•  14
    Composition as a Fiction
    In Richard M. Gale (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics, Wiley-blackwell. 2002.
    This chapter contains sections titled: 1 A Question about Composition 2 Some Answers 3 How Shall We Decide? 4 Common Sense and Unrestricted Composition 5 Common Sense and Compositional Nihilism 6 Compositional Nihilism and the Self 7 The Appeal to Science 8 Problem or Pseudoproblem? What To Do?
  • There are no abstract objects
    In Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Contemporary debates in metaphysics, Blackwell. 2008.
  •  801
    In a recent paper, Yoaav Isaacs, Alan Hájek, and John Hawthorne argue for the rational permissibility of "credal imprecision" by appealing to certain propositions associated with non-measurable spatial regions: for example, the proposition that the pointer of a spinner will come to rest within a certain non-measurable set of points on its circumference. This paper rebuts their argument by showing that its premises lead to implausible consequences in cases where one is trying to learn, by making…Read more
  •  1713
    Classicism
    In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-order Metaphysics, Oxford University Press. pp. 109-190. 2024.
    This three-part chapter explores a higher-order logic we call ‘Classicism’, which extends a minimal classical higher-order logic with further axioms which guarantee that provable coextensiveness is sufficient for identity. The first part presents several different ways of axiomatizing this theory and makes the case for its naturalness. The second part discusses two kinds of extensions of Classicism: some which take the view in the direction of coarseness of grain (whose endpoint is the maximal…Read more
  •  157
    In general, a given object could have been different in certain respects. For example, the Great Pyramid could have been somewhat shorter or taller; the Mona Lisa could have had a somewhat different pattern of colours; an ordinary table could have been made of a somewhat different quantity of wood. But there seem to be limits. It would be odd to suppose that the Great Pyramid could have been thimble-sized; that the Mona Lisa could have had the pattern of colours that actually characterizes T…Read more
  •  1366
    Consequences of Comparability
    Philosophical Perspectives 35 (1): 70-98. 2021.
    We defend three controversial claims about preference, credence, and choice. First, all agents (not just rational ones) have complete preferences. Second, all agents (again, not just rational ones) have real-valued credences in every proposition in which they are confident to any degree. Third, there is almost always some unique thing we ought to do, want, or believe.
  •  3005
    The Case for Comparability
    Noûs 57 (2): 414-453. 2023.
    We argue that all comparative expressions in natural language obey a principle that we call Comparability: if x and y are at least as F as themselves, then either x is at least as F as y or y is at least as F as x. This principle has been widely rejected among philosophers, especially by ethicists, and its falsity has been claimed to have important normative implications. We argue that Comparability is needed to explain the goodness of several patterns of inference that seem manifestly valid, th…Read more
  •  1130
    David Builes presents a paradox concerning how confident you should be that any given member of an infinite collection of fair coins landed heads, conditional on the information that they were all flipped and only finitely many of them landed heads. We argue that if you should have any conditional credence at all, it should be 1/2.
  •  200
    Natural Properties
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2019. 2019.
  •  282
    Non-symmetric Relations
    In Dean Zimmerman (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics: Volume 1, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 155-92. 2004.
    Presupposing that most predicates do not correspond directly to genuine relations, I argue that all genuine relations are symmetric. My main argument depends on the premise that there are no brute necessities, interpreted so as to require logical and metaphysical necessity to coincide for sentences composed entirely of logical vocabulary and primitive predicates. Given this premise, any set of purportedly primitive predicates by which one might hope to express the facts about non-symmetric relat…Read more
  •  1440
    Diamonds are Forever
    Noûs 54 (3): 632-665. 2019.
    We defend the thesis that every necessarily true proposition is always true. Since not every proposition that is always true is necessarily true, our thesis is at odds with theories of modality and time, such as those of Kit Fine and David Kaplan, which posit a fundamental symmetry between modal and tense operators. According to such theories, just as it is a contingent matter what is true at a given time, it is likewise a temporary matter what is true at a given possible world; so a propositi…Read more
  •  4
    The Simplicity of Everything
    Dissertation, Princeton University. 2002.
