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243Laws and Lawmakers: Science, Metaphysics, and the Laws of NatureInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25 (1). 2011.International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 25, Issue 1, Page 83-86, March 2011
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85Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties (review)History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 12 320-328. 2009.
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360'Can' without Possible Worlds: Semantics for Anti-HumeansPhilosophers' Imprint 13. 2013.Metaphysicians of modality are increasingly critical of possible-worlds talk, and increasingly happy to accept irreducibly modal properties – and in particular, irreducible dispositions – in nature. The aim of this paper is to provide the beginnings of a modal semantics which uses, instead of possible-worlds talk, the resources of such an 'anti-Humean' metaphysics. One central challenge to an anti-Humean view is the context-sensitivity of modal language. I show how that challenge can be met and …Read more
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879Counterpossibles (not only) for dispositionalistsPhilosophical Studies 173 (10): 2681-2700. 2016.Dispositionalists try to provide an account of modality—possibility, necessity, and the counterfactual conditional—in terms of dispositions. But there may be a tension between dispositionalist accounts of possibility on the one hand, and of counterfactuals on the other. Dispositionalists about possibility must hold that there are no impossible dispositions, i.e., dispositions with metaphysically impossible stimulus and/or manifestation conditions; dispositionalist accounts of counterfactuals, if…Read more
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1972Are abilities dispositions?Synthese 196 (196): 201-220. 2019.Abilities are in many ways central to what being an agent means, and they are appealed to in philosophical accounts of a great many different phenomena. It is often assumed that abilities are some kind of dispositional property, but it is rarely made explicit exactly which dispositional properties are our abilities. Two recent debates provide two different answers to that question: the new dispositionalism in the debate about free will, and virtue reliabilism in epistemology. This paper argues t…Read more
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118Digging Deeper: Why Metaphysics is More Than a ToolboxJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 49 (2): 231-241. 2018.Steven French proposes a vindication of “scientifically disinterested” metaphysics that leaves little room to its original ambitions. He claims that as a discipline that looks to find out truths about the world, it is untenable; and that rather, its vindication lies in its use as a “toolbox” of concepts for a philosophical discipline that does have a claim at getting us closer to truth—the philosophy of science, and more specifically of physics. I respond to both his main claims. The first claim…Read more
University of Oxford
DPhil, 2010
Areas of Specialization
2 more
Dispositions and Powers |
Metaphysics |
Modality |
Modal Expressions |
Modal Epistemology |
Modal Empiricism |
Abilities |