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11The Problem of Modal Upgrading in Aristotle’s Apodictic SyllogisticJournal of Ancient Philosophy 17 (1): 96-120. 2023.This is another contribution to the unending controversy over the two Barbaras. My approach to the problem is hopefully quite new: I wish to view the issue through the prism of modal upgrading. Modal upgrading occurs when a subject term that has only been predicated of assertorically in the premises is predicated of apodictically either: i) in the conclusion of a given syllogism, or; ii) in some proposition that is derived from either the premises of the given syllogism alone or the premises in …Read more
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11Probability and rational choicePrincipia: An International Journal of Epistemology 18 (1): 01. 2014.In this paper I will discuss the rationality of reasoning about the future. There are two things that we might like to know about the future: which hypotheses are true and what will happen next. To put it in philosophical language, I aim to show that there are methods by which inferring to a generalization and inferring to the next instance can be shown to be normative and the method itself shown to be rational, where this is due in part to being based on evidence and in part on a prior rational…Read more
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10High Confirmation and Inductive ValidityStudies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 46 (1): 119-142. 2016.Does a high degree of confirmation make an inductive argument valid? I will argue that it depends on the kind of question to which the argument is meant to be providing an answer. We should distinguish inductive generalization from inductive extrapolation even in cases where they might appear to have the same answer, and also from confirmation of a hypothesis.
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9A Dialectical View of “Freedom and Resentment”Croatian Journal of Philosophy 14 (3): 325-341. 2014.In this paper I wish to look at the structure of Strawson’s argument in the classic paper “Freedom and Resentment.” My purpose is less to evaluate and criticize Strawson’s paper as to give a dialectical perspective on it in which Strawson and those he is arguing against are given specific dialectical roles and the arguments and counter-arguments are designed with specific dialectical aims in mind. Specifi c parallels will be drawn between some things that Strawson says and certain ideas in diale…Read more
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8The Twofold Indeterminacy of IntentionKriterion - Journal of Philosophy 26 (1): 39-55. 2012.In this paper I hope to answer the questions "How do we make something an intentional object?" and "What kinds of things can be intentional objects?" My response will be a direct reference theory following Chisholm. Such a theory has as a consequence, I will argue, different types of indeterminacy in our attitudes. This is due to Chisholm's concept of conceptual entailment. I hold that if the self-ascribed attribute conceptually entails another which gives a different intentional object, then th…Read more
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5In this paper I claim that the reason we are reluctant to call many informal fallacies fallacies of relevance is because we can interpret them as providing contextual information about how the argument is to be interpreted. This interpretative dilemma is that the logical form is determined in part by whether the analyst wishes to be charitable to the proponent or the opponent. The evaluation of the argument is nonetheless purely logical.
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5Anti-Platonism in De Anima III.5Studia Neoaristotelica 20 (2): 123-145. 2023.Famously, Plato argues that the soul pre-exists the body, continues to exist after the body dies, and can come to exist afterwards in another body. Aristotle argues against the transmigration of souls in On Generation and Corruption and for the most part appears not to endorse these Platonic doctrines. But in De Anima III.5 Aristotle also seems to argue that a part of the soul, usually dubbed the nous poiētikos, is separable from the body and eternal. This has presented interpreters of Aristotle…Read more
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4The Twofold Indeterminacy of IntentionKriterion - Journal of Philosophy 1 (26): 39-55. 2012.In this paper I hope to answer the questions "How do we make something an intentional object?" and "What kinds of things can be intentional objects?" My response will be a direct reference theory following Chisholm. Such a theory has as a consequence, I will argue, different types of indeterminacy in our attitudes. This is due to Chisholm's concept of conceptual entailment. I hold that if the self-ascribed attribute conceptually entails another which gives a different intentional object, then th…Read more
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3Reactive Commitments: Reasoning Dialectically about ResponsibilityAbstracta 8 (1): 15-29. 2014.Philosophy has recently been presented with, and started to take seriously, sociological studies in which our ‘folk concepts’ are elaborated. The most interesting concepts studied are moral concepts, and results have been achieved that seem to sharply contradict the speculation of philosophers and to threaten the very way in which moral philosophy has been done in the past. In this paper, I consider certain results in empirical studies of the folk concept of responsibility. I will then sketch a …Read more
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3Inabilities, excuses and exemptionsEthic@ - An International Journal for Moral Philosophy 14 (1): 104-127. 2015.In this paper I will argue, following Moody-Adams’s paper “Culture, responsibility and affected ignorance,” that inability does not excuse in general, but against Moody-Adams I will argue that this is not because of “affected ignorance” but simply because of responsibilities individual agents have by virtue of belonging to and participating in the collective actions of a certain kind of collective. Excusability has been misdiagnosed as depending on whether the ignorance of wrongdoing involved is…Read more
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3The resentful and the indignantEthic@ - An International Journal for Moral Philosophy 15 (1): 36-49. 2016.In “Freedom and Resentment” P.F. Strawson distinguishes between the participant reactive attitudes like resentment and the moral reactive attitudes like indignation described by Strawson as their “vicarious analogues,” where we are not the injured party and it is not our own personal relationships at stake. Through naturalistic description of the participant reactive attitudes a set of conditions for moral responsibility can be discovered that, moreover, are held to be immune to any external rev…Read more
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The De Re, the Per Se, the Knowable, and the KnownHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 28 (2): 191. 2011.
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Even though": on the different functions of discounting expressions in pro and con argumentsIn Martin Hinton & Marcin Koszowy (eds.), The philosophy of argumentation, University of Białystok. 2018.
Areas of Specialization
3 more
Aristotle: Epistemology |
Aristotle: Philosophy of Science |
Induction |
Fallacies |
Informal Logic |
Inference |
Moral Responsibility |
The Nature of Reasoning |