Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology
Metaphysics
Areas of Interest
Epistemology
Metaphysics
  •  1280
    Modality and Explanatory Reasoning
    Oxford University Press. 2014.
    Boris Kment takes a new approach to the study of modality that emphasises the origin of modal notions in everyday thought. He argues that the concepts of necessity and possibility originate in counterfactual reasoning, which allows us to investigate explanatory connections. Contrary to accepted views, explanation is more fundamental than modality.
  •  780
    Counterfactuals and explanation
    Mind 115 (458): 261-310. 2006.
    On the received view, counterfactuals are analysed using the concept of closeness between possible worlds: the counterfactual 'If it had been the case that p, then it would have been the case that q' is true at a world w just in case q is true at all the possible p-worlds closest to w. The degree of closeness between two worlds is usually thought to be determined by weighting different respects of similarity between them. The question I consider in the paper is which weights attach to different …Read more
  •  527
    Free Will and Ultimate Explanation
    Philosophical Issues 27 (1): 114-130. 2017.
    Many philosophers and non-philosophers who reflect on the causal antecedents of human action get the impression that no agent can have morally relevant freedom. Call this the ‘non-existence impression.’ The paper aims to understand the (often implicit) reasoning underlying this impression. On the most popular reconstructions, the reasoning relies on the assumption that either an action is the outcome of a chance process, or it is determined by factors that are beyond the agent’s control or which…Read more
  •  445
    Causation: Determination and difference-making
    Noûs 44 (1): 80-111. 2010.
    Much of the modern philosophy of causation has been governed by two ideas: (i) causes make their effects inevitable; (ii) a cause is something that makes a difference to whether its effect occurs. I focus on explaining the origin of idea (ii) and its connection to (i). On my view, the frequent attempts to turn (ii) into an analysis of causation are wrongheaded. Patterns of difference-making aren't what makes causal claims true. They merely provide a useful test for causal claims. Moreover, what …Read more
  •  445
    Essence and modal knowledge
    Synthese 198 (Suppl 8): 1957-1979. 2018.
    During the last quarter of a century, a number of philosophers have become attracted to the idea that necessity can be analyzed in terms of a hyperintensional notion of essence. One challenge for proponents of this view is to give a plausible explanation of our modal knowledge. The goal of this paper is to develop a strategy for meeting this challenge. My approach rests on an account of modality that I developed in previous work, and which analyzes modal properties in terms of the notion of a me…Read more
  •  421
    Russell–Myhill and grounding
    Analysis 82 (1): 49-60. 2022.
    The Russell-Myhill paradox puts pressure on the Russellian structured view of propositions by showing that it conflicts with certain prima facie attractive ontological and logical principles. I describe several versions of RMP and argue that structurists can appeal to natural assumptions about metaphysical grounding to provide independent reasons for rejecting the ontological principles used in these paradoxes. It remains a task for future work to extend this grounding-based approach to all vari…Read more
  •  358
    Decision, causality, and predetermination
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (3): 638-670. 2023.
    Evidential decision theory (EDT) says that the choiceworthiness of an option depends on its evidential connections to possible outcomes. Causal decision theory (CDT) holds that it depends on your beliefs about its causal connections. While Newcomb cases support CDT, Arif Ahmed has described examples that support EDT. A new account is needed to get all cases right. I argue that an option A's choiceworthiness is determined by the probability that a good outcome ensues at possible A‐worlds that mat…Read more
  •  330
    Model Theory and Contingent Existence
    Analysis 76 (2): 172-190. 2016.
    Contingentism is the view that it is possible for there to be contingent existents. Timothy Williamson has argued that contingentists cannot provide a satisfactory interpretation of the possible-world semantics for modal logic. This paper aims to provide such an interpretation on behalf of contingentists.
  •  321
    Chance and the Structure of Modal Space
    Mind 127 (507): 633-665. 2018.
    The sample space of the chance distribution at a given time is a class of possible worlds. Thanks to this connection between chance and modality, one’s views about modal space can have significant consequences in the theory of chance and can be evaluated in part by how plausible these implications are. I apply this methodology to evaluate certain forms of modal contingentism, the thesis that some facts about what is possible are contingent. Any modal contingentist view that meets certain conditi…Read more
  •  169
    Haecceitism, Chance, and Counterfactuals
    Philosophical Review 121 (4): 573-609. 2012.
    Antihaecceitists believe that all facts about specific individuals—such as the fact that Fred exists, or that Katie is tall—globally supervene on purely qualitative facts. Haecceitists deny that. The issue is not only of interest in itself, but receives additional importance from its intimate connection to the question of whether all fundamental facts are qualitative or whether they include facts about which specific individuals there are and how qualitative properties and relations are distribu…Read more
  •  91
    The aim of Modality and Explanatory Reasoning (MER) is to shed light on metaphysical necessity and the broader class of modal properties to which it belongs. This topic is approached with two goals: to develop a new and reductive analysis of modality, and to understand the purpose and origin of modal thought. I argue that a proper understanding of modality requires us to reconceptualize its relationship to causation and other forms of explanation such as grounding, a relation that connects metap…Read more
  •  57
    Précis of Modality and Explanatory Reasoning
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (2): 489-498. 2015.
    The aim of Modality and Explanatory Reasoning (MER) is to shed light on metaphysical necessity and the broader class of modal properties to which it belongs. This topic is approached with two goals: to develop a new and reductive analysis of modality, and to understand the purpose and origin of modal thought. I argue that a proper understanding of modality requires us to reconceptualize its relationship to causation and other forms of explanation such as grounding, a relation that connects metap…Read more
  •  51
  •  47
    Replies to Sullivan and Lange
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (2): 516-539. 2015.
  •  37
    Necessity and linguistic rules
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Amie Thomasson has argued against descriptivism about modality, which starts from the idea that modal statements serve to track features of the world and that these features explain the truth-values of modal claims. Thomasson objects that descriptivists cannot satisfactorily explain how modal features fit into the naturalistic picture of the world and that they cannot account for our apparent capacity to acquire modal knowledge. On Thomasson’s alternative to descriptivism (called ‘normativism’),…Read more
  •  34
    Replies to Dorr, Emery and Hill and Yablo
    Analysis 77 (1): 166-188. 2017.
  •  14
    Summary
    Analysis 77 (1): 129-133. 2017.
  •  13
    Modality, Capacities, and Intuition
    Philosophisches Jahrbuch 129 (2): 319-324. 2022.
    Barbara Vetter has argued that the notion of a metaphysical possibility functions like a natural-kind concept that picks out whatever kind is instantiated by the large majority of paradigmatic examples. Vetter holds that proponents of such a view can reject appeals to intuition and a priori reasoning as ways of supporting claims about the extension of metaphysical possibility, and that the attractiveness of a natural-kind account is consequently undiminished by intuitive counterexamples. This pa…Read more
  • De re modality
    In Otávio Bueno & Scott A. Shalkowski (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Modality, Routledge. 2018.