Syracuse University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1986
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics
Aesthetics
  •  860
    Can a Musical Work Be Created?
    with Ben Caplan
    British Journal of Aesthetics 44 (2): 113-134. 2004.
    Can a musical work be created? Some say ‘no’. But, we argue, there is no handbook of universally accepted metaphysical truths that they can use to justify their answer. Others say ‘yes’. They have to find abstract objects that can plausibly be identified with musical works, show that abstract objects of this sort can be created, and show that such abstract objects can persist. But, we argue, none of the standard views about what a musical work is allows musical works both to be created and to pe…Read more
  •  803
    Defending 'Defending Musical Perdurantism'
    with Ben Caplan
    British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (1): 80-85. 2008.
    British Journal of Aesthetics (forthcoming Jan. 2008).
  •  687
    Defending musical perdurantism
    with Ben Caplan
    British Journal of Aesthetics 46 (1): 59-69. 2006.
    If musical works are abstract objects, which cannot enter into causal relations, then how can we refer to musical works or know anything about them? Worse, how can any of our musical experiences be experiences of musical works? It would be nice to be able to sidestep these questions altogether. One way to do that would be to take musical works to be concrete objects. In this paper, we defend a theory according to which musical works are concrete objects. In particular, the theory that we defend …Read more
  •  540
    Fine individuation
    with Ben Caplan
    British Journal of Aesthetics 47 (2): 113-137. 2007.
    Jerrold Levinson argues that musical works are individuated by their context of origin. But one could just as well argue that musical works are individuated by their context of reception. Moderate contextualism, according to which musical works are individuated by context of origin but not by context of reception, thus appears to be an unstable position. And, although a more thoroughgoing contextualism, according to which musical works are individuated both by context of origin and by context of…Read more
  •  213
    Modality, Individuation, and the Ontology of Art
    with Ben Caplan
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38 (4): 491-517. 2008.
    In 1988, Michael Nyman composed the score for Peter Greenaway’s film Drowning by Numbers (or did something that we would ordinarily think of as composing that score). We can think of Nyman’s compositional activity as a “generative performance” and of the sound structure that Nyman indicated (or of some other abstract object that is appropriately related to that sound structure) as the product generated by that performance (ix).1 According to one view, Nyman’s score for Drowning by the Numbers—th…Read more
  •  156
    The metaphysics of jazz
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (2): 125-133. 2000.
  •  155
    Why the no‐miracles argument fails
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 12 (3). 1998.
    The chief argument for scientific realism is the no-miracles argument, according to which the approximate truth of our current scientific theories can be inferred from their success through time. To date, anti-realist responses to the argument have been unconvincing, largely because of their anti-realistic presuppositions. In this paper, it is shown that realists cannot pre-emptively dismiss the problem of the underdetermination of theory by evidence, and that the no-miracles argument fails beca…Read more
  •  123
    A Return to Musical Idealism
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (4): 702-715. 2017.
    In disputes about the ontology of music, musical idealism—that is, the view that musical compositions are ideas—has proven to be rather unpopular. We argue that, once we have a better grip on the ontology of ideas, we can formulate a version of musical idealism that is not only defensible, but plausible and attractive. We conclude that compositions are a particular kind of idea: they are completed ideas for musical manifestation.
  •  83
    How the laws of physics don't even fib
    with A. David Kline
    Psa 1986 33--41. 1986.
    The most recent challenge to the covering-law model of explanation (N. Cartwright, How the laws of Physics Lie) charges that the fundamental explanatory laws are not true. In fact explanation and truth are alleged to pull in different directions. We hold that this gets its force from confusing issues about the truth of the laws in the explanation and the precision with which those laws can yield an exact description of the event to be explained. In defending this we look at Cartwright's major ca…Read more
  •  64
    Chaos and Literature
    with Evan Kirchhoff
    Philosophy and Literature 21 (1): 28-45. 1997.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Chaos and LiteratureCarl Matheson and Evan KirchhoffIChaos theory was the intellectual darling of pop-science writers of the late 1980s. 1 In their eyes, it would provide a new paradigm by which to describe the world, one that liberated scientists from clockwork determinism—or, alternatively, from incomprehensible randomness. In an introductory textbook of the period, Robert Devaney called chaos theory “the third great scientific rev…Read more
  •  46
    The Logical Impossibility of Collision
    with A. David Kline
    Philosophy 62 (242). 1987.
    Absolutely no one still believes that every physical interactionconsists of material bodies bumping into each other. Those who have tried to work out a completely mechanistic physics have been unable to explain common phenomena like liquidity, gravitation and magnetism. In fact, there is great reason to doubt that such a physics could ever account for attractive forces in general.
  •  32
    Is the naturalist really naturally a realist?
    Mind 98 (390): 247-258. 1989.
