Ground
  •  1280
    Soames’s Deflationism About Modality
    Erkenntnis 78 (6): 1367-1379. 2013.
    One type of deflationism about metaphysical modality suggests that it can be analysed strictly in terms of linguistic or conceptual content and that there is nothing particularly metaphysical about modality. Scott Soames is explicitly opposed to this trend. However, a detailed study of Soames’s own account of modality reveals that it has striking similarities with the deflationary account. In this paper I will compare Soames’s account of a posteriori necessities concerning natural kinds with the…Read more
  •  760
    Commentary on Kathrin Koslicki’s The Structure of Objects
    Humana Mente 4 (19): 197-204. 2011.
    This is a critical commentary on Kathrin Koslicki's book The Structure of Objects (OUP, 2008).
  •  758
    Boundaries in Reality
    Ratio 25 (4): 405-424. 2012.
    This paper defends the idea that there must be some joints in reality, some correct way to classify or categorize it. This may seem obvious, but we will see that there are at least three conventionalist arguments against this idea, as well as philosophers who have found them convincing. The thrust of these arguments is that the manner in which we structure, divide or carve up the world is not grounded in any natural, genuine boundaries in the world. Ultimately they are supposed to pose a serious…Read more
  •  839
    The Metaphysical Status of Logic
    In Michal Peliš (ed.), The Logica Yearbook 2007, Filosofia. 2008.
    The purpose of this paper is to examine the status of logic from a metaphysical point of view – what is logic grounded in and what is its relationship with metaphysics. There are three general lines that we can take. 1) Logic and metaphysics are not continuous, neither discipline has no bearing on the other one. This seems to be a rather popular approach, at least implicitly, as philosophers often skip the question altogether and go about their business, be it logic or metaphysics. However, it i…Read more
  •  1284
    In Defence of Aristotelian Metaphysics
    In Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 26-43. 2012.
    When I say that my conception of metaphysics is Aristotelian, or neo-Aristotelian, this may have more to do with Aristotle’s philosophical methodology than his metaphysics, but, as I see it, the core of this Aristotelian conception of metaphysics is the idea that metaphysics is the first philosophy . In what follows I will attempt to clarify what this conception of metaphysics amounts to in the context of some recent discussion on the methodology of metaphysics (e.g. Chalmers et al . (2009), Lad…Read more
  •  560
    The Scientific Inquisition
    The Philosophers' Magazine 74 86-89. 2016.
    Nobody expects the Scientific Inquisition!
  •  1228
    On the Common Sense Argument for Monism
    In Philip Goff (ed.), Spinoza On Monism, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 149-166. 2012.
    The priority monist holds that the cosmos is the only fundamental object, of which every other concrete object is a dependent part. One major argument against monism goes back to Russell, who claimed that pluralism is favoured by common sense. However, Jonathan Schaffer turns this argument on its head and uses it to defend priority monism. He suggests that common sense holds that the cosmos is a whole, of which ordinary physical objects are arbitrary portions, and that arbitrary portions depend …Read more
  •  1211
    Fundamentality and Ontological Minimality
    In Ricki Bliss & Graham Priest (eds.), Reality and its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality, Oxford University Press. pp. 237-253. 2018.
    In this chapter, a generic definition of fundamentality as an ontological minimality thesis is sought and its applicability examined. Most discussions of fundamentality are focused on a mereological understanding of the hierarchical structure of reality, which may be combined with an atomistic, object-oriented metaphysics. But recent work in structuralism, for instance, calls for an alternative understanding and it is not immediately clear that the conception of fundamentality at work in structu…Read more
  •  750
    The title of this paper reflects the fact truthmaking is quite frequently considered to be expressive of realism. What this means, exactly, will become clearer in the course of our discussion, but since we are interested in Armstrong’s work on truthmaking in particular, it is natural to start from a brief discussion of how truthmaking and realism appear to be associated in his work. In this paper, special attention is given to the supposed link between truthmaking and realism, but it is argued t…Read more
  •  1035
    The Universe As We Find It. By John Heil (review)
    Mind 122 (488): 1095-1098. 2013.
    Book review of 'The Universe As We Find It' (2012, OUP). By John Heil.
