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256Nonlinearity and metaphysical emergenceIn Stephen Mumford & Matthew Tugby (eds.), Metaphysics and Science, . 2013.The nonlinearity of a composite system, whereby certain of its features (including powers and behaviors) cannot be seen as linear or other broadly additive combinations of features of the system's composing entities, has been frequently seen as a mark of metaphysical emergence, coupling the dependence of a composite system on an underlying system of composing entities with the composite system's ontological autonomy from its underlying system. But why think that nonlinearity is a mark of emerge…Read more
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254Are There Indeterminate States of Affairs? YesIn Elizabeth B. Barnes (ed.), Current Controversies in Metaphysics, Routledge. pp. 105-119. 2014.Here I compare two accounts of metaphysical indeterminacy (MI): first, the 'meta-level' approach described by Elizabeth Barnes and Ross Cameron in the companion to this paper, on which every state of affairs (SOA) is itself precise/determinate, and MI is a matter of its being indeterminate which determinate SOA obtains; second, my preferred 'object-level' determinable-based approach, on which MI is a matter of its being determinate---or just plain true---that an indeterminate SOA obtains, where …Read more
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251Relativized metaphysical modality: Index and contextIn Otávio Bueno & Scott A. Shalkowski (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Modality, Routledge. 2018.Relativized Metaphysical Modality (RMM: Murray and Wilson, 'Relativized metaphysical modality', Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, 2012; Murray, Perspectives on Modal Metaphysics, 2017) exploits 'two-dimensionalist' resources to metaphysical, rather than epistemological, ends: the second dimension offers perspective-dependence without contingency, diverting attacks on 'Classical' analyses of modals (in effect, analyses validating S5 and the Barcan Formulae). Here, we extend the RMM program in two di…Read more
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243Carnap, the necessary a priori, and metaphysical anti-realismIn Stephen Blatti & Sandra Lapointe (eds.), Ontology after Carnap, . pp. 81-104. 2016.In Meaning and Necessity (1947/1950), Carnap advances an intensional semantic framework on which modal claims are true in virtue of semantical rules alone, and so are a priori. In 'Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology' (1950), Carnap advances an epistemic-ontological framework on which metaphysical claims are either trivial or meaningless, since lacking any means of substantive confirmation. Carnap carried out these projects two decades before Kripke influentially argued, in Naming and Necessity …Read more
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233Three Barriers to Philosophical ProgressIn Russell Blackford & Damien Broderick (eds.), Philosophy's Future: The Problem of Philosophical Progress, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 91--104. 2017.I argue that the present (if not insuperable) lack of fixed standards in philosophy is associated with three barriers to philosophical progress, pertaining to intra-disciplinary siloing, sociological rather than philosophical determinants of philosophical attention, and the encouraging of bias.
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219Resemblance-based resources for reductive singularism (or: How to be a Humean singularist about causation)The Monist 92 (1): 153-190. 2009.Hume argued that experience could not justify commonly held beliefs in singular causal effcacy, according to which individual or singular causes produce their effects or make their effects happen. Hume's discussion has been influential, as motivating the view that Causal reductionism (denying that causal efficacy is an irreducible feature of natural reality) requires Causal generalism (according to which causal relations are metaphysically constituted by patterns of events). Here I argue that ca…Read more
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219Determinables and DeterminatesThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2017.This is a comprehensive discussion of determinables, determinates, and their relation ('determination', for short), covering the historical development of these notions, the theoretical options for understanding them, and certain of their contemporary applications.
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214From constitutional necessities to causal necessitiesIn Helen Beebee & Nigel Sabbarton-Leary (eds.), The Semantics and Metaphysics of Natural Kinds, Routledge. 2010.Humeans and non-Humeans reasonably agree that there may be necessary connections between entities that are identical or merely partly distinct—between, e.g., sets and their individual members, fusions and their individual parts, instances of determinates and determinables, members of certain natural kinds and certain of their intrinsic properties, and (especially among physicalists) certain physical and mental states. Humeans maintain, however, that as per “Hume’s Dictum”, there are no necessary…Read more
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208Naturalist MetaphysicsMichigan Philosophy News. 2003.This newsletter contribution advances Wilson's naturalistic approach to the doing of metaphysics.
