•  231
    Systematicity and Skepticism
    American Philosophical Quarterly 641 (1): 1-18. 2024.
    The fact that philosophy is systematic—that philosophical issues are thoroughly interconnected—was a commonplace among nineteenth century idealists, then neglected by analytic philosophers throughout much of the twentieth century, and has now finally started to get some renewed attention. But other than calling attention to the fact, few philosophers have tried to say what it consists in, or what its implications are. I argue that the systematicity of philosophy has disastrous epistemological im…Read more
  •  27
    Do We Look Material? Human Ontology and Perceptual Evidence
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 53 (2): 172-186. 2023.
    According to certain views about human ontology, the way we seem is very different from the way we are. The appearances are a threat to such views. Here I take up and defuse the threat to one such view.Pure immaterialism says that each of us is wholly immaterial. The appearances suggest otherwise. I argue that despite the fact that we might sometimes appear to be at least partly material, and that we can be perceptually justified in believing something solely on the basis of having a perceptual …Read more
  •  33
    Are we made entirely of matter, like sticks and stones? Or do we have a soul—a nonphysical entity—where our mental lives take place? The authors Eric T. Olson and Aaron Segal begin this accessible and wide-ranging debate by looking at the often-overlooked question of whether we appear in ordinary experience to be material things. Olson then argues that the dependence of our mental lives on the condition of our brains—the fact that general anesthesia causes complete unconsciousness, for instance—…Read more
  • The Philosophy of Worship: Divine and Human Aspects (edited book)
    with Samuel Lebens
    Cambridge University Press. forthcoming.
  • Jewish studies and analytic philosophy of Judaism
    with Tzvi Novick, Samuel Lebens, and Dani Rabinowitz
    In Samuel Lebens, Dani Rabinowitz & Aaron Segal (eds.), Jewish Philosophy in an Analytic Age, Oxford University Press, Usa. 2019.
  • Metaphysics out of the sources of the Halakha or a Halakhic metaphysic?
    In Samuel Lebens, Dani Rabinowitz & Aaron Segal (eds.), Jewish Philosophy in an Analytic Age, Oxford University Press, Usa. 2019.
  •  12
    Introduction to Special Issue on Jewish Analytic Theology
    with Samuel Lebens
    Journal of Analytic Theology 10. 2022.
    It is our pleasure to introduce this special issue, devoted to the topic of worship in Jewish analytic theology. Many of the papers published here were presented at one of two summer workshops we ran as part of the John Templeton Foundation sponsored project, “Worship: A Jewish Philosophical Investigation”.
  •  1
    Systematic Metaphysics: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (edited book)
    with Nick Stang
    Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
  • The Afterlife in Judaism
    In Benjamin Matheson & Yujin Nagasawa (eds.), Palgrave Handbook on the Afterlife, Palgrave. pp. 107-27. 2017.
  •  17
    Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed: A Critical Guide (edited book)
    with Daniel Frank
    Cambridge University Press. 2021.
    Moses Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed is the greatest and most influential text in the history of Jewish philosophy. Controversial in its day, the Guide directly influenced Aquinas, Spinoza, and Leibniz, and the history of Jewish philosophy took a decisive turn after its appearance. While there continues to be keen interest in Maimonides and his philosophy, this is the first scholarly collection in English devoted specifically to the Guide. It includes contributions from an international team…Read more
  •  62
    Humeanisms: metaphysical and epistemological
    Synthese 199 (1-2): 905-925. 2020.
    Classic inductive skepticism–the epistemological claim that we have no good reason to believe that the unobserved resembles the observed–is plausibly everyone’s lot, whether or not they embrace Hume’s metaphysical claim that distinct existents are “entirely loose and separate”. But contemporary advocates of a Humean metaphysic accept a metaphysical claim stronger than Hume’s own. I argue that their view plausibly gives rise to a radical inductive skepticism–according to which we are downright ir…Read more
  •  122
    In this paper I argue for the incompatibility of three claims, each of them quite attractive to a theist. First, the doctrine of deep dependence: the universe depends for its existence, in a non-causal way, on God. Second, the doctrine of true transcendence: the universe is wholly distinct from God; God is separate and apart from the universe in respect of mereology, modes, and mentality. Third, the doctrine of robust creaturely freedom: some creature performs some act such that he could have do…Read more
  •  82
    Lost at Sea: A New Route to Metaphysical Skepticism
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 101 (2): 256-275. 2020.
    Global metaphysical skepticism is the view that we have no knowledge of any substantive metaphysical thesis. Various reasons have been provided in support of global metaphysical skepticism. I provide a new one. The reason, very roughly, is this. Metaphysical theses come together as packages. Such packages are very different from each other. Because the packages are so different, we cannot know of any one of the packages that it isn't true. And because we cannot know of any one of them that it is…Read more
  •  116
    Essence and explanation: a logical mismatch
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 64 (10): 1038-1050. 2021.
