•  2973
    The Oxford handbook of metaphysics (edited book)
    with Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman
    Oxford University Press. 2003.
    The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics offers the most authoritative and compelling guide to this diverse and fertile field of philosophy. Twenty-four of the world's most distinguished specialists provide brand-new essays about 'what there is': what kinds of things there are, and what relations hold among entities falling under various categories. They give the latest word on such topics as identity, modality, time, causation, persons and minds, freedom, and vagueness. The Handbook's unrivaled bread…Read more
  •  1561
    Indivisible Parts and Extended Objects
    The Monist 79 (1): 148-180. 1996.
    Physical boundaries and the earliest topologists. Topology has a relatively short history; but its 19th century roots are embedded in philosophical problems about the nature of extended substances and their boundaries which go back to Zeno and Aristotle. Although it seems that there have always been philosophers interested in these matters, questions about the boundaries of three-dimensional objects were closest to center stage during the later medieval and modern periods. Are the boundaries of …Read more
  •  856
    Review: Saving God from Saving God (review)
    Books and Culture 15 (3). 2012.
    Mark Johnston’s book, Saving God (Princeton University Press, 2010) has two main goals, one negative and the other positive: (1) to eliminate the gods of the major Western monotheisms (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) as candidates for the role of “the Highest One”; (2) to introduce the real Highest One, a panentheistic deity worthy of devotion and capable of extending to us the grace needed to transform us from inwardly-turned sinners to practitioners of agape. In this review, we argue that Jo…Read more
  •  799
    The privileged present : Defending an "a-theory" of time
    In Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, Blackwell. pp. 211--225. 2007.
    Uncorrected Proof; please cite published version.
  •  779
    The paper has two parts: First, I describe a relatively popular thesis in the philosophy of propositional attitudes, worthy of the name ‘taking tense seriously’; and I distinguish it from a family of views in the metaphysics of time, namely, the A-theories (or what are sometimes called ‘tensed theories of time’). Once the distinction is in focus, a skeptical worry arises. Some A-theorists maintain that the difference between past, present, and future, is to be drawn in terms of what exists: grow…Read more
  •  596
    I—Dean Zimmerman: From Property Dualism to Substance Dualism
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 84 (1): 119-150. 2010.
    Property dualism is enjoying a slight resurgence in popularity, these days; substance dualism, not so much. But it is not as easy as one might think to be a property dualist and a substance materialist. The reasons for being a property dualist support the idea that some phenomenal properties (or qualia) are as fundamental as the most basic physical properties; but what material objects could be the bearers of the qualia? If even some qualia require an adverbial construal (if they are modificatio…Read more
  •  498
    Contemporary debates in metaphysics (edited book)
    Blackwell. 2008.
    This anthology introduces advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students to today's debates in metaphysics. The book consists of essays by contemporary metaphysicians, and all but one appear here for the first time. For each of nine topics, there are two essays, one "pro-" and one "con-".
  •  430
    Persistence and presentism
    Philosophical Papers 25 (2): 115-126. 1996.
    The ‘friends of temporal parts’ and their opponents disagree about how things persist through time. The former, who hold what is sometimes called a ‘4D’ theory of persistence, typically claim that all objects that last for any period of time are spread out through time in the same way that spatially extended objects are spread out through space — a different part for each region that the object fills. David Lewis calls this manner of persisting ‘perdurance’. The opposing, ‘3D’ theory has it that…Read more
  •  322
    Could extended objects be made out of simple parts? An argument for "atomless gunk"
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (1): 1-29. 1996.
    Let us say that an extended object is “composed wholly of simples” just in case it is an aggregate of absolutely unextended parts spread throughout an extended region—that is, just in case there is a set S such that: every member is a point-sized part of the object, and for every x, x is part of the object if and only if it has a part in common with some member of S. Could a truly extended substance be composed entirely of unextended parts? Reflection upon the fact that it must be at least possi…Read more
  •  277
    Problems for Animalism
    Abstracta 4 (S1): 23-31. 2008.