    Part One of my dissertation is about composite objects: things with proper parts, like plates, planets, plants and people. I begin chapter 1 by pointing out that if one were to judge by the way we normally speak about composite objects, one would suppose that we were all completely certain of a theory I call folk mereology. For instance, we seem to be completely convinced that whenever some things are piled up, there is an object---a pile---which they compose. I point out that folk mereology is …Read more
  •  1225
    Iterating definiteness
    In Sebastiano Moruzzi & Richard Dietz (eds.), Cuts and Clouds. Vaguenesss, its Nature and its Logic, Oxford University Press. 2009.
    The conclusion of this chapter is that higher-order vagueness is universal: no sentence whatsoever is definitely true, definitely definitely true, definitely definitely definitely true, and so on ad infinitum. The argument, of which there are several versions, turns on the existence of Sorites sequences of possible worlds connecting the actual world to possible worlds where a given sentence is used in such a way that its meaning is very different. The chapter attempts to be neutral between com…Read more
  •  3647
    Composition as a fiction
    with Gideon Rosen
    In Richard Gale (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Metaphysics, Blackwell. pp. 151--174. 2002.
    Region R Question: How many objects — entities, things — are contained in R? Ignore the empty space. Our question might better be put, 'How many material objects does R contain?' Let's stipulate that A, B and C are metaphysical atoms: absolutely simple entities with no parts whatsoever besides themselves. So you don't have to worry about counting a particle's top half and bottom half as different objects. Perhaps they are 'point-particles', with no length, width or breadth. Perhaps they are exte…Read more
  •  1581
    Knowing against the odds
    Philosophical Studies 170 (2): 277-287. 2014.
    We present and discuss a counterexample to the following plausible principle: if you know that a coin is fair, and for all you know it is going to be flipped, then for all you know it will land tails.
  •  447
    There are no abstract objects
    In Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, Blackwell. 2008.
    I explicate and defend the claim that, fundamentally speaking, there are no numbers, sets, properties or relations. The clarification consists in some remarks on the relevant sense of ‘fundamentally speaking’ and the contrasting sense of ‘superficially speaking’. The defence consists in an attempt to rebut two arguments for the existence of such entities. The first is a version of the indispensability argument, which purports to show that certain mathematical entities are required for good scien…Read more
  •  96
    This paper lays out a novel proposal about the metaphysical foundations of (non-relativistic) quantum mechanics, which has some elements in common with Everett's “Many Worlds” interpretation and some elements in common with Bohm's ”Pilot Wave” interpretation. The view agrees with the Everettians that the quantum wavefunction can be interpreted be interpreted as a <em>complete</em> description of the world in fundamental terms. But it holds that this truth of this description suffices for the e…Read more
  •  1410
    Self-locating Priors and Cosmological Measures
    In Khalil Chamcham, John Barrow, Simon Saunders & Joe Silk (eds.), The Philosophy of Cosmology, Cambridge University Press. pp. 396-428. 2017.
    We develop a Bayesian framework for thinking about the way evidence about the here and now can bear on hypotheses about the qualitative character of the world as a whole, including hypotheses according to which the total population of the world is infinite. We show how this framework makes sense of the practice cosmologists have recently adopted in their reasoning about such hypotheses.
  •  1080
    Physical Geometry and Fundamental Metaphysics
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (1pt1): 135-159. 2011.
    I explore some ways in which one might base an account of the fundamental metaphysics of geometry on the mathematical theory of Linear Structures recently developed by Tim Maudlin (2010). Having considered some of the challenges facing this approach, Idevelop an alternative approach, according to which the fundamental ontology includes concrete entities structurally isomorphic to functions from space-time points to real numbers
  •  554
    Review of James Ladyman and Don Ross, Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (6). 2010.
