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229Laws of nature outlawedDialectica 52 (2). 1998.SummaryThere are two rival ways in which events in the world can be explained: the covering law way and the dispositionalist way. The covering law model, which takes the law of nature as its fundamental explanatory unit, faces a number of renown difficulties. Rather than attempt to patch up this approach, the alternative dispositionalist strategy is recommended. On this view, general facts are dependent upon particular facts about what things do, rather than vice versa. This way of viewing the w…Read more
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199Negative Truth and FalsehoodProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 107 (1pt1). 2007.What makes it true when we say that something is not the case? Truthmaker maximalists think that every truth has a truthmaker—some fact in the world—that makes it true. No such facts can be found for the socalled negative truths. If a proposition is true when it has a truthmaker, then it would be false when it has no truthmaker. I therefore argue that negative truths, such as t<p>, are best understood as falsehoods, f<p>.
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54A New Solution to the Problem of Negative TruthIn Jean-Maurice Monnoyer (ed.), Metaphysics and Truthmakers, Ontos Verlag. pp. 313-330. 2007.
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860What We Tend to MeanNorsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 46 (1): 20-33. 2011.In this paper a dispositional account of meaning is offered. Words might dispose towards a particular or ‘literal’ meaning, but whether this meaning is actually conveyed when expressed will depend on a number of factors, such as speaker’s intentions, the context of the utterance and the background knowledge of the hearer. It is thus argued that no meaning is guaranteed or necessitated by the words used.
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802Freedom and Control - On the modality of free willAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 52 (1): 1-12. 2015.Free will is a problem of modality, hampered by a commitment to modal dualism: the view that there is only necessity and pure contingency. If we have necessity, then things couldn't have been otherwise, against the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (AP). If there is complete contingency, then the agent seems to have no control over her actions, against the principle of Ultimate Authorship (UA). There is a third modality in natural causal processes, however. AP and UA can be reconciled if we a…Read more
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23David ArmstrongRoutledge. 2007.David Armstrong is one of Australia's greatest philosophers. His chief philosophical achievement has been the development of a core metaphysical programme, embracing the topics of universals, laws, modality and facts. This book offers an introduction to the full range of Armstrong's thought. It begins with a discussion of Armstong's naturalism.
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222Max Kistler: Causation and Laws of Nature (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (1): 223-227. 2013.
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45Breaking it or Faking it? Some Critical Thoughts on the Voluntary Suspension of Play and Six Proposed RevisionsSport, Ethics and Philosophy 4 (3): 254-268. 2010.The voluntary suspension of play is a putative fair play norm that has emerged in the last 20 years in association football, though there is no reason in principle why it is limited to that sport. It occurs in football when an injury appears to have been sustained and another player deliberately puts the ball out of play so that the injury can receive rapid attention. It is widely understood as a positive development within the sport and philosophers have added their support on the basis that VS…Read more