•  78
    Properties as Truthmakers
    In Anna Sofia Maurin & Anthony Fisher (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Properties. pp. 38-47. 2024.
  •  28
    Presentism, Actualism, and Fatalism
    Metaphysics 6 (1): 13-23. 2023.
    In recent papers, Philip Swenson (2016) has argued that presentism is incompatible with the conjunction of libertarianism and divine foreknowledge, and Michael Rea (2006) has argued that presentism is incompatible with the conjunction of libertarianism and bivalence. In this paper, I respond to Swenson’s and Rea’s arguments. In each case, I develop a parody argument that seeks to show that actualism -- the view that everything is actual -- is inconsistent with the conjunction of (in the case of …Read more
  •  3414
    The Moral Landscape of Monetary Design
    Philosophy Compass 16 (11): 1-15. 2021.
    In this article, we identify three key design dimensions along which cryptocurrencies differ -- privacy, censorship-resistance, and consensus procedure. Each raises important normative issues. Our discussion uncovers new ways to approach the question of whether Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies should be used as money, and new avenues for developing a positive answer to that question. A guiding theme is that progress here requires a mixed approach that integrates philosophical tools with the pur…Read more
  •  3756
    Money Without State
    Philosophy Compass 16 (11): 1-15. 2021.
    In this article, we describe what cryptocurrency is, how it works, and how it relates to familiar conceptions of and questions about money. We then show how normative questions about monetary policy find new expression in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. These questions can play a role in addressing not just what money is, but what it should be. A guiding theme in our discussion is that progress here requires a mixed approach that integrates philosophical tools with the purely technical resul…Read more
  •  888
    Ways of thinking about ways of being
    Analysis 80 (4): 712-722. 2020.
    Monism about being says that there is one way to be. Pluralism about being says that there are many ways to be. Recently, Trenton Merricks and David Builes have offered arguments against Pluralism. In this paper, I show how Pluralists who appeal to the relative naturalness of quantifiers can respond to these arguments.
  •  658
    Quantification in the Ontology Room
    Dialectica 73 (4): 563-585. 2019.
    There is a growing movement towards construing some classic debates in ontology as meaningless, either because the answers seem obvious or the debates seem intractable. In this paper, I respond to this movement. The response has three components: First, the members of the two sides of the ontological debates that dismissivists have targeted are using different quantifiers. Second, the austere ontologist is using a more fundamental quantifier than her opponent. Third, the austere ontologist’s mor…Read more
  •  990
    Epistemic Duty and Implicit Bias
    In Kevin McCain & Scott Stapleford (eds.), Epistemic Duties: New Arguments, New Angles, Routledge. pp. 125-145. 2020.
    In this chapter, we explore whether agents have an epistemic duty to eradicate implicit bias. Recent research shows that implicit biases are widespread and they have a wide variety of epistemic effects on our doxastic attitudes. First, we offer some examples and features of implicit biases. Second, we clarify what it means to have an epistemic duty, and discuss the kind of epistemic duties we might have regarding implicit bias. Third, we argue that we have an epistemic duty to eradicate implicit…Read more
  •  643
    Bundle Theory and the Identity of Indiscernibles
    Res Philosophica 96 (4): 495-508. 2019.
    A and B continue their conversation concerning the Identity of Indiscernibles. Both are aware of recent critiques of the principle that haven’t received replies; B summarizes those critiques, and A offers the replies that are due. B then raises a new worry.
  •  1180
    Analysis of faith
    Philosophy Compass 13 (9). 2018.
    In recent years, many philosophers of religion have turned their attention to the topic of faith. Given the ubiquity of the word “faith” both in and out of religious contexts, many of them have chosen to begin their forays by offering an analysis of faith. But it seems that there are many kinds of faith: religious faith, non‐religious faith, interpersonal faith, and propositional faith, to name a few. In this article, I discuss analyses of faith that have been offered and point out the dimension…Read more
  •  2720
    Mereological Nihilism and Puzzles about Material Objects
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99 (4): 842-868. 2018.
    Mereological nihilism is the view that no objects have proper parts. Despite how counter‐intuitive it is, it is taken quite seriously, largely because it solves a number of puzzles in the metaphysics of material objects – or so its proponents claim. In this article, I show that for every puzzle that mereological nihilism solves, there is a similar puzzle that (a) it doesn’t solve, and (b) every other solution to the original puzzle does solve. Since the solutions to the new puzzles apply just as…Read more
  •  4988
    Object
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 1. 2017.
    One might well wonder—is there a category under which every thing falls? Offering an informative account of such a category is no easy task. For nothing would distinguish things that fall under it from those that don’t—there being, after all, none of the latter. It seems hard, then, to say much about any fully general category; and it would appear to do no carving or categorizing or dividing at all. Nonetheless there are candidates for such a fully general office, including thing, being, entity,…Read more
  •  48
    Erratum to: The General Truthmaker View of ontological commitment
    Philosophical Studies 173 (5): 1427-1427. 2016.
    These are the acknowledgements omitted from the original article. "Thanks to Jon Jacobs, Dan Korman, Kate Ritchie, and audiences at the 2012 University of Texas, Biola, and Pacific APA conferences for providing comments on and objections to various early drafts, and to a referee for this journal whose excellent comments helped me improve the paper substantially. Special thanks to Tim Pawl, Mike Rea, Noel Saenz, and Alex Skiles for spending many hours talking through these ideas and commenting on…Read more
  •  883
    Grounds and ‘Grounds’
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47 (5): 631-655. 2017.
    In this paper, I offer a new theory of grounding. The theory has it that grounding is a job description that is realized by different properties in different contexts. Those properties play the grounding role contingently, and grounding is the property that plays the grounding role essentially. On this theory, grounding is monistic, but ‘grounding’ refers to different relations in different contexts. First, I argue against Kit Fine’s monist univocalism. Next, I argue against Jessica Wilson’s plu…Read more
  •  1339
    A Possible-Worlds Solution to the Puzzle of Petitionary Prayer
    with Ryan Matthew Parker
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9 (1): 179--186. 2017.
    The puzzle of petitionary prayer: if we ask for the best thing, God was already going to do it, and if we ask for something that's not the best, God's not going to grant our request. In this paper, we give a new solution to the puzzle.
  •  759
    McTaggart and indexing the copula
    Philosophical Studies 158 (3): 431-434. 2012.
    In this paper, I show how a solution to Lewis’ problem of temporary intrinsics is also a response to McTaggart’s argument that the A-series is incoherent. There are three strategies Lewis considers for solving the problem of temporary intrinsics: perdurantism, presentism, and property-indexing. William Lane Craig (Analysis 58(2):122–127, 1998) has examined how the three strategies fare with respect to McTaggart’s argument. The only viable solution Lewis considers to the problem of temporary intr…Read more
  •  1378
    The General Truthmaker View of ontological commitment
    Philosophical Studies 173 (5): 1405-1425. 2016.
    In this paper, I articulate and argue for a new truthmaker view of ontological commitment, which I call the “General Truthmaker View”: when one affirms a sentence, one is ontologically committed to there being something that makes true the proposition expressed by the sentence. This view comes apart from Quinean orthodoxy in that we are not ontologically committed to the things over which we quantify, and it comes apart from extant truthmaker views of ontological commitment in that we are not on…Read more