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982DeferentialismPhilosophical Studies 156 (3): 321-337. 2011.There is a recent and growing trend in philosophy that involves deferring to the claims of certain disciplines outside of philosophy, such as mathematics, the natural sciences, and linguistics. According to this trend— deferentialism , as we will call it—certain disciplines outside of philosophy make claims that have a decisive bearing on philosophical disputes, where those claims are more epistemically justified than any philosophical considerations just because those claims are made by those d…Read more
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3300In defence of error theoryPhilosophical Studies 149 (2): 209-230. 2010.Many contemporary philosophers rate error theories poorly. We identify the arguments these philosophers invoke, and expose their deficiencies. We thereby show that the prospects for error theory have been systematically underestimated. By undermining general arguments against all error theories, we leave it open whether any more particular arguments against particular error theories are more successful. The merits of error theories need to be settled on a case-by-case basis: there is no good gen…Read more
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27A Conversation on GroundingThe Monist 106 (3): 317-325. 2023.Concerning a conversation about grounding between Philo, a quizzical maverick, and Cleanthes, a studious devotee of the very latest trends in metaphysics. Whereas Cleanthes enthuses about grounding, Philo counsels methodological caution and greater immersion in actual scientific practice.
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76Explanation Good, Grounding BadThe Monist 106 (3): 270-286. 2023.Grounding is not required for explanation in metaphysics, and, more generally, in philosophy. An account independent of grounding is available. Grounding claims do not provide the explanations that they are alleged to. The case for displacing supervenience in favour of grounding is mistaken. Grounding is a zombie idea: it staggers on in philosophical culture despite being thoroughly discredited.
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114Wandering Significance: An Essay on Conceptual BehaviourPhilosophical Quarterly 57 (228): 498-501. 2007.
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19Review of MacBride (2018)Dialectica 74 (3). 2020.Fraser MacBride, On the Genealogy of Universals: The Metaphysical Origins of Analytic Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
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40Review of *The Metaphysics within Physics* by Tim Maudlin (review)Analysis 69 (2): 374-375. 2009.
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119T‐PhilosophyMetaphilosophy 53 (2-3): 185-198. 2022.Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 2-3, Page 185-198, April 2022.
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42Why Reduction is UnderratedHistory of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 22 (1): 121-136. 2019.The key idea behind reduction is a simple and familiar one: it’s that there’s more to things than meets the eye. Surprisingly, this simple idea provides the resources to block a number of notable anti-reductionist arguments: Mackie’s argument from queerness against objective moral values, Kripke’s Humphrey objection and its recent variants, and Jubien’s objection from irrelevance against Lewisian modal realism. What is wrong with each of these arguments is that they suppose that what is to be re…Read more
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61What Kind of Creatures Are We?, by Noam Chomsky: New York: Columbia University Press, 2016, pp. xxiv + 167, £13.95Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (2): 413-414. 2017.
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31Agnosticism and the Balance of EvidenceIn Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), Ontology of Theistic Beliefs: Meta-Ontological Perspectives, De Gruyter. pp. 1-18. 2018.
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32Why Only Us? Language and EvolutionAnalysis 78 (2): 381-383. 2018.Why Only Us? Language and Evolution By BerwickRobert C. and ChomskyNoamMassachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015. 224 pp. £17.95 paper.
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47Why Only Us? Language and Evolution By Robert C. Berwick and Noam ChomskyAnalysis. forthcoming.© The Author 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected] article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model...This is a clear and extremely stimulating book in which the authors present a series of innovative, even unorthodox, views on the relation between language and biology. It treats the study of language, a…Read more
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44TropesProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 94 (1): 253-262. 1994.Chris Daly; Tropes, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 94, Issue 1, 1 June 1994, Pages 253–262, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/94.1.253.
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27Truth and being: E.J. Lowe and A. Rami : Truth and truth-making. Acumen Publishing Limited, Stocksfield, 2009, x + 262 pp, £18.00 PBMetascience 19 (3): 417-420. 2010.
