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73Four-Eighths Hephaistos: Artifacts and Living Things in AristotleHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 14 (1). 1997.There is considerable dispute in the literature as to how much, in Aristotle's universe, living things and artifacts really have in common. To what extent is the relation between form and matter in living things comparable to the relation between form and matter in artifacts? Aristotle no doubt employs artifact-analogies rather frequently in describing the workings of living things. But where does the usefulness of these analogies reach its limits? In this paper, I argue that Aristotle's art…Read more
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247Review of Henry Laycock, Words Without Objects: Semantics, Ontology, and Logic for Non-Singularity (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (1): 160-163. 2007.
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309Varieties of ontological dependenceIn Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality, Cambridge University Press. pp. 186. 2012.A significant reorientation is currently under way in analytic metaphysics, away from an almost exclusive focus on questions of existence and towards a greater concentration on questions concerning the dependence of one type of phenomenon on another. Surprisingly, despite the central role dependence has played in philosophy since its inception, interest in a systematic study of this concept has only recently surged among contemporary metaphysicians. In this paper, I focus on a promising account …Read more
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128On the substantive nature of disagreements in ontologyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (1). 2005.This paper concerns a fundamental dispute in ontology between the “Foundational Ontologist”, who believes that there is only one correct way of characterizing what there is, and the ontological “Skeptic”, who believes that there are viable alternative characterizations of what there is. I examine in detail an intriguing recent proposal in Dorr (2005), which promises to yield (i) a way of interpreting the Skeptic by means of a counterfactual semantics; and (ii) a way of converting the Skeptic to …Read more
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169Constitution and similarityPhilosophical Studies 117 (3): 327-363. 2004.Whenever an object constitutes, makes up or composes another object, the objects in question share a striking number of properties. This paper is addressed to the question of what might account for the intimate relation and striking similarity between constitutionally related objects. According to my account, the similarities between constitutionally related objects are captured at least in part by means of a principle akin to that of strong supervenience. My paper addresses two main issues. Fir…Read more
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457In Defense of SubstanceGrazer Philosophische Studien 91 (1): 59-80. 2015.In his “Farewell to Substance: A Differentiated Leave-Taking”, Peter Simons reaches the provocative conclusion that the concept of substance, as it is employed by metaphysicians, has become obsolete, since in the end there may be nothing at all which answers to it. No harm is done, Simons allows, if we continue to retain an everyday notion of substance, as long as we are aware of the limitations of this practice: there is no reason in general to expect that what is salient from our specifically …Read more
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176The Causal Priority of Form in AristotleStudia Philosophica Estonica 7 (2): 113. 2014.In various texts, Aristotle assigns priority to form, in its role as a principle and cause, over matter and the matter-form compound. Given the central role played by this claim in Aristotle's search for primary substance in the Metaphysics, it is important to understand what motivates him in locating the primary causal responsibility for a thing's being what it is with the form, rather than the matter. According to Met. Theta.8, actuality [ energeia / entelecheia ] in general is prior to potent…Read more
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133Genericity and logical formMind and Language 14 (4). 1999.In this paper I propose a novel treatment of generic sentences, which proceeds by means of different levels of analysis. According to this account, all generic sentences (I-generics and D-generics alike) are initially treated in a uniform manner, as involving higher-order predication (following the work of George Boolos, James Higginbotham and Barry Schein on plurals). Their non-uniform character, however, re-emerges at subsequent levels of analysis, when the higher-order predications of the fir…Read more
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576Substance, Independence and UnityIn Edward Feser (ed.), Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 169-195. 2013.In this paper, I consider particular attempts by E. J. Lowe and Michael Gorman at providing an independence criterion of substancehood and argue that the stipulative exclusion of non-particulars and proper parts (or constituents) from such accounts raises difficult issues for their proponents. The results of the present discussion seem to indicate that, at least for the case of composite entities, a unity criterion of substancehood might have at least as much, and perhaps more, to offer than an…Read more
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1094Where grounding and causation part ways: comments on SchafferPhilosophical Studies 173 (1): 101-112. 2016.Does the notion of ground, as it has recently been employed by metaphysicians, point to a single unified phenomenon? Jonathan Schaffer holds that the phenomenon of grounding exhibits the unity characteristic of a single genus. In defense of this hypothesis, Schaffer proposes to take seriously the analogy between causation and grounding. More specifically, Schaffer argues that both grounding and causation are best approached through a single formalism, viz., that utilized by structural equation m…Read more
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989Essence, Necessity, and ExplanationIn Tuomas E. Tahko (ed.), Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 187--206. 2012.It is common to think of essence along modal lines: the essential truths, on this approach, are a subset of the necessary truths. But Aristotle conceives of the necessary truths as being distinct and derivative from the essential truths. Such a non-modal conception of essence also constitutes a central component of the neo-Aristotelian approach to metaphysics defended over the last several decades by Kit Fine. Both Aristotle and Fine rely on a distinction between what belongs to the essence prop…Read more
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764Mereological Sums and Singular TermsIn Shieva Kleinschmidt (ed.), Mereology and Location, Oxford University Press. pp. 209-235. 2014.The relative merits of standard mereology have received quite a bit of attention in recent years from metaphysicians concerned with the part/whole properties of material objects. A question that has not been pursued to the same degree, however, is what sort of semantic repercussions a commitment to mereological sums in the standard sense might have in particular on the predicted behavior of singular terms and our practices of using such terms to refer to objects. The apparent mismatch between …Read more
Neuchâtel, Canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
PhilPapers Editorships
Essence and Essentialism |