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65Formed Matter Without Objects: A Reply to DenkelDialogue 30 (1-2): 163-. 1991.A reply to Arda Denkel's argument that it is not possible to have matter without objects. I argue that the argument assumes that having a 'form' is being sufficient for the existence of an object, which the opponent should not be thought to grant.
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133A semantic account of rigidityPhilosophical Studies 80 (1). 1995.I offer an understanding of what it is for a term to be rigid which makes no serious metaphysical commitments to or about identity across possible worlds. What makes a term rigid is not that it 'refers to the same object(property) with respect to all worlds' - rather (roughly) it is that the criteria of application for the term with respect to other worlds, when combined with the criteria of identity associated with the term, ensure that whatever meets the criteria of identity also meets the cr…Read more
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105Review of Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne, Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (6). 2008.
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82Occasions of Identity (review)Philosophical Review 109 (3): 469-471. 2000.Review of Andre Gallois,' Occasions of identity: The metaphysics of persistence, change, and sameness
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831Is There a True Metaphysics of Material Objects?Noûs 36 (s1): 118-145. 2002.I argue that metaphysical views of material objects should be understood as 'packages', rather than individual claims, where the other parts of the package include how the theory addresses 'recalcitant data', and that when the packages meet certain general desiderata - which all of the currently competing views *can* meet - there is nothing in the world that could make one of the theories true as opposed to any of the others.
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242Does hylomorphism offer a distinctive solution to the grounding problem?Analysis 74 (3): 397-404. 2014.The Aristotelian doctrine of hylomorphism has seen a recent resurgence of popularity, due to the work of a number of well-known and impressive philosophers. One of the recently motivating virtues claimed for the doctrine is its ability to solve the grounding problem for philosophers who believe in coinciding entities. In this brief article, I will argue that when fully spelled out, hylomorphism does not, in fact, contribute a distinctive solution to this problem. It is not that it offers no solu…Read more
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147An argument that internalism requires infallibilityPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (1): 163-179. 2001.Most contemporary internalists are fallibilists, denying that there need be anything about which we are infallible for us to have knowledge or justified beliefs. At the same time, internalists standardly appeal to ‘internal twins’ in arguing against externalism and motivating internalism---a Cartesian demon can ruin the ‘external’ relations we have to the world, but one is equally well justified in one’s beliefs whether or not one is subject to such deception. Even if one doesn’t motivate one’s …Read more
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157The Structure of Objects (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (2): 371-374. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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165Identity and the Identity-likePhilosophical Topics 20 (1): 269-292. 1992.Some relations - like supervenience and composition - can appear very much like identity. Sometimes, the relata differ only in modal, or modally-involved features. Yet, in some cases, we judge the pairs to be identical (water/H2O; Hesperus/Phosphorus), while in others, many judge one of the weaker relations to hold (c-fiber firing/pain; statues/lumps). Given the seemingly same actual properties these pairs have, what can justify us in sometimes believing identity is the relation, and sometimes s…Read more
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265A sweater unraveled: Following one thread of thought for avoiding coincident entitiesNoûs 32 (4): 423-448. 1998.One obvious solution to the puzzles of apparently coincident objects is a sort of reductionism - the tree really just is the wood, the statue is just the clay, and nothing really ceases to exist in the purported non-identity showing cases. This paper starts with that approach and its underlying motivation, and argues that if one follows those motivations - specifically, the rejection of coincidence, and the belief that 'genuine' object-destroying changes must differ non-arbitrarily from acciden…Read more
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