    Let Essentialism be the view that at least some object has at least some property essentially. And let Relative Essentialism be the view that Essentialism is true, but that for any object that has any property essentially, it has it essentially only relative to the value of some parameter. Meghan Sullivan has recently put forward a promising new version of Relative Essentialism, according to which the relevant parameter is an explanatory framework. We argue that despite its promise, Sullivan's v…Read more
  •  52
    Pythagoreanism: A Number of Theories
    Philosophers' Imprint 19. 2019.
    Pythagoreanism, the claim that ‘all is number’, is rarely taken seriously these days as a candidate for the sober metaphysical truth. This is a mistake. I distinguish various versions of Pythagoreanism. Some such versions are unmotivated, some are subject to serious objections, and some are both. But, I argue, there is a robust version of Pythagoreanism—according to which there is a true theory whose ontology and ideology are wholly mathematical from which every truth follows—that is both well-m…Read more
  • The A Priori (Theism)
    In Graham Oppy & Joseph W. Koterski (eds.), Theism and Atheism: Opposing Viewpoints in Philosophy, Macmillan. pp. 301-312. 2019.
  •  17
    Jewish Philosophy in an Analytic Age (edited book)
    Oxford University Press, Usa. 2019.
    Since the classical period, Jewish scholars have drawn on developments in philosophy to enrich our understanding of Judaism. This methodology reached its pinnacle in the medieval period with figures like Maimonides and continued into the modern period with the likes of Rosenzweig. The explosion of Anglo-American/analytic philosophy in the twentieth century means that there is now a host of material, largely unexplored by Jewish philosophy, with which to explore, analyze, and develop the Jewish t…Read more
  •  33
    David Shatz: Torah, Philosophy, and Culture. Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes (review)
    International Philosophical Quarterly 58 (3): 347-350. 2018.
  •  120
    Radical Pluralism
    Noûs 54 (1): 24-53. 2020.
    Humean Supervenience is the view that (a) there are a plurality of fundamental beings, (b) there are no inexplicable constraints on modal space, and hence the fundamental nature of each such being is independent of those of all the rest and of the fundamental relations in which it stands to the rest, (c) the fundamental beings stand in no fundamental causal or nomic relations, and hence (d) the distribution of any causal or nomic relations in which they do stand globally supervenes on their fund…Read more
  •  1
    The Necessity of Idealism
    In Tyron Goldschmidt & Kenneth L. Pearce (eds.), Idealism: New Essays in Metaphysics, Oxford University Press. pp. 34-49. 2017.
  •  133
    Causal essentialism and mereological monism
    Philosophical Studies 169 (2): 227-255. 2014.
    Several philosophers have recently defended Causal Essentialism—the view that every property confers causal powers, and whatever powers it confers, it confers essentially. I argue that on the face of it, Causal Essentialism implies a form of Monism, and in particular, the thesis I call ‘Mereological Monism’: that there is some concretum that is a part of every concretum. However, there are three escape routes, three views which are such that if one of them is true, Causal Essentialism does not i…Read more
  •  425
    Half-Hearted Humeanism
    Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 9 262-305. 2015.
    Many contemporary philosophers endorse the Humean-Lewisian Denial of Absolutely Necessary Connections (‘DANC’). Among those philosophers, many deny all or part of the Humean-Lewisian package of views about causation and laws. I argue that they maintain an inconsistent set of views. DANC entails that (1) causal properties and relations are, with a few possible exceptions, always extrinsic to their bearers, (2) nomic properties and relations are, with a few possible exceptions, always extrinsic t…Read more
  •  17
    In this innovative volume contemporary philosophers respond to classic works of Jewish philosophy. For each of twelve central topics in Jewish philosophy, Jewish philosophical readings, drawn from the medieval period through the twentieth century, appear alongside an invited contribution that engages both the readings and the contemporary philosophical literature in a constructive dialogue. The twelve topics are organized into four sections, and each section commences with an overview of the ens…Read more
  •  300
    Response to Churchland
    Philo 13 (2): 201-207. 2010.
    Paul Churchland argues that Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism is unsuccessful and so we need not accept its conclusion. In this paper, we respond to Churchland’s argument. After we briefly recapitulate Plantinga’s argument and state Churchland’s argument, we offer three objections to Churchland’s argument: (1) its first premise has little to recommend it, (2) its second premise is false, and (3) its conclusion is consistent with, and indeed entails, the conclusion of Plantinga…Read more
  •  66
    A Puzzle About Points
    Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1): 349-365. 2016.
  •  85
    Why Live Forever? What Metaphysics Can Contribute
    Erkenntnis 83 (2): 185-204. 2018.
    I suggest a way in which metaphysics might cure us of our desire for immortality. Supposing that time is composed of instants, or even that time could be composed of instants, leads to the conclusion that there is nothing good that immortality offers, nothing we might reasonably want, that is in principle unavailable to a mere mortal. My argument proceeds in three stages. First, I suggest a necessary condition for a feature to ground the desirability of a life or a portion thereof. Second, after…Read more