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207Review of The Mind in Nature, by C. B. Martin (review)Mind 119 (474): 503-511. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation)
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186The Question of MetaphysicsThe Philosophers' Magazine 90-96. 2016.I address the question of whether there is any role for metaphysics to play on which it is both non-redundant and capable of genuinely illuminating whatever subject matter is at issue. I first argue that metaphysical methodology itself obliges metaphysicians to take this question seriously. I then argue that the currently popular “hands-off” conception of metaphysical theorizing is unable to provide a satisfactory answer to the question of metaphysics. Third, I present my preferred “embedded” c…Read more
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179Abduction versus conceiving in modal epistemologySynthese 198 (Suppl 8): 2045-2076. 2019.How should modal reasoning proceed? Here we compare abduction-based and conceiving-based modal epistemologies, and argue that an abduction-based approach is preferable, and by a wide margin.
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175ForceIn Borchert (ed.), Philosophy of Science, Macmillan. 2006.This is an encyclopedia entry on the notion of force as entering into physical science.
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174Metaphysical EmergenceOxford University Press. 2021.Both the special sciences and ordinary experience suggest that there are metaphysically emergent entities and features: macroscopic goings-on (including mountains, trees, humans, and sculptures, and their characteristic properties) which depend on, yet are distinct from and distinctively efficacious with respect to, lower-level physical configurations and features. These appearances give rise to two key questions. First, what is metaphysical emergence, more precisely? Second, is there any metaph…Read more
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173CausalityIn Jessica Pfeifer & Sahotra Sarkar (eds.), The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, Routledge. pp. 90--100. 2006.Arguably no concept is more fundamental to science than that of causality, for investigations into cases of existence, persistence, and change in the natural world are largely investigations into the causes of these phenomena. Yet the metaphysics and epistemology of causality remain unclear. For example, the ontological categories of the causal relata have been taken to be objects (Hume 1739), events (Davidson 1967), properties (Armstrong 1978), processes (Salmon 1984), variables (Hitchcock 1993…Read more
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166On Mary Shepherd's Essay upon the Relation of Cause and EffectIn Eric Schliesser (ed.), Neglected Classics of Philosophy, Volume 2, Oxford University Press. 2022.Mary Shepherd (1777–1847) was a fierce and brilliant critic of Berkeley and Hume, who moreover offered strikingly original positive views about the nature of reality and our access to it which deserve much more attention (and credit, since she anticipates many prominent views) than they have received thus far. By way of illustration, I focus on Shepherd's 1824 Essay Upon the Relation of Cause and Effect, Controverting the Doctrine of Mr. Hume, Concerning the Nature of that Relation (ERCE). After…Read more
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165Quantum indeterminacy and the double-slit experimentPhilosophical Studies 178 (10): 3291-3317. 2021.In Calosi and Wilson (Phil Studies 2019/2018), we argue that on many interpretations of quantum mechanics (QM), there is quantum mechanical indeterminacy (QMI), and that a determinable-based account of metaphysical indeterminacy (MI), as per Wilson 2013 and 2016, properly accommodates the full range of cases of QMI. Here we argue that this approach is superior to other treatments of QMI on offer, both realistic and deflationary, in providing the basis for an intelligible explanation of the inter…Read more
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133Does anti-exceptionalism about logic entail that logic is a posteriori?Synthese 200 (3): 1-17. 2022.The debate between exceptionalists and anti-exceptionalists about logic is often framed as concerning whether the justification of logical theories is a priori or a posteriori (for short: whether logic is a priori or a posteriori). As we substantiate (S1), this framing more deeply encodes the usual anti-exceptionalist thesis that logical theories, like scientific theories, are abductively justified, coupled with the common supposition that abduction is an a posteriori mode of inference, in the s…Read more
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95Review of Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness, by John Perry (review)Philosophical Review 111 (4): 598-601. 2002.Perry, in this lucid, deep, and entertaining book , supposes that type-identity physicalism is antecedently plausible, and that rejecting this thesis requires good reason (this is
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94Review of Physicalism Deconstructed: Levels of Reality and the Mind-Body Problem, by Kevin Morris (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 1. 2020.Morris’s book is a valuable contribution. For the reasons below, I don’t think his case against NRP succeeds, and his version of EP faces a serious difficulty. Even so, this is an admirably clear, subtle, and well-informed brief, and philosophers interested in the structure of natural reality have much to gain from Morris’s insightful discussion and argumentation.
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93On the Notion of Diachronic EmergenceIn Amanda Bryant & David Yates (eds.), Rethinking Emergence, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.Is there a need for a distinctively diachronic conception of metaphysical emergence? Here I argue to the contrary. In the main, my strategy consists in considering a representative sample of accounts of purportedly diachronic metaphysical emergence, and arguing that in each case, the purportedly diachronic emergence at issue either can (and should) be subsumed under a broadly synchronic account of metaphysical emergence, or else is better seen as simply a case of causation. In addition, I consid…Read more
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92Correction to: Grounding-Based Formulations of PhysicalismTopoi 38 (1): 261-261. 2019.This correction reflects that I forgot to cite Stephan Leuenberger's unpublished work in the paragraph beginning "More promising, perhaps, is the orthodox view ..." in Section 5. The overall argument of Section 5 is a development of an argument I gave in footnote 27 of 'No Work for a Theory of Grounding' (Inquiry, 2014). At issue in the relevant sections of 'No Work...' and 'Grounding-based Formulations...' is whether a proponent of Grounding has resources to accommodate strongly emergent phenom…Read more
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85Between scientism and abstractionism in the metaphysics of emergenceIn Sophie Gibb, Robin Findlay Hendry & Tom Lancaster (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Emergence, Routledge. pp. 157-176. 2018.I discuss certain representative accounts of metaphysical emergence falling into three broad categories, assessing their prospects for satisfying certain criteria; the ensuing dialectic has a bit of the Goldilocks fable about it. At one end of the spectrum are what I call ‘scientistic’ accounts, which characterize metaphysical emergence by appeal to one or another specific feature commonly registered in scientific descriptions of seeming cases of emergence; such accounts, I argue, typically fail…Read more
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19Three Barriers to Philosophical ProgressIn Russell Blackford & Damien Broderick (eds.), Philosophy's Future, Wiley. 2017-04-27.I argue that the best explanation of the multiplicity of available frameworks for treating any given philosophical topic is that philosophy currently (though not insuperably) lacks fixed standards; I then go on to identify three barriers to philosophical progress associated with our present epistemic situation. First is that the lack of fixed standards encourages what I call “intra‐disciplinary siloing,” and associated dialectical and argumentative failings; second is that the lack of fixed stan…Read more
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16Hume's Dictum and Metaphysical ModalityIn Barry Loewer & Jonathan Schaffer (eds.), A Companion to David Lewis, Wiley. 2015.Many contemporary philosophers accept a strong generalization of Hume's denial of necessary causal connections, in the form of Hume's dictum (HD), according to which there are no metaphysically necessary connections between distinct, intrinsically typed entities. Hume's version of his dictum occurs during his investigation into the source of the idea of causal connection. The most powerful role that HD plays in Lewis's system concerns its providing a basis for, as Lewis puts it, a "principle of …Read more
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Physicalism, Emergentism, and Fundamental ForcesDissertation, Cornell University. 2001.Physicalism is the thesis that all entities are nothing over and above physical entities. Here I investigate into whether and how physicalism might be formulated so as to substantively contrast with its best traditional rivals---including and especially emergentism. Formulating physicalism requires making sense of both the physical/non-physical distinction and the nothing/something over and above distinction. It has been argued that no distinction between the physical and the non-physical exists…Read more
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