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923Resemblance Nominalism: A Solution to the Problem of UniversalsOxford University Press. 2002.Gardeners, poets, lovers, and philosophers are all interested in the redness of roses; but only philosophers wonder how it is that two different roses can share the same property. Are red things red because they resemble each other? Or do they resemble each other because they are red? Since the 1970s philosophers have tended to favour the latter view, and held that a satisfactory account of properties must involve the postulation of either universals or tropes. But Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra …Read more
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168Metaphysical nihilism defended: Reply to Lowe and PaseauAnalysis 62 (2). 2002.I believe in metaphysical nihilism, the thesis that there could have been no concrete objects, because I believe in a version of the subtraction argument, the subtraction argument*, that proves it. But both Jonathan Lowe (2002) and Alexander Paseau (2002) express doubts about the subtraction argument*. Paseau thinks the argument is invalid, and Lowe argues that invoking concrete* objects is unnecessary. Furthermore Lowe attempts to rebut my objections (Rodriguez-Pereyra 2000) to his anti-nihilis…Read more
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96Leibniz's argument for the Identity of Indiscernibles in Primary TruthsIn M. Carrara, A. M. Nunziante & G. Tomasi (eds.), Individuals, minds and bodies: themes from Leibniz, Franz Steiner Verlag. 2004.In this paper I reconstruct Leibniz's argument for the Identity of Indiscernibles in his *Primary Truths*. I criticise the alternative interpretation put forward by Cover and O'Leary-Hawthorne and defend my own interpretation, both on philosophical and hermeneutical grounds.
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934Truthmaker Maximalism defended againAnalysis 75 (1): 3-8. 2015.In this note we shall argue that Milne’s new effort does not refute Truthmaker Maximalism. According to Truthmaker Maximalism, every truth has a truthmaker. Milne has attempted to refute it using the following self-referential sentence M: This sentence has no truthmaker. Essential to his refutation is that M is like the Gödel sentence and unlike the Liar, and one way in which Milne supports this assimilation is through the claim that his proof is essentially object-level and not semantic. In Sec…Read more
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3El hacer verdad, la implicación y la tesis de la conjunciónRevista Latinoamericana de Filosofia 33 (1): 55-85. 2007.
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524The Disjunction and Conjunction ThesesMind 118 (470): 427-443. 2009.This paper is a response to replies by Dan López de Sa and Mark Jago to my ‘Truthmaking, Entailment, and the Conjuction Thesis’. In that paper, my main aim was to argue against the Entailment Principle by arguing against the Conjunction Thesis, which is entailed by the Entailment Principle. In the course of so doing, although not essential for my project in that paper, I defended the Disjunction Thesis. López de Sa has objected both to my defence of the Disjunction Thesis and my case against the…Read more
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795The Subtraction Arguments for Metaphysical Nihilism: Compared and DefendedIn Tyron Goldschmidt (ed.), The Puzzle of Existence. Why is There Something rather than Nothing?, Routledge. pp. 197-214. 2013.The subtraction argument, originally put forward by Thomas Baldwin (1996), is intended to establish Metaphysical Nihilism, the thesis that there could have been no concrete objects. Some modified versions of the argument have been proposed in order to avoid some difficulties faced by the original argument. In this paper I shall concentrate on two of those versions, the so-called subtraction argument* (presented and defended in Rodriguez-Pereyra 1997, 2000, 2002), and Efird and Stoneham’s recent…Read more
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40Resemblance nominalism and abstract nounsAnalysis 75 (2): 223-231. 2015.This is a reply to Byeong-Uk Yi who argued that my _Resemblance Nominalism_ fails to account for sentences featuring abstract nouns like Carmine resembles vermillion more than it resembles French Blue and Scarlet is a colour. I accept his criticism of what I said in my book on Resemblance Nominalism about, but then I go on to show how can be accounted for. I reject his criticism of what I said in my book about. I also show how Resemblance Nominalism can account for other sentences featuring abst…Read more
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487Paradigms and Russell's Resemblance RegressAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (4). 2004.Resemblance Nominalism is the view that denies universals and tropes and claims that what makes F-things F is their resemblances. A famous argument against Resemblance Nominalism is Russell's regress of resemblances, according to which the resemblance nominalist falls into a vicious infinite regress. Aristocratic Resemblance Nominalism, as opposed to Egalitarian Resemblance Nominalism, is the version of Resemblance Nominalism that claims that what makes F-things F is that they resemble the F-par…Read more
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127Leibniz's Principle of Identity of IndiscerniblesOxford University Press UK. 2014.Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra presents an original study of the place and role of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's philosophy. The Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles rules out numerically distinct but perfectly similar things; Leibniz derived it from more basic principles and used it to establish important philosophical theses. Rodriguez-Pereyra aims to establish what Leibniz meant by the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles, what his arguments for and from it were, and to ass…Read more
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1What is wrong with the relational theory of change?In Hallvard Lillehammer & Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (eds.), Real Metaphysics, Routledge. pp. 184--195. 2003.
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136Indiscernible universalsInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 60 (6): 604-624. 2017.Universals have traditionally thought to obey the identity of indiscernibles, that is, it has traditionally been thought that there can be no perfectly similar universals. But at least in the conception of universals as immanent, there is nothing that rules out there being indiscernible universals. In this paper, I shall argue that there is useful work indiscernible universals can do, and so there might be reason to postulate indiscernible universals. In particular, I shall argue that postulatin…Read more
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262La anotación 202 de las Investigaciones Filosóficas de WittgensteinLogos. Anales Del Seminario de Metafísica [Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España] 27 (2): 25-3. 1993.The paper clarifies the sense of remark 202 of Wittgenstein's *Philosophical Investigations* with respect to its relation to the private language argument. It argues, against what some have maintained, that remark 202 is not meant to reject the possibility of a private language as this is defined in remark 243.
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98The argument from almost indiscerniblesPhilosophical Studies 174 (12): 3005-3020. 2017.What I call the argument from almost indiscernibles is an argument, put forward by Robert Adams in 1979, for the possibility of indiscernibles based on the possibility of almost indiscernibles. The argument is that if almost indiscernibles are possible, indiscernibles are possible, but since almost indiscernible are possible, indiscernibles are possible. The argument seems to be an improvement over the mere appeal to intuitions, like that suggested by Max Black, that situations in which there ar…Read more
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882Resemblance Nominalism and Russell's regressAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (3). 2001.Bertrand Russell argued that any attempt to get rid of universals in favor of resemblances fails. He argued that no resemblance theory could avoid postulating a universal of resemblance without falling prey to a vicious infinite regress. He added that admitting such a universal of resemblance made it pointless to avoid other universals. In this paper I defend resemblance nominalism from both of Russell's points by arguing that (a) resemblance nominalism can avoid the postulation of a universal o…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |