University of Oxford
Faculty of Philosophy, New College
DPhil, 2002
York, York, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion
Modality
  •  1
  •  595
    After Pascal’s Wager: on religious belief, regulated and rationally held
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 90 (1): 61-78. 2021.
    In Pascal’s famous wager, he claims that the seeking non-believer can induce genuine religious belief in herself by joining a religious community and taking part in its rituals. This form of belief regulation is epistemologically puzzling: can we form beliefs in this way, and could such beliefs be rationally held? In the first half of the paper, we explain how the regimen could allow the seeking non-believer to regulate her religious beliefs by intervening on her evidence and epistemic standards…Read more
  • This chapter argues that there is no reason that there won’t be physical disabilities in the life of heaven. To argue for this conclusion, the chapter considers what bodies will be good for in the life of heaven. On the one hand, if the life of heaven is physically dynamic, that is, where our bodies change and we can do things with them, like play rugby and climb mountains, physical disabilities can be part of the limitations that allow the physical things we do to be difficult, which, in turn, …Read more
  •  1121
    In this chapter, we argue that it’s possible to lose your faith in God by the actions of other people. In particular, we argue that spiritually violent religious trauma, where religious texts are used to shame a person into thinking themselves unworthy of God’s love, can cause a person to stop engaging in activities that sustain their faith in God, such as engaging in the worship of God. To do this, we provide an analysis of faith, worship, and love on which to have faith in God is to have an at…Read more
  •  36
    Stages of life: A new metaphysics of conceptionism
    Bioethics 33 (4): 529-535. 2019.
    When a human being comes into existence is crucial in bioethics. Conceptionism is the view that a human being comes into existence at conception. The twinning argument is an influential objection to this view. All versions of the twinning argument rely on a metaphysics of material objects, namely, endurantism. Given this, a strategy for defending conceptionism against the twinning argument is to deny endurantism and adopt an alternative metaphysics of material objects. A version of this strategy…Read more
  •  51
    Common Worship
    Faith and Philosophy 35 (3): 299-325. 2018.
    People of faith, particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition, worship corporately at least as often, if not more so, than they do individually. Why do they do this? There are, of course, many reasons, some having to do with personal preference and others having to do with the theology of worship. But, in this paper, we explore one reason, a philosophical reason, which, despite recent work on the philosophy of liturgy, has gone underappreciated. In particular, we argue that corporate worship en…Read more
  •  14
    Common Worship
    Faith and Philosophy 35 (3): 299-325. 2018.
    People of faith, particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition, worship corporately at least as often, if not more so, than they do individually. Why do they do this? There are, of course, many reasons, some having to do with personal preference and others having to do with the theology of worship. But, in this paper, we explore one reason, a philosophical reason, which, despite recent work on the philosophy of liturgy, has gone underappreciated. In particular, we argue that corporate worship en…Read more
  •  5
    Divine command theory and the semantics of quantified modal logic
    In Yujin Nagasawa & Erik J. Wielenberg (eds.), New waves in philosophy of religion, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 91. 2008.
    I offer a series of axiomatic formalizations of Divine Command Theory motivated by certain methodological considerations. Given these considerations, I present what I take to be the best axiomatization of Divine Command Theory, an axiomatization which requires a non-standardsemantics for quantified modal logic
  •  55
    What an Apophaticist Can Know
    Philosophy and Theology 29 (2): 205-219. 2017.
    For an apophatic theologian, the doctrines of divine ineffability and of the beatific vision seem, on first glance, to contradict each other. If God is beyond knowledge how can we come to know Him, fully and completely? To resolve this problem, we argue that, if there are at least two qualitatively different kinds of knowledge, namely, propositional knowledge and knowledge of persons, then there are at least two qualitatively different kinds of ineffability, namely, propositional ineffability an…Read more
  •  181
    What is the principle of recombination?
    Dialectica 62 (4): 483-494. 2008.
    In this paper, we give a precise characterization of the principle of recombination and argue that it need not be subject to any restrictions.
  •  27
    The Subtraction Argument for the Possibility of Free Mass
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (1): 50-57. 2009.
    Jonathan Schaffer has recently argued that there can be objects having only mass. We show that his argument is either invalid or question begging.
  •  140
  •  71
    The subtraction argument for the possibility of free mass
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (1): 50-57. 2009.
    Could an object have only mass and no other property? In giving an affirmative answer to this question, Jonathan Schaffer (2003, pp. 136-8) proposes what he calls ‘the subtraction argument’ for ‘the possibility of free mass’. In what follows, we aim to assess the cogency of this argument in comparison with an argument of the same general form which has also been termed a subtraction argument, namely, Thomas Baldwin’s (1996) subtraction argument for metaphysical nihilism, which is the claim that …Read more
  •  18
    Is Timothy Williamson a Necessary Existent
    In Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann (eds.), Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology, Oxford University Press. 2010.
    Timothy Williamson (2002) has offered an argument for the claim that, necessarily, he exists, that is, that he is a necessary existent.1 Though this argument has attracted a great deal of attention (e.g., Rumfitt 2003 and Wiggins 2003), I present a new argument for the same conclusion which reveals a new way of denying the soundness of Williamson’s argument, one which denies not only that it is necessary that he exists but also that there are any true necessities about Williamson at all. In conc…Read more
  •  102
    Justifying metaphysical nihilism: A response to Cameron
    Philosophical Quarterly 59 (234): 132-137. 2009.
    Ross Cameron charges the subtraction argument for metaphysical nihilism with equivocation: each premise is plausible only under different interpretations of 'concrete'. This charge is ungrounded; the argument is both valid and supported by basic modal intuitions.
  •  79
    ‘We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth’, so Christians confess when they recite the Nicene Creed. Now if the argument of Mark S. McLeod-Harrison’s Make/Believing the World: Toward a Christian Ontological Pluralism is correct, God is not alone in that task. We human beings are makers of heaven and earth, too, in the sense that what exists is as it is because our minds have made it so, which is a kind of noetic irrealism. Now noetic irrealism about heaven and e…Read more
  •  29
    Review of E. J. Lowe, A. Rami (eds.), Truth and Truth-Making (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (8). 2009.
  •  124
    Combinatorialism and the possibility of nothing
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (2). 2006.
    We argue that Armstrong's Combinatorialism allows for the possibility of nothing by giving a Combinatorial account of the empty world and show that such an account is consistent with the ontological and conceptual aims of the theory. We then suggest that the Combinatorialist should allow for this possibility given some methodological considerations. Consequently, rather than being 'spoils for the victor', as Armstrong maintains, deciding whether there might have been nothing helps to determine w…Read more
  •  777
    Genuine modal realism and the empty world
    with Tom Stoneham
    European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 1 (1): 21-37. 2005.
    We argue that genuine modal realism can be extended, rather than modified, so as to allow for the possibility of nothing concrete, a possibility we term ‘metaphysical nihilism’. The issue should be important to the genuine modal realist because, not only is metaphysical nihilism itself intuitively plausible, but also it is supported by an argument with pre-theoretically credible premises, namely, the subtraction argument. Given the soundness of the subtraction argument, we show that there are tw…Read more
  •  193
    Is metaphysical nihilism interesting?
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2): 210-231. 2009.
    Suppose nothing exists. Then it is true that nothing exists. What makes that true? Nothing! So it seems that if nothing existed, then the principle that every truth is made true by something (the truthmaker principle) would be false. So if it is possible that nothing exists, a claim often called 'metaphysical nihilism', then the truthmaker principle is not necessary. This paper explores various ways to resolve this conflict without restricting metaphysical nihilism in such a way that it would be…Read more
  •  31
    Divine Action and Operative Grace
    Heythrop Journal 58 (5): 771-779. 2017.
    Operative grace is generally considered to be a paradigm example of special divine action. In this paper, we suggest one reason to think operative grace might be consistent with general divine action alone. On our view, then, a deist can consistently believe in a doctrine of saving faith.