•  324
    The Action of the Whole
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 87 (1): 67-87. 2013.
    I discuss an argument for the monistic idea that the cosmos is the one and only fundamental thing, drawing on the idea that the cosmos is the one and only thing that evolves by the fundamental laws
  •  586
    Causation by disconnection
    Philosophy of Science 67 (2): 285-300. 2000.
    The physical and/or intrinsic connection approach to causation has become prominent in the recent literature, with Salmon, Dowe, Menzies, and Armstrong among its leading proponents. I show that there is a type of causation, causation by disconnection, with no physical or intrinsic connection between cause and effect. Only Hume-style conditions approaches and hybrid conditions-connections approaches appear to be able to handle causation by disconnection. Some Hume-style, extrinsic, absence-relati…Read more
  •  198
    Principled chances
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 54 (1): 27-41. 2003.
    There are at least three core principles that define the chance role: (1) the Principal Principle, (2) the Basic Chance Principle, and (3) the Humean Principle. These principles seem mutually incompatible. At least, no extant account of chance meets more than one of them. I offer an account of chance which meets all three: L*-chance. So the good news is that L*-chance meets (1)–(3). The bad news is that L*-chance turns out unlawful and unstable.
  •  469
    Necessitarian propositions
    Synthese 189 (1): 119-162. 2012.
    Kaplan (drawing on Montague and Prior, inter alia) made explicit the idea of world and time neutral propositions, which bear truth values only relative to world and time parameters. There was then a debate over the role of time. Temporalists sided with Kaplan in maintaining time neutral propositions with time relative truth values, while eternalists claimed that all propositions specify the needed time information and so bear the same truth value at all times. But there never was much of a paral…Read more
  •  226
    Knowledge in the image of assertion
    Philosophical Issues 18 (1): 1-19. 2008.
    How must knowledge be formed, if made in the image of assertion? That is, given that knowledge plays the normative role of governing what one may assert, what can be inferred about the structure of the knowledge relation from this role? I will argue that what one may assert is sensitive to the question under discussion, and conclude that what one knows must be relative to a question. In short, knowledge in the image of assertion is question-relative knowledge
  •  56
    Trumping Preemption
    Journal of Philosophy 97 (4): 165. 2000.
  •  493
    Deterministic Chance?
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (2): 113-140. 2007.
    Can there be deterministic chance? That is, can there be objective chance values other than 0 or 1, in a deterministic world? I will argue that the answer is no. In a deterministic world, the only function that can play the role of chance is one that outputs just Os and 1s. The role of chance involves connections from chance to credence, possibility, time, intrinsicness, lawhood, and causation. These connections do not allow for deterministic chance
  •  1014
    The deflationary metaontology of Thomasson's ordinary objects
    Philosophical Books 50 (3): 142-157. 2009.
    In Ordinary Objects, Thomasson pursues an integrated conception of ontology and metaontology. In ontology, she defends the existence of shoes, ships, and other ordinary objects. In metaontology, she defends a deflationary view of ontological inquiry, designed to suck the air out of arguments against ordinary objects. The result is an elegant and insightful defense of a common sense worldview. I am sympathetic—in spirit if not always in letter—with Thomasson’s ontology. But I am skeptical of her …Read more
  •  513
    Skepticism, Contextualism, and Discrimination
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69 (1): 138-155. 2004.
    The skeptic says that “knowledge” is an absolute term, whereas the contextualist says that ‘knowledge” is a relationally absolute term. Which is the better hypothesis about “knowledge”? And what implications do these hypotheses about “knowledge” have for knowledge? I argue that the skeptic has the better hypothesis about “knowledge”, but that both hypotheses about “knowledge” have deeply anti‐skeptical implications for knowledge, since both presuppose our capacity for epistemically salient discr…Read more
  •  284
    Quantum mechanics seems to portray nature as nonseparable, in the sense that it allows spatiotemporally separated entities to have states that cannot be fully specified without reference to each other. This is often said to implicate some form of “holism.” We aim to clarify what this means, and why this seems plausible. Our core idea is that the best explanation for nonseparability is a “common ground” explanation, which casts nonseparable entities in a holistic light, as scattered reflections o…Read more
  •  165
    Overlappings: Probability-raising without causation
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (1). 2000.
    The leading regularity, counterfactual, and agential accounts of causation converge on the idea that causation is probability-raising. While the necessity of probability-raising for causation remains in dispute, the sufficiency of probability-raising for causation is generally assumed, at least in the direct (no intermediaries involved) and precisely described case. I offer a class of counterexamples: overlappings.
  •  405
    What shifts? : Thresholds, standards, or alternatives?
    In Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth, Oxford University Press. 2005.
    Much of the extant discussion focuses on the question of whether contextualism resolves skeptical paradoxes. Understandably. Yet there has been less discussion as to the internal structure of contextualist theories. Regrettably. Here, for instance, are two questions that could stand further discussion: (i) what is the linguistic basis for contextualism and (ii) what is the parameter that shifts with context?
  •  325
    Metaphysical Semantics Meets Multiple Realizability
    Analysis 73 (4): 736-751. 2013.
    Metaphysical semantics is supposed to connect the nonfundamental to the fundamental in a distinctively “linguistic” way, explaining how nonfundamental truths can be grounded in fundamental facts , and so inducing a radically eliminative vision of the nonfundamental as mere talk. I wonder how the story goes when a single nonfundamental truth can be grounded in many different fundamental facts. For instance, the truth that Moore has hands can presumably be grounded in many different distributions …Read more
  •  563
    Grounding, transitivity, and contrastivity
    In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality, Cambridge University Press. pp. 122-138. 2012.
  •  704
    The least discerning and most promiscuous truthmaker
    Philosophical Quarterly 60 (239). 2010.
