After training in analytic philosophy, I became fascinated by American pragmatism, particularly the thought of Charles Peirce. I completed a PhD at Australian National University on Peirce's three philosophical categories, entitled "Modes of Being". My thesis presented an extended argument against Quine's famous 'mid-century' dictum: "to be is the value of a bound variable..." (in our best scientific theory), as the template for a realist ontology. I argued that that we should be realist about not only particular existent objects (what Peirce referred to as 'Secondness'), but also universals ('Thirdness') and real chance and possibility ('Fir…

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