    My comments have two parts. I begin by laying out the argument that seems to me to be at the core of Olson’s thinking about human persons; and I suggest a problem with his reasons for accepting one of its premises. The premise is warranted by its platitudinous or commonsensical status; but Olson’s arguments lead him to conclusions that undermine the family of platitudes to which it belongs. Then I’ll raise a question about how Olson should construe the vagueness that would seem to infect the bou…Read more
  •  256
    Theories of masses and problems of constitution
    Philosophical Review 104 (1): 53-110. 1995.
    The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
  •  235
    God Inside Time and Before Creation
    In Gregory E. Ganssle & David M. Woodruff (eds.), God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, Oxford Up. pp. 75--94. 2002.
    Many theists reject the notion that God’s eternity consists in his timelessness — i.e., in his lacking temporal extension and failing to possess properties at any times. Some of these “divine temporalists” hold that, for philosophical reasons, it is impossible to accept both the timelessness of God and the view that God knows what happens at different times and brings about events in time. 1 Many reject divine timelessness as a dubious import from Platonism with no biblical or theological warran…Read more
  •  229
    The A-Theory of Time, Presentism, and Open Theism
    In Melville Y. Stewart (ed.), Science and Religion in Dialogue, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 789--809. 2010.
    This chapter contains sections titled: * I Introduction * II A-Theories and B-Theories * III Competing Versions of the A-Theory * IV Presentism a Trivial Truth? * V Open Theism and the A-Theory of Time * VI The “Truthmaker” Argument * VII Conclusion * Notes
  •  226
    The Compatibility of Materialism and Survival
    Faith and Philosophy 16 (2): 194-212. 1999.
    It is not easy to be a materialist and yet believe that there is a way for human beings to survive death. Peter van Inwagen identifies the central obstacle the materialist faces: Namely, the need to posit appropriate “immanent-causal” connections between my body as it is at death and some living body elsewhere or elsewhen. I offer a proposal, consistent with van Inwagen’s own materialist metaphysics, for making materialism compatible with the possibility of survival.
  •  195
    Immanent causation
    Philosophical Perspectives 11 433-471. 1997.
  •  185
    Dispatches from the Zombie Wars
    The Times Literary Supplement (April 28). forthcoming.
    Review of Daniel Dennett's *Sweet Dreams* and Gregg Rosenberg's *A Place for Consciousness*
  •  183
    Oxford Studies in Metaphysics (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2008.
    ... dedicated to the timely publication of new work in metaphysics, broadly construed.
  •  179
    Properties, Minds, and Bodies: An Examination of Sydney Shoemaker’s Metaphysics
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (3): 673-738. 2009.
    No Abstract
  •  158
    Two cartesian arguments for the simplicity of the soul
    American Philosophical Quarterly 28 (3): 127-37. 1991.
    The most well-known arguments for the simplicity of the soul - i.e., for the thesis that the subject of psychological states must be an unextended substance -are based upon the logical possibility of disembodiment. Descartes introduced this sort of argument into modern philosophy, and a version of it has been defended recently by Richard Swinburne. Some of the underlying assumptions of both arguments are examined and defended, but a closer look reveals that each depends upon unjustified inferenc…Read more
  •  157
    Theology and tense
    with Roderick M. Chisholm
    Noûs 31 (2): 262-265. 1997.
  •  152
    Yet another anti-molinist argument
    In Samuel Newlands & Larry M. Jorgensen (eds.), Metaphysics and the Good: Themes From the Philosophy of Robert Merrihew Adams, Oxford University Press. 2009.
    ‘Molinism’, in contemporary usage, is the name for a theory about the workings of divine providence. Its defenders include some of the most prominent contemporary Protestant and Catholic philosophical theologians.¹ Molinism is often said to be the only way to steer a middle..
  •  149
    Persons: Human and Divine (edited book)
    Oxford University Press UK. 2007.
    The nature of persons is a perennial topic of debate in philosophy, currently enjoying something of a revival. In this volume for the first time metaphysical debates about the nature of human persons are brought together with related debates in philosophy of religion and theology. Fifteen specially written essays explore idealist, dualist, and materialist views of persons, discuss specifically Christian conceptions of the value of embodiment, and address four central topics in philosophical theo…Read more
  •  143
    One really big liquid sphere: Reply to Lewis
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (2). 1999.
    This Article does not have an abstract