  •  1094
    In this paper I will offer a novel understanding of a priori knowledge. My claim is that the sharp distinction that is usually made between a priori and a posteriori knowledge is groundless. It will be argued that a plausible understanding of a priori and a posteriori knowledge has to acknowledge that they are in a constant bootstrapping relationship. It is also crucial that we distinguish between a priori propositions that hold in the actual world and merely possible, non-actual a priori propos…Read more
  •  1495
    Truth‐Grounding and Transitivity
    Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 2 (4): 332-340. 2013.
    It is argued that if we take grounding to be univocal, then there is a serious tension between truth-grounding and one commonly assumed structural principle for grounding, namely transitivity. The primary claim of the article is that truth-grounding cannot be transitive. Accordingly, it is either the case that grounding is not transitive or that truth-grounding is not grounding, or both
  •  1750
    Metaphysics as the First Philosophy
    In Edward Feser (ed.), Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 49-67. 2013.
    Aristotle talks about 'the first philosophy' throughout the Metaphysics – and it is metaphysics that Aristotle considers to be the first philosophy – but he never makes it entirely clear what first philosophy consists of. What he does make clear is that the first philosophy is not to be understood as a collection of topics that should be studied in advance of any other topics. In fact, Aristotle seems to have thought that the topics of Metaphysics are to be studied after those in Physics. In wha…Read more
  •  1129
    Counterfactuals and Modal Epistemology
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 86 (1). 2012.
    What is our epistemic access to metaphysical modality? Timothy Williamson suggests that the epistemology of counterfactuals will provide the answer. This paper challenges Williamson's account and argues that certain elements of the epistemology of counterfactuals that he discusses, namely so called background knowledge and constitutive facts, are already saturated with modal content which his account fails to explain. Williamson's account will first be outlined and the role of background knowled…Read more
  •  963
    The Modal Status of Laws: In Defence of a Hybrid View
    Philosophical Quarterly 65 (260): 509-528. 2015.
    Three popular views regarding the modal status of the laws of nature are discussed: Humean Supervenience, nomic necessitation, and scientific/dispositional essentialism. These views are examined especially with regard to their take on the apparent modal force of laws and their ability to explain that modal force. It will be suggested that none of the three views, at least in their strongest form, can be maintained if some laws are metaphysically necessary, but others are metaphysically contingen…Read more
  •  649
    Disentangling Nature's Joints
    In William M. R. Simpson, Robert C. Koons & Nicholas J. Teh (eds.), Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science, Routledge. pp. 147-166. 2017.
    Can the neo-Aristotelian uphold a pluralist substance ontology while taking seriously the recent arguments in favour of monism based on quantum holism and other arguments from quantum mechanics? In this article, Jonathan Schaffer’s priority monism will be the main target. It will be argued that the case from quantum mechanics in favour of priority monism does face some challenges. Moreover, if the neo-Aristotelian is willing to consider alternative ways to understand ‘substance’, there may yet b…Read more
  •  73
    Mahdollisuus (edited book)
    Philosophical Society of Finland. 2016.
    Proceedings of the 2016 "one word" colloquium of the The Philosophical Society of Finland. The word was "Possibility".
  •  262
    Precis of An Introduction to Metametaphysics (in Finnish).
  •  665
    This paper is a survey of the positive and negative aspects of cannabis use from the point of view of the individual on one hand and from the point of view of the society on the other hand. Health, social, and political motives are all discussed, and the best method of harm reduction is analysed. The upshot is that zero tolerance policy is obsolete, and that most individuals would be better off using cannabis rather than other drugs.
  •  627
    Introduction to my 'Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics' volume.
  •  1682
    A Priori and A Posteriori: A Bootstrapping Relationship
    Metaphysica 12 (2): 151-164. 2011.
    The distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge has been the subject of an enormous amount of discussion, but the literature is biased against recognizing the intimate relationship between these forms of knowledge. For instance, it seems to be almost impossible to find a sample of pure a priori or a posteriori knowledge. In this paper, it will be suggested that distinguishing between a priori and a posteriori is more problematic than is often suggested, and that a priori and a poster…Read more
  •  1489
    In this paper I examine what exactly is ‘Aristotelian metaphysics’. My inquiry into Aristotelian metaphysics should not be understood to be so much concerned with the details of Aristotle's metaphysics. I am are rather concerned with his methodology of metaphysics, although a lot of the details of his metaphysics survive in contemporary discussion as well. This warrants an investigation into the methodological aspects of Aristotle's metaphysics. The key works that we will be looking at are his P…Read more