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16D.M. Armstrong, A World of States of Affairs (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (4): 640. 1998.
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74Modality and acquaintance with propertiesThe Monist 81 (1): 44--68. 1998.What is required for you to know what a certain property is? And what is required for you to have the concept of that property? Hume held that a person who has never tasted a pineapple cannot know what the property tasting like a pineapple is. He also thought that this person cannot have the corresponding concept. A subsequent tradition in empiricism generalises these claims at least to all the so-called "secondary qualities." I will argue that this tradition is mistaken. I will argue that there…Read more
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260Fictionalism and the attitudesPhilosophical Studies 139 (3). 2008.This paper distinguishes revolutionary fictionalism from other forms of fictionalism and also from other philosophical views. The paper takes fictionalism about mathematical objects and fictionalism about scientific unobservables as illustrations. The paper evaluates arguments that purport to show that this form of fictionalism is incoherent on the grounds that there is no tenable distinction between believing a sentence and taking the fictionalist's distinctive attitude to that sentence. The ar…Read more
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77An Introduction to Philosophical MethodsBroadview Press. 2010.An Introduction to Philosophical Methods is the first book to survey the various methods that philosophers use to support their views. Rigorous yet accessible, the book introduces and illustrates the methodological considerations that are involved in current philosophical debates. Where there is controversy, the book presents the case for each side, but highlights where the key difficulties with them lie. While eminently student-friendly, the book makes an important contribution to the debate re…Read more
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165The metaphysics within physics • by Tim MaudlinAnalysis 69 (2): 374-375. 2009.The basic idea of Maudlin's superb book is methodological: ‘metaphysics, insofar as it is concerned with the natural world, can do no better than to reflect on physics. Physical theories provide us with the best handle we have on what there is, and the philosopher's proper task is the interpretation and elucidation of those theories. In particular, when choosing the fundamental posits of one's ontology, one must look to scientific practice rather than to philosophical prejudice’ .The apparently …Read more
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78Defending promiscuous realism about natural kindsPhilosophical Quarterly 46 (185): 496-500. 1996.
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131Two Anti-Platonist StrategiesMind 119 (476): 1107-1116. 2010.This paper considers two strategies for undermining indispensability arguments for mathematical Platonism. We defend one strategy (the Trivial Strategy) against a criticism by Joseph Melia. In particular, we argue that the key example Melia uses against the Trivial Strategy fails. We then criticize Melia’s chosen strategy (the Weaseling Strategy.) The Weaseling Strategy attempts to show that it is not always inconsistent or irrational knowingly to assert p and deny an implication of p . We argue…Read more
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44The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophical Methods (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2015.The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophical Methods contains twenty-six original and substantive papers examining a wide selection of philosophical methods. Drawing upon an international range of leading contributors, this Handbook will help shape future debates about how philosophy should be done. Topics explored include philosophical disagreement, thought experiments, intuitions, rational reflection, conceptual analysis, explanation, parsimony, and experimental philosophy. Written in a clear and ac…Read more
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288Mathematical explanation and indispensability argumentsPhilosophical Quarterly 59 (237): 641-658. 2009.We defend Joseph Melia's thesis that the role of mathematics in scientific theory is to 'index' quantities, and that even if mathematics is indispensable to scientific explanations of concrete phenomena, it does not explain any of those phenomena. This thesis is defended against objections by Mark Colyvan and Alan Baker.
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75Bait and switch philosophyAnalysis 75 (3): 372-379. 2015.Many philosophers employ an intellectual division of labour. Philosophy tells us what the truth conditions of various philosophically interesting sentences are. For example, atomic sentences containing numerals are sentences containing singular terms putatively referring to numbers; sentences about what could be are sentences quantifying over possible worlds and so on. Some discipline outside of philosophy tells us that certain of these sentences are true. The purported result is that such philo…Read more
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mathematics |