•  384
    A Minimalist Theory of Appropriation
    The Journal of Ethics 26 (2): 319-335. 2022.
    This paper offers a conditional defence of a minimalist theory of appropriation. The conclusion of its main argument is that, if people do enjoy a natural right to appropriate unappropriated resources, then that right is best understood as a derivative right that stems from a more fundamental natural right to self-preservation. If this conclusion is correct, then insofar as people have a natural right to appropriation, it is much more limited than it is usually assumed, as the minimalist theory …Read more
  •  438
    Shopping for experts
    Synthese 200 (3): 1-21. 2022.
    This paper explores the socio-epistemic practice of shopping for experts. I argue that expert shopping is particularly likely to occur on what Thi Nguyen calls cognitive islands. To support my argument, I focus on macroeconomics. First, I make a prima-facie case for thinking that macroeconomics is a cognitive island. Then, I argue that ordinary people are particularly likely to engage in expert shopping when it comes to macroeconomic matters. In particular, I distinguish between two kinds of exp…Read more
  •  28
    This essay argues that the modern business corporations are robots that are taking over the world in their single-minded pursuit of their own goals.
  •  848
    In this paper, I distinguish three general approaches to public trust in science, which I call the individual approach, the semi-social approach, and the social approach, and critically examine their proposed solutions to what I call the problem of harmful distrust. I argue that, despite their differences, the individual and the semi-social approaches see the solution to the problem of harmful distrust as consisting primarily in trying to persuade individual citizens to trust science and that bo…Read more
  •  297
    On the mitigation of inductive risk
    European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3): 1-14. 2021.
    The last couple of decades have witnessed a renewed interest in the notion of inductive risk among philosophers of science. However, while it is possible to find a number of suggestions about the mitigation of inductive risk in the literature, so far these suggestions have been mostly relegated to vague marginal remarks. This paper aims to lay the groundwork for a more systematic discussion of the mitigation of inductive risk. In particular, I consider two approaches to the mitigation of inducti…Read more
  •  70
    This paper has two goals. The first is to fill a gap in the literature on inductive risk by exploring the relevance of the notion of inductive risk to macroeconomics and monetary policy. The second goal is to draw some general lessons about inductive risk from the case discussed. The most important of these lessons is that the notion of inductive risk is no less relevant to the relationship between the proximate and distal goals of policy than it is to the relationship between policies and their…Read more
  •  171
    Powerful Qualities or Pure Powers?
    Metaphysica 20 (1): 5-33. 2019.
    This paper explores the debate between those philosophers who take (fundamental, perfectly natural) properties to be pure powers and those who take them to be powerful qualities. I first consider two challenges for the view that properties are powerful qualities, which I call, respectively, ‘the clarification challenge’ and ‘the explanatory challenge’. I then examine a number of arguments that aim to show that properties cannot be pure powers and find them all wanting. Finally, I sketch what I t…Read more
  •  105
    Who is afraid of imaginary objects?
    In Nicholas Griffin & Dale Jacquette (eds.), Russell Vs. Meinong: The Legacy of "On Denoting", Routledge. 2009.
    People often use expressions such as ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Pegasus’ that appear to refer to imaginary objects. In this paper, I consider the main attempts to account for apparent reference to imaginary objects available in the literature and argue that all fall short of being fully satisfactory. In particular, I consider the problems of two main options to maintain that imaginary objects are real and reference to them is genuine reference: possibilist and abstractist account. According to the f…Read more
  •  439
    Today most philosophers of science believe that models play a central role in science and that one of the main functions of scientific models is to represent systems in the world. Despite much talk of models and representation, however, it is not yet clear what representation in this context amounts to nor what conditions a certain model needs to meet in order to be a representation of a certain system. In this thesis, I address these two questions. First, I will distinguish three senses in whic…Read more
  •  277
    Do Extrinsic Dispositions Need Extrinsic Causal Bases?
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (3): 622-638. 2012.
    In this paper, I distinguish two often-conflated theses—the thesis that all dispositions are intrinsic properties and the thesis that the causal bases of all dispositions are intrinsic properties—and argue that the falsity of the former does not entail the falsity of the latter. In particular, I argue that extrinsic dispositions are a counterexample to first thesis but not necessarily to the second thesis, because an extrinsic disposition does not need to include any extrinsic property in its ca…Read more
  •  476
    Mereological nihilism is the thesis that there are no composite objects—i.e. objects with proper material parts. One of the main advantages of mereological nihilism is that it allows its supporters to avoid a number of notorious philosophical puzzles. However, it seems to offer this advantage only at the expense of certain widespread and deeply entrenched beliefs. In particