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Formal Causes for Powers TheoristsIn Ludger Jansen & Petter Sandstad (eds.), Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Formal Causation, Routledge. pp. 87-106. 2021.In this paper we examine whether and how powers ontologies can back formal causation. We attempt to answer three questions: i) what is formal causation; ii) whether we need formal causation, and iii) whether formal causation need powers and whether it can be grounded in powers. We take formal causal explanations to be explanations in which something's essence features prominently in the explanans. Three kinds of essential explanations are distinguished: constitutive, consequential, and those sin…Read more
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158Relations all the way down? Against ontic structural realismIn Anna Marmodoro & David Yates (eds.), The Metaphysics of Relations, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 198-217. 2016.According to Ladyman, the world consists of nothing more than relations that relate to no particulars. Could the world be nothing but structure? In this chapter it is argued that even though there are a number of problems with the standard view of relations accompanied by a particularist ontology, substituting for it a world of pure structure is not progress. A world of pure structure would be no more than a Platonic entity, lacking any resources for concretization. Consequently, there would be …Read more
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61With Great Power Comes Great ResponsibilityIn Benedikt Kahmen & Markus Stepanians (eds.), Critical Essays on "Causation and Responsibility", De Gruyter. pp. 219-238. 2013.Omissions are sometimes linked to responsibility. A harm can counterfactually depend on an omission to prevent it. If someone had the ability to prevent a harm but didn’t, this could suffice to ground their responsibility for the harm. Michael S. Moore’s claim is illustrated by the tragic case of Peter Parker, shortly after he became Spider-Man. Sick of being pushed around as a weakling kid, Peter became drunk on the power he acquired from the freak bite of a radioactive spider. When a police of…Read more
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23Russell's Defence of IdlenessRussell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 28 (1): 5-19. 2008.Russell has a famous defence of idleness. But I argue that he was not supporting idleness as such. Russell valued the active and productive life. He was instead attacking overwork and defending leisure, where such leisure is used productively to contribute to civilization. This paper offers a critique of Russell’s argument on the grounds that it is difficult to sustain a distinction between activities that do and do not contribute to civilization. The questions are then addressed of whether pure…Read more
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213Causation and evidence-based practive - an ontological reviewJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (5): 1006-1012. 2012.We claim that if a complete philosophy of evidence-based practice is intended, then attention to the nature of causation in health science is necessary. We identify how health science currently conceptualises causation by the way it prioritises some research methods over others. We then show how the current understanding of what causation is serves to constrain scientific progress. An alternative account of causation is offered. This is one of dispositionalism. We claim that by understanding ca…Read more
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20Book Symposium: Jason Holt, Kinetic Beauty: The Philosophical Aesthetics of SportSport, Ethics and Philosophy 17 (3): 369-392. 2023.This book symposium on Jason Holt’s Kinetic Beauty: The Philosophical Aesthetics of Sport includes commentaries from Stephen Mumford, John E. MacKinnon and Andrew Edgar with replies from Holt.
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4Glimpse of light: new meditations on first philosophyBloomsbury Academic. 2017.I firmly believed there was a world outside of our own minds... But all around me were challenges.... How could we be so sure there were such things existing apart from us? Philosopher Benedict Chilwell faces a crisis of confidence and hopes to resolve it in a self-imposed exile, far away in the north of Norway. From his cabin, he begins his meditations, pondering the mysteries of philosophy in the dark Arctic winter. Pride, a whale, love and lust, the Huldra, God and a chain of causes all inter…Read more
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Negation and denialIn Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge University Press. 2021.
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Negation and denialIn Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.), Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge University Press. 2021.
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47Absence and Nothing: The Philosophy of What There is NotOxford University Press. 2021.This book argues that nothing is not and explains how we can meaningfully speak about what is not.
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38Causation in Science and the Methods of Scientific DiscoveryOxford University Press. 2018.Causation is the main foundation upon which the possibility of science rests. Without causation, there would be no scientific understanding, explanation, prediction, nor application in new technologies. How we discover causal connections is no easy matter, however. Causation often lies hiddenfrom view and it is vital that we adopt the right methods for uncovering it. The choice of methods will inevitably reflect what one takes causation to be, making an accurate account of causation an even more…Read more
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11What Tends to Be: The Philosophy of Dispositional ModalityRoutledge. 2018.People tend to enjoy listening to music or watching television, sleeping at night and celebrating birthdays. Plants tend to grow and thrive in sunlight and mild temperatures. We also know that tendencies are not perfectly regular and that there are patterns in the natural world, which are reliable to a degree, but not absolute. What should we make of a world where things tend to be one way but could be another? Is there a position between necessity and possibility? If there is, what are the impl…Read more
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35Powers as Causal TruthmakersDisputatio 3 (4). 2021.Most theories of causation assume that it must involve some kind of necessity, or that the cause must be entirely sufficient for the effect. Others have already suggested that it should be possible to get a theory of causation from a theory of powers or dispositions. Such a project is far from complete but even here we find that the key point in a dispositional theory of causation has been lacking. This paper attempts to establish some of the most important principles of such a theory and in so …Read more
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599Formal Causes for Powers TheoristsIn Ludger Jansen & Petter Sandstad (eds.), Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Formal Causation, Routledge. pp. 87-106. 2021.In this paper we examine whether and how powers ontologies can back formal causation. We attempt to answer three questions: i) what is formal causation; ii) whether we need formal causation, and iii) whether formal causation need powers and whether it can be grounded in powers. We take formal causal explanations to be explanations in which something's essence features prominently in the explanans. Three kinds of essential explanations are distinguished: constitutive, consequential, and those sin…Read more
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15A Philosopher Looks at SportCambridge University Press. 2021.Why is sport so important among participants and spectators when its goals seem so pointless? Stephen Mumford's book introduces the reader to a host of philosophical topics found in sport, and argues that sports activities reflect diverse human experiences - including important values that we continue to contest. The author explores physicality, competition, how sport is best defined, ethics in sport, and issues of inclusion such as disability sports, the gender divide, and transgender athletes.…Read more
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29Powers and persistenceIn Benedikt Schick, Edmund Runggaldier & Ludger Honnefelder (eds.), Unity and Time in Metaphysics, Walter De Gruyter. pp. 223-236. 2009.
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2Introduction: George Molnar and PowersIn George Molnar (ed.), Powers: A Study in Metaphysics, Oxford University Press. 2003.This introductory chapter discusses the purposes for the creation of this book and briefly tells about the nature of metaphysics and the questions it tries to answer. It sheds light on the debate to which the late George Molnar was contributing and trying to answer, and shows in detail the background to the works of Molnar and Powers. The chapter also gives an account of the most controversial claims of the book. Lastly, the chapter explains the history of the unfinished manuscript and indicates…Read more
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DispositionsJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 32 (1): 193-197. 1998.
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23Function, structure, capacityStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (1): 76-80. 2006.
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6Russell's Defence of IdlenessRussell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 28 (1): 5-19. 2014.Russell has a famous defence of idleness. But I argue that he was not supporting idleness as such. Russell valued the active and productive life. He was instead attacking overwork and defending leisure, where such leisure is used productively to contribute to civilization. This paper offers a critique of Russell’s argument on the grounds that it is difficult to sustain a distinction between activities that do and do not contribute to civilization. The questions are then addressed of whether pure…Read more
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John G. Slater , Last Philosophical Testament: The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, volume 11, 1943-1968International Journal of Philosophical Studies 9 (2): 284-286. 2001.
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48A Pornographic Way of SeeingIn Hans Maes (ed.), Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 58. 2013.
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48Analysis of scientific truth status in controlled rehabilitation trialsJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 19 (4): 617-625. 2013.
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