•  736
    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).
  •  736
    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
  •  724
    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
  •  645
    Against the vagueness argument
    Philosophia 37 (2): 335-340. 2009.
    In this paper I offer a counterexample to the so called vagueness argument against restricted composition. This will be done in the lines of a recent suggestion by Trenton Merricks, namely by challenging the claim that there cannot be a sharp cut-off point in a composition sequence. It will be suggested that causal powers which emerge when composition occurs can serve as an indicator of such sharp cut-off points. The main example will be the case of a heap. It seems that heaps might provide a ve…Read more
  •  642
    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 The upshot is that zero tolerance policy is obsolete, and that most individuals would be better off using cannabis rather than other drugs.
  •  625
    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
  •  610
    Introduction to my 'Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics' volume.
  •  603
    Possibility Precedes Actuality
    Erkenntnis 88 (8): 3583-3603. 2023.
    This paper is inspired by and develops on E. J. Lowe’s work, who writes in his book The Possibility of Metaphysics that ‘metaphysical possibility is an inescapable determinant of actuality’ (1998: 9). Metaphysics deals with possibilities – metaphysical possibilities – but is not able to determine what is actual without the help of empirical research. Accordingly, a delimitation of the space of possibilities is required. The resulting – controversial – picture is that we generally need to know wh…Read more
  •  554
    Bundle Theory with Kinds
    Philosophical Quarterly 69 (277): 838-857. 2019.
    Is it possible to get by with just one ontological category? We evaluate L.A. Paul's attempt to do so: the mereological bundle theory. The upshot is that Paul's attempt to construct a one category ontology may be challenged with some of her own arguments. In the positive part of the paper we outline a two category ontology with property universals and kind universals. We will also examine Paul's arguments against a version of universal bundle theory that takes spatiotemporal co-location instead …Read more
  •  536
    The Scientific Inquisition
    The Philosophers' Magazine 74 86-89. 2016.
    Nobody expects the Scientific Inquisition!
  •  533
    Review of Meta-Metaphysics: On Metaphysical Equivalence, Primitiveness, and Theory Choice (Springer, Synthese Library, 2016). By Jiri Benovsky.
  •  498
    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.
  •  483
    Unity of Science
    Cambridge University Press. 2021.
    Unity of science was once a very popular idea among both philosophers and scientists. But it has fallen out of fashion, largely because of its association with reductionism and the challenge from multiple realisation. Pluralism and the disunity of science are the new norm, and higher-level natural kinds and special science laws are considered to have an important role in scientific practice. What kind of reductionism does multiple realisability challenge? What does it take to reduce one phenomen…Read more
  •  411
    Structure
    In Michael J. Raven (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding, Routledge. pp. 387-395. 2020.
    An exploration of ground’s connections to structure (joint-carving, naturalness). The notion of structure is often invoked in connection to ground, because grounding is understood to impose constraints on the ‘structure of reality’. There is another, technical sense of structure, sometimes captured with reference to the notion of ‘joint-carving’. Both of these senses of structure as well as their potential connections are discussed.
  •  364
    Fundamentality
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2023.
    The notion of fundamentality, as it is used in metaphysics, aims to capture the idea that there is something basic or primitive in the world. This metaphysical notion is related to the vernacular use of “fundamental”, but philosophers have also put forward various technical definitions of the notion. Among the most influential of these is the definition of absolute fundamentality in terms of ontological independence or ungroundedness. Accordingly, the notion of fundamentality is often associated…Read more
  •  362
    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.
  •  322
    There have been many attempts to determine what makes a natural kind real, chief among them is the criterion according to which natural kinds must be mind-independent. But it is difficult to specify this criterion: many supposed natural kinds have an element of mind-dependence. I will argue that the mind-independence criterion is nevertheless a good one, if correctly understood: the mind-independence criterion concerns the unification principles for natural kinds. Unification principles determin…Read more
  •  285
    The Metametaphysics of Categories: Replies to Hakkarainen and Keinänen (in Finnish). Part of a book symposium on my An Introduction to Metametaphysics
  •  269
    Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 2011.
    Aristotelian metaphysics is currently undergoing something of a renaissance. This volume brings together fourteen essays from leading philosophers who are sympathetic to this conception of metaphysics, which takes its cue from the idea that metaphysics is the first philosophy. The primary input from Aristotle is methodological, but many themes familiar from his metaphysics will be discussed, including ontological categories, the role and interpretation of the existential quantifier, essence, sub…Read more
  •  246
    Precis of An Introduction to Metametaphysics (in Finnish).
  •  232
    New Frontiers in Ground, Essence, and Modality: Introduction
    with Donnchadh Ó Conaill
    Synthese 198 (6): 1219-1230. 2021.
    Ground, essence, and modality seem to have something to do with each other. Can we provide unified foundations for ground and essence, or should we treat each as primitives? Can modality be grounded in essence, or should essence be expressed in terms of modality? Does grounding entail necessitation? Are the notions of ground and essence univocal? This volume focuses on the links—or lack thereof—between these three notions, as well as the foundations of ground, essence, and modality more generall…Read more
  •  232
    The Modal Basis of Scientific Modelling
    Synthese 201 (75): 1-16. 2023.
    The practice of scientific modelling often resorts to hypothetical, false, idealised, targetless, partial, generalised, and other types of modelling that appear to have at least partially non-actual targets. In this paper, I will argue that we can avoid a commitment to non-actual targets by sketching a framework where models are understood as having networks of possibilities as their targets. This raises a further question: what are the truthmakers for the modal claims that we can derive from mo…Read more
  •  209
    Bohmian Holism
    In Petteri Limnell & Tero Vadén (eds.), Unfolding the Big Picture. Essays in Honour of Paavo Pylkkänen, Philosophical Studies From the University of Helsinki. pp. 7-18. 2021.
    This is a contribution to Paavo Pylkkänen's Festschrift. I discuss his relationship to Bohm's philosophy and a sense of holism that can be extracted from the Bohmian view.
  •  191
    Laws of Nature
    In A. R. J. Fisher & Anna-Sofia Maurin (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Properties, Routledge. pp. 337-346. 2024.
    Properties have an important role in specifying different views on laws of nature: virtually any position on laws will make some reference to properties, and some of the leading views even reduce laws to properties. This chapter will first outline what laws of nature are typically taken to be and then specify their connection to properties in more detail. We then move on to consider three different accounts of properties: natural, essential, and dispositional properties, and we shall see that di…Read more
  •  185
    The Role of A Priori Belief in the Design and Analysis of Fault-Tolerant Distributed Systems
    with Giorgio Cignarale, Ulrich Schmid, and Roman Kuznets
    Minds and Machines 33 (2): 293-319. 2023.
    The debate around the notions of a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge has proven crucial for the development of many fields in philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology, metametaphysics etc. We advocate that the recent debate on the two notions is also fruitful for man-made distributed computing systems and for the epistemic analysis thereof. Following a recently proposed modal and fallibilistic account of a priori knowledge, we elaborate the corresponding concept of a priori belief…Read more
  •  65
    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".
  •  9
    Boundaries in Reality
    In David S. Oderberg (ed.), Classifying Reality, Wiley-blackwell. 2013.
    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
  •  2
    Editorial
    Studia Philosophica Estonica 7 (2): 1. 2014.
    Editorial for the SPE Special Issue on Aristotelian Metaphysics: Essence and Ground