    I argue that the one and only truthmaker is the world. This view can be seen as arisingfrom (i) the view that truthmaking is a relation of grounding holding between true propositions and fundamental entities, together with (ii) the view that the world is the one and only fundamental entity. I argue that this view provides an elegant and economical account of the truthmakers, while solving the problem of negative existentials, in a way that proves ontologically revealing
  •  456
    Negative causation occurs when an absence serves as cause, effect, or causal intermediary. Negative causation is genuine causation, or so I shall argue. It involves no physical connection between cause and effect. Thus causes need not be physically connected to their effects.
  •  508
    Truthmaker commitments
    Philosophical Studies 141 (1): 7-19. 2008.
    On the truthmaker view of ontological commitment [Heil (From an ontological point of view, 2003); Armstrong (Truth and truthmakers, 2004); Cameron (Philosophical Studies, 2008)], a theory is committed to the entities needed in the world for the theory to be made true. I argue that this view puts truthmaking to the wrong task. None of the leading accounts of truthmaking—via necessitation, supervenience, or grounding—can provide a viable measure of ontological commitment. But the grounding account…Read more
  •  1146
    Contrastive causation
    Philosophical Review 114 (3): 327-358. 2005.
    Causation is widely assumed to be a binary relation: c causes e. I will argue that causation is a quaternary, contrastive relation: c rather than C* causes e rather than E*, where C* and E* are nonempty sets of contrast events. Or at least, I will argue that treating causation as contrastive helps resolve some paradoxes.
  •  189
    Perceptual knowledge derailed
    Philosophical Studies 112 (1): 31-45. 2003.
    The tracking theory treats knowledge as counterfactual covariation of belief and truth through a sphere of possibilities. I argue that the tracking theory cannot respect perceptual knowledge, because perceptual belief covaries with truth through a discontinuous scatter of possibilities.
  •  483
    Overdetermining causes
    Philosophical Studies 114 (1-2). 2003.
    When two rocks shatter the window at once, what causes the window to shatter? Is the throwing of each individual rock a cause of the window shattering, or are the throwings only causes collectively? This question bears on the analysis of causation, and the metaphysics of macro-causation. I argue that the throwing of each individual rock is a cause of the window shattering, and generally that individual overdeterminers are causes.
  •  431
    Knowledge, relevant alternatives and missed clues
    Analysis 61 (3): 202-208. 2001.
    The classic version of the relevant alternatives theory (RAT) identifies knowledge with the elimination of relevant alternatives (Dretske 1981, Stine 1976, Lewis 1996, inter alia). I argue that the RAT is trapped by the problem of the missed clue, in which the subject sees but does not appreciate decisive information.
  •  212
    The problem of free mass: Must properties cluster?
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (1). 2003.
    Properties come in clusters. It seems impossible, for instance, that a mass could float free, unattached to any other property. David Armstrong takes this as a reductio of the bundle theory and an argument for substrata, while Peter Simons and Arda Denkel reply by supplementing the bundle theory with accounts of property interdependencies. I argue against both views. Virtually all plausible ontologies turn out to be committed to the existence of free masses.
  •  667
    From contextualism to contrastivism
    Philosophical Studies 119 (1-2): 73-104. 2004.
    Contextualism treats ‘knows’ as an indexical that denotes different epistemic properties in different contexts. Contrastivism treats ‘knows’ as denoting a ternary relation with a slot for a contrast proposition. I will argue that contrastivism resolves the main philosophical problems of contextualism, by employing a better linguistic model. Contextualist insights are best understood by contrastivist theory.
  •  304
    The individuation of tropes
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (2). 2001.
    A tropel is a particular property: the redness of a rose, the roundness of the moon. It is generally supposed that tropes are individuated by primitive quantity: this redness, that roundness. I argme that the trope theorist is far better served by individuating tropes by spatiotemporal relation: here redness, there roundness. In short, tropes are not this-suches but here-suches
  •  302
    Causation, influence, and effluence
    Analysis 61 (1). 2001.
    Causation, says David Lewis now, is to be understood as the ancestral of counterfactual influence, where C influences E (roughly) iff little changes in C map onto big changes in E. I argue that the influence account provides neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for causation, and suggest that what is missing is the notion of effluence, or physical connection.
  •  750
    Spacetime the one substance
    Philosophical Studies 145 (1). 2009.
    What is the relation between material objects and spacetime regions? Supposing that spacetime regions are one sort of substance, there remains the question of whether or not material objects are a second sort of substance. This is the question of dualistic versus monistic substantivalism. I will defend the monistic view. In particular, I will maintain that material objects should be identified with spacetime regions. There is the spacetime manifold, and the fundamental properties are pinned dire…Read more
  •  617
    Review: Andreas Hüttemann: what's wrong with microphysicalism? (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (2): 253-257. 2008.
    In What’s Wrong With Microphysicalism?, Andreas H üttemann argues against the ontological priority of the microphysical, in favour of a ‘pluralism’ that accepts physical systems of all scales as interdependent equals. This is thoughtful and original work, deploying an understanding of the relevant physics to mount a serious challenge to the dominant microphysicalist view.
  •  2328
    On what grounds what
    In David Manley, David J. Chalmers & Ryan Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, Oxford University Press. pp. 347-383. 2009.
    On the now dominant Quinean view, metaphysics is about what there is. Metaphysics so conceived is concerned with such questions as whether properties exist, whether meanings exist, and whether numbers exist. I will argue for the revival of a more traditional Aristotelian view, on which metaphysics is about what grounds what. Metaphysics so revived does not bother asking whether properties, meanings, and numbers exist (of course they do!) The question is whether or not they are fundamental.
  •  616
    Writing the Book of the World (review)
    Philosophical Review 123 (1): 125-129. 2014.