•  22
    A Conversation on Grounding
    with Mark Wilson
    The 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.
  •  68
    Explanation Good, Grounding Bad
    The 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.
  •  106
  •  12
    Review 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.
  •  33
    Review of *The Metaphysics within Physics* by Tim Maudlin (review)
    Analysis 69 (2): 374-375. 2009.
  •  105
    T‐Philosophy
    Metaphilosophy 53 (2-3): 185-198. 2022.
    Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 2-3, Page 185-198, April 2022.
  •  37
    Why Reduction is Underrated
    History 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
  • Tropes
    In D. H. Mellor & Alex Oliver (eds.), Properties, Oxford University Press. 1997.
  •  30
  •  29
    Why Only Us? Language and Evolution
    Analysis 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.
  •  42
    © 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
  •  41
    Tropes
    Proceedings 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.
  •  174
    Acquaintance and de re Thought
    Synthese 156 (1): 79-96. 2007.
  •  16
    D.M. Armstrong, A World of States of Affairs (review)
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (4): 640. 1998.
  •  69
    Modality and acquaintance with properties
    The 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
  •  254
    Fictionalism and the attitudes
    Philosophical 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
  • To be
    In Robin Le Poidevin (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, Routledge. 2009.
  •  66
    Pluralist metaphysics
    Philosophical Studies 87 (2): 185-206. 1997.
  •  3208
    In defence of error theory
    Philosophical 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
  •  68
    Bait and switch philosophy
    Analysis 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
  •  15
    Universals and Property Instances: The Alphabet of Being
    Philosophical Books 37 (4): 266-267. 1996.
  •  99
    So where's the explanation?
    In Helen Beebee & Julian Dodd (eds.), Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate, Clarendon Press. pp. 85. 2005.
  •  18
    Modality and Acquaintance with Properties
    The 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
  •  136
    Does physicalism need fixing?
    Analysis 55 (3): 135-41. 1995.
  •  213
    The methodology of genuine modal realism
    Synthese 162 (1): 37-52. 2008.
    David Lewis’s genuine modal realism is a controversial thesis in modal metaphysics. Charles Chihara and Ross Cameron have each argued that Lewis’s defence of his thesis involves his committing serious methodological errors; in particular, that his replies to two well-known and important objections are question-begging. Scott Shalkowski has further argued that Lewis’s attempt to analyse modal talk in non-modal terms is viciously circular. This paper considers the methodology which Lewis uses to a…Read more