-
370Al-Taftāzānī on the Liar ParadoxOxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 4 (1). 2016.Al-Taftāzānī introduces the Liar Paradox, in a commentary on al-Rāzī, in a short passage that is part of a polemic against the ethical rationalism of the Muʿtazila. In this essay, we consider his remarks and their place in the history of the Liar Paradox in Arabic Logic. In the passage, al-Taftāzānī introduces Liar Cycles into the tradition, gives the paradox a puzzling name—the fallacy of the “irrational root” —which became standard, and suggests a connection between the paradox and what it tel…Read more
-
56Counting AgainGrazer Philosophische Studien 94 (1-2): 69-82. 2017.The authors consider a recurring objection to fictional realism, the view that fictional characters are objects. The authors call this the counting objection. Russell presses a version of the objection against Meinong’s view. Everett presses a version of the objection against contemporary fictional realist views, as do Nolan and Sandgren. As the authors see it, the objection assumes that the fictional realist must provide criteria of identity for fictional characters, so its force depends on the…Read more
-
60Objects: Nothing Out of the Ordinary, by Korman, Daniel Z.: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. x + 251, £40 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96 (2): 416-416. 2018.
-
51Being and Time: The Metaphysics of Past and Future in a Dynamic WorldDissertation, UCLA. 2005.In my dissertation, I tried to make sense of the view that the facts that constitute reality—the facts about what there is, and what properties things instantiate—are temporary facts.
-
112If reality is temporary, then reality changes, and if reality changes, the past has explanatory work to do, and it cannot do that work unless it is no longer real. This tells against the Moving Now Theory, the Growing Block Theory, and any form of Presentism that attempts to understand the past in terms of the present, including Tensed Properties Presentism and Tensed Facts Presentism. It tells in favor of a form Presentism that allows us to appeal to unreal past facts. I suggest that Priorian P…Read more
-
63Frivolous FictionsRes Philosophica 93 (2): 357-376. 2016.We want to say both that Sherlock Holmes does not exist, and that he is a fictional character. But how can we say these things without committing ourselves to the existence of Sherlock Holmes? Here I develop and defend a non-commital paraphrase of quantification over fictional characters, modeled on the non-commital paraphrase Kit Fine provides for quantification over possibilia. I also develop and defend the view that names for fictional characters are weakly non-referring, in Nathan Salmon’s s…Read more
-
622The early Arabic liar: the liar paradox in the Islamic world from the mid-ninth to the mid-thirteenth centuries CEVivarium 47 (1): 97-127. 2009.We describe the earliest occurrences of the Liar Paradox in the Arabic tradition. e early Mutakallimūn claim the Liar Sentence is both true and false; they also associate the Liar with problems concerning plural subjects, which is somewhat puzzling. Abharī (1200-1265) ascribes an unsatisfiable truth condition to the Liar Sentence—as he puts it, its being true is the conjunction of its being true and false—and so concludes that the sentence is not true. Tūsī (1201-1274) argues that self-referenti…Read more
-
154Worlds Enough for JunkRes Philosophica 93 (1): 1-18. 2016.The possibility of Junk is the possibility that something exists and everything is a proper part. Just as we might imagine that there are no simples—that everything has a proper part, all the way down—we might imagine that there are no caps—that everything is a proper part, all the way up. It is not obvious that this apparent possibility can be accommodated within a Lewisian modal framework. For Lewis, every possibility involves the existence of a possible world, and a possible world is just is …Read more
-
1199Presentism and TruthmakingPhilosophy Compass 6 (3): 196-208. 2011.Three plausible views—Presentism, Truthmaking, and Independence—form an inconsistent triad. By Presentism, all being is present being. By Truthmaking, all truth supervenes on, and is explained in terms of, being. By Independence, some past truths do not supervene on, or are not explained in terms of, present being. We survey and assess some responses to this.
-
50Possible worlds are maximal possibilities. But what kind of thing is a maximal possibility? Not a maximal individual: there are maximal possibilities that are not maximal individuals, because each maximal individual could have any one of several maximal properties. And not a maximal property: there are maximal possibilities that are not maximal properties, because each maximal property could be had by any one of many possible maximal individuals. So if you like your worlds concrete, you should s…Read more
UCLA
Department Of Philosophy
Alumnus
Normal, Illinois, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
Medieval Arabic and Islamic Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
24 more
PhilPapers Editorships
Nonexistent Objects |