    Ladyman, Ross and their collaborators (Spurrett is a co-author of two chapters, Collier of one) begin their book with a ferocious attack on "analytic metaphysics", as it is currently practiced. Their opening blast claims that contemporary analytic metaphysics 'contributes nothing to human knowledge': its practitioners are 'wasting their talents', and the whole enterprise, although 'engaged in by some extremely intelligent and morally serious people, fails to qualify as part of the enlightened pu…Read more
  •  154
    Merricks on the existence of human organisms
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (3). 2003.
    BB Whenever a baseball causes an event, the baseball’s constituent atoms also cause that event, and the baseball is causally irrelevant to whether those atoms cause that event
  •  182
    In 1950, Quine inaugurated a strange new way of talking about philosophy. The hallmark of this approach is a propensity to take ordinary colloquial sentences that all of us utter routinely when we are not thinking about philosophy, or (more often) other sentences that very directly and obviously logically entail such sentences, and treat those sentences (i) as having a clear content, calling for little or no elucidation, and (ii) as proper objects of philosophical controversy. Questions like ‘ar…Read more
  •  6667
    Naturalness
    In Karen Bennett & Dean Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics: Volume 8, Oxford University Press. pp. 1. 2013.
    Lewis's notion of a "natural" property has proved divisive: some have taken to the notion with enthusiasm, while others have been sceptical. However, it is far from obvious what the enthusiasts and the sceptics are disagreeing about. This paper attempts to articulate what is at stake in this debate.
  •  1412
    Transparency and the Context-Sensitivity of Attitude Reports
    In Manuel García-Carpintero & Genoveva Martí (eds.), Empty Representations: Reference and Non-Existence, Oxford University Press. pp. 25-66. 2014.
    This paper defends the claim that although ‘Superman is Clark Kent and some people who believe that Superman flies do not believe that Clark Kent flies’ is a logically inconsistent sentence, we can still utter this sentence, while speaking literally, without asserting anything false. The key idea is that the context-sensitivity of attitude reports can be - and often is - resolved in different ways within a single sentence.
  •  89
    Argument that Q∃ expresses more than one proposition: (1) Q∃ expresses the proposition that Q∃ expresses some proposition that isn’t true. ((E)) (2) If Q ∃ expresses only true propositions, then the proposition that Q ∃ expresses some proposition that isn’t true is true. ((1)) (3) If Q∃ expresses only true propositions, then some proposition expressed by Q∃ is not true. (2, T) (4) Some proposition expressed by Q ∃ is not true. ((3)) (5) The proposition that Q ∃ expresses some proposition that is…Read more
  •  2780
    This paper investigates the form a modal realist analysis of possibility and necessity should take. It concludes that according to the best version of modal realism, the notion of a world plays no role in the analysis of modal claims. All contingent claims contain some de re element; the effect of modal operators on these elements is described by a counterpart theory which takes the same form whether the de re reference is to a world or to something else. This fully general counterpart theory ca…Read more
  •  75
    Let me regale you with yet another variant of the story of Sleeping Beauty. In this one, the experiment takes place in a room with a skylight, so that Beauty can see what the weather is like outside as soon as she wakes up. The weather can be in any one of n different states on any given day. Beauty regards each of these states as equiprobable; moreover, she takes there to be no correlation between the weather on Monday and the weather on Tuesday, or between the weather on either day and the coi…Read more
  •  204
    Vagueness without ignorance
    Philosophical Perspectives 17 (1). 2003.
    I motivate and briefly sketch a linguistic theory of vagueness, on which the notion of indeterminacy is understood in terms of the conventions of language: a sentence is indeterminate iff the conventions of language either forbid asserting it and forbid asserting its negation, under the circumstances, or permit asserting either. I then consider an objection that purports to show that if this theory (or, as far as I can see, any other theory of vagueness that deserved the label "linguistic" were…Read more