  •  32
    Consciousness and synchronic identity
    Dialogue 29 (4): 523-530. 1990.
    The question “What makes a group of simultaneous experiences the experiences of a single person?” has been nearly ignored in the philosophical literature for the past few decades. The most common answer to this much neglected question is “Two simultaneous experiences belong to a single person if there is a common consciousness or awareness of them.” However, consciousness and awareness are difficult concepts to analyze, so that little of substance has been said of the answer. Recently, Oaklander…Read more
  •  29
    Historicist theories of rationality
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
  •  27
    Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Literature: An Analytic Approach (edited book)
    with David Davies
    Broadview Press. 2008.
    What, if anything, distinguishes works of fiction such as Hamlet and Madame Bovary from biographies, news reports, or office bulletins? Is there a "right" way to interpret fiction? Should we link interpretation to the author's intention? Ought our moral unease with works that betray sadistic, sexist, or racist elements lower our judgments of their aesthetic worth? And what, when it comes down to it, is literature? The readings in this collection bring together some of the most important recent w…Read more
  •  26
    Rejection without acceptance
    with A. David Kline
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (2). 1991.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  22
    Critical Notice of James O. Young, Art and Knowledge (review)
    with Evan Kirchhoff
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33 (4): 575-598. 2003.
    In his Art and Knowledge, the distinguished Canadian philosopher of art, James O. Young, takes on the daunting task of defending his opening claim that ‘every item properly classified as a work of art can contribute to human knowledge’. His assertion is a general one, intended to apply to any and every prospective artwork, not merely to sub-genres like the moral novel or the ‘Shock-Headed Peter’ school of didactic bedtime terror-fest. Thus, according to Young, works such as The Well-Tempered Cla…Read more
  •  21
    Critical Notice of James O. Young, Art and Knowledge (review)
    with Evan Kirchhoff
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33 (4): 575-598. 2003.
    In his Art and Knowledge, the distinguished Canadian philosopher of art, James O. Young, takes on the daunting task of defending his opening claim that ‘every item properly classified as a work of art can contribute to human knowledge’. His assertion is a general one, intended to apply to any and every prospective artwork, not merely to sub-genres like the moral novel or the ‘Shock-Headed Peter’ school of didactic bedtime terror-fest. Thus, according to Young, works such as The Well-Tempered Cla…Read more
  •  17
    Brown's rationality
    Social Epistemology 6 (1). 1992.
  •  14
    The Advancement of Science (review)
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (3): 463-489. 1996.
  •  11
    Critical Notice
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (1): 125-149. 1993.
  •  10
    Brown's Rationality
    with Sonia Ryang, Warren Schmaus, Steven I. Miller, Harold Brown, Govindan Parayil, Steven Yearley, and Stephen Turner
    Social Epistemology 6 (1): 35-43. 1992.
  •  9
    Critical Notice of James O. Young, Art and Knowledge (review)
    with Evan Kirchhoff
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33 (4): 575-598. 2003.
    In his Art and Knowledge, the distinguished Canadian philosopher of art, James O. Young, takes on the daunting task of defending his opening claim that ‘every item properly classified as a work of art can contribute to human knowledge’. His assertion is a general one, intended to apply to any and every prospective artwork, not merely to sub-genres like the moral novel or the ‘Shock-Headed Peter’ school of didactic bedtime terror-fest. Thus, according to Young, works such as The Well-Tempered Cla…Read more
  •  7
    Critical Notice (review)
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (3): 463-489. 1996.
  •  1
    Ontology
    with Ben Caplan
    In Theodore Gracyk & Andrew Kania (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music, Routledge. 2011.
  •  1
    How The Laws Of Physics Don't Even Fib
    with A. David Kline
    PSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986 (1): 33-41. 1986.
    The covering law model of explanation has a staying power not even to be outdone by Lazarus. For at least forty years, writer after writer has tried to put it in its grave for the last time. The most recent efforts come from Nancy Cartwright (1983). Her slant is at once modern and old fashioned. It is modern in that unlike the familiar charge that the covering law model lets in too much, her charge is that it does not let in enough. It is old fashioned in that the soft spot she presses is one re…Read more
  •  1
    Brown's Rationality
    with Winnipeg Manitoba Rut
    Social Epistemology 6 (1): 35-43. 1992.
  • How the Laws of Physics Don't Even Fib
    with A. David Kline
    PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986 33-41. 1986.
    The most recent challenge to the covering-law model of explanation charges that the fundamental explanatory laws are not true. In fact explanation and truth are alleged to pull in different directions. We hold that this gets its force from confusing issues about the truth of the laws in the explanation and the precision with which those laws can yield an exact description of the event to be explained. In defending this we look at Cartwright's major case studies and sketch an amended covering-law…Read more