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43Introduction: Chance and temporal asymmetryIn Chance and Temporal Asymmetry, Oxford University Press. 2014.This volume is a collection of cutting-edge research papers in scientifically informed metaphysics, tackling a range of philosophical puzzles which have emerged from recent work on chance and temporal asymmetry. How do the probabilities found in fundamental physics and the probabilities of the special sciences relate to one another? How can we account for the normative significance of chance? Can constraints on the initial conditions of the universe underwrite the second law of thermodynamics, a…Read more
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805Chance and ContextIn Alastair Wilson (ed.), Chance and Temporal Asymmetry, Oxford University Press. 2014.The most familiar philosophical conception of objective chance renders determinism incompatible with non-trivial chances. This conception – associated in particular with the work of David Lewis – is not a good fit with our use of the word ‘chance’ and its cognates in ordinary discourse. In this paper we show how a generalized framework for chance can reconcile determinism with non-trivial chances, and provide for a more charitable interpretation of ordinary chance-talk. According to our proposal…Read more
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117Modality: Metaphysics, Logic and Epistemology (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (4). 2011.No abstract
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69Everettian Confirmation and Sleeping BeautyBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (3): 573-598. 2014.Darren Bradley has recently appealed to observation selection effects to argue that conditionalization presents no special problem for Everettian quantum mechanics, and to defend the ‘halfer’ answer to the puzzle of Sleeping Beauty. I assess Bradley’s arguments and conclude that while he is right about confirmation in Everettian quantum mechanics, he is wrong about Sleeping Beauty. This result is doubly good news for Everettians: they can endorse Bayesian confirmation theory without qualificatio…Read more
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233Everettian Confirmation and Sleeping BeautyBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science (3). 2013.Darren Bradley has recently appealed to observation selection effects to argue that conditionalization presents no special problem for Everettian quantum mechanics, and to defend the ‘halfer’ answer to the puzzle of Sleeping Beauty. I assess Bradley’s arguments and conclude that while he is right about confirmation in Everettian quantum mechanics, he is wrong about Sleeping Beauty. This result is doubly good news for Everettians: they can endorse Bayesian confirmation theory without qualificatio…Read more
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524Metaphysical CausationNoûs 52 (4): 723-751. 2018.There is a systematic and suggestive analogy between grounding and causation. In my view, this analogy is no coincidence. Grounding and causation are alike because grounding is a type of causation: metaphysical causation. In this paper I defend the identification of grounding with metaphysical causation, drawing on the causation literature to explore systematic connections between grounding and metaphysical dependence counterfactuals, and I outline a non-reductive counterfactual theory of ground…Read more
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