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44Kant's compatibilismCornell University Press. 1994.I begin this study with a review of the 18th-century figures, Leibniz, Wolff, Crusius, Hume and the pre-critical Kant concerning causation, free will and compatibilism. This review provides the background for an investigation into and a reconstruction of Kant's thesis of the compatibility of causal determinism and human freedom. I formulate Kant's argument for causal determinism and present his defense of that argument, devoting an extended discussion to the recent literature regarding its key p…Read more
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37On constitution and all-fusionsPacific Philosophical Quarterly 81 (3). 2000.Recently, Judith Jarvis Thomson has offered a definition of the constitution relation against the backdrop of a robust ontology of objects she calls all‐fusions. Despite finding her reasons to believe in all manner of all‐fusions intriguing, in this paper I note an unsatisfactory consequence of her position for constitution‐theorists. I argue that an unrestricted commitmentto all‐fusions should lead the constitution‐theorist to reject her definitionof the constitution relation, on the grounds th…Read more
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36Iblis, Abraham, and Teleological SuspensionsThe Monist 104 (3): 281-299. 2021.In this essay, I shall scold a Jinn, recommend a position in Islamic theology to my Muslim neighbors, explore a famous dilemma recounted in Genesis, and participate in a debate occasioned by an interpretive puzzle in Kierkegaard studies. I investigate two opposed ways of understanding the phrase, ‘the teleological suspension of the ethical’, offer some critical remarks on the interpretation of that phrase in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, and defend a range of considerations that speak in fav…Read more
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32Feinberg on the Criterion of Moral PersonhoodJournal of Applied Philosophy 13 (3): 311-318. 1996.In a very influential paper, Abortion, Joel Feinberg offers a series of arguments against four popular proposals for the criterion of moral personhood and defends a fifth proposal. In this paper, I demonstrate that two widely‐accepted arguments employed by Feinberg against the modified species criterion and the strict potentiality criterion, respectively, are unsound. Moreover, I argue that there is a general feature of his inquiry into the criteria for moral personhood which undermines his effo…Read more
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32Science, Skepticism, Scripture, and Supertasks: Replies to Torrance, Deng, Madueme, Goldschmidt and LebensJournal of Analytic Theology 5 637-659. 2017.ㅤ
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31A Response to A. A. Long’s “The Stoics on World-Conflagration and Everlasting Recurrence”Southern Journal of Philosophy 28 (1): 149-158. 1990.
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29Universalism, Four Dimensionalism, and VaguenessPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (3): 547-560. 2000.Anyone who endorses Universalism and Four Dimensionalism owes us an argument for those controversial mereological theses. One may put forth David Lewis’s and Ted Sider’s arguments from vagueness. However, the success of those arguments depends on the rejection of the epistemic view of vagueness, and thus opens the door to a fatal confrontation with one particularly troubling version of The Problem of the Many. The alternative for friends of Universalism and Four Dimensionalism is to abandon thos…Read more
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21Chapter 1. The Many Problematic Solutions to the Problem of the ManyIn A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, Cornell University Press. pp. 11-44. 2018.
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16Best Possible World TheodicyIn Justin P. McBrayer & Daniel Howard‐Snyder (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, Wiley. 2013.Well‐known arguments for atheism have been grounded on the alleged lack of morally justifying reasons to permit particular moral and natural evils and on the thesis that God would have to create the best possible world. After discussing obstacles to the suggestion that there is a best of all possible worlds, I examine the prospects for responding to these atheistic arguments by exploring the case for our own world's being the best of all possible worlds against the backdrop of the multiverse hyp…Read more
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16I. Familiar Characterizations of SculptureIn Christy Mag Uidhir (ed.), Art and Abstract Objects, Oxford University Press. pp. 223. 2013.
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15Non‐Naturalistic MetaphysicsIn Kelly James Clark (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism, Wiley. 2016.First, I pair and critically discuss a methodological naturalism (construed as a research program heavily inspired by epistemological naturalism) with the kind of work that is currently being practiced under the heading “contemporary analytic metaphysics.” Second, I pair and critically discuss an ontological naturalism with the kind of work that could be described under the heading “theistically informed metaphysics.” Each pairing provides a window on the sort of confrontation to be had between …Read more
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14A grotesque in the gardenWilliam B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2020.A short philosophical narrative about an angel wrestling with the decision to rebel against God and leave his post in the Garden of Eden.
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12Précis of The Metaphysics of HyperspacePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (2): 422-426. 2008.
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11Chapter 4. The Criterion of Personal IdentityIn A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, Cornell University Press. pp. 113-144. 2018.
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9Chapter 5. A Portrait of the Human PersonIn A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, Cornell University Press. pp. 145-148. 2018.
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8I am not an animalIn Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (ed.), Persons: Human and Divine, Oxford University Press. pp. 216--34. 2007.
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7Chapter 6. Pre-Persons, Post-Persons, Non-Persons, and Person-PartsIn A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, Cornell University Press. pp. 149-166. 2018.
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7Chapter 7. Nothing But Dust and AshesIn A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, Cornell University Press. pp. 167-192. 2018.
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6BibliographyIn A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, Cornell University Press. pp. 193-198. 2018.
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5On Constitution and All‐FusionsPacific Philosophical Quarterly 81 (3): 237-245. 2000.Recently, Judith Jarvis Thomson has offered a definition of the constitution relation against the backdrop of a robust ontology of objects she calls all‐fusions. Despite finding her reasons to believe in all manner of all‐fusions intriguing, in this paper I note an unsatisfactory consequence of her position for constitution‐theorists. I argue that an unrestricted commitmentto all‐fusions should lead the constitution‐theorist to reject her definitionof the constitution relation, on the grounds th…Read more
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4Fission, Freedom, and the FallIn Jonathan L. Kvanvig (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion: Volume 2, Oxford University Press Uk. 2009.
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4Chapter 3. Vagueness and CompositionIn A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, Cornell University Press. pp. 72-112. 2018.
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3Chapter 2. Persistence and the Partist ViewIn A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, Cornell University Press. pp. 45-71. 2018.
Bellingham, Washington, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion |
Metaphysics |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Aesthetics |
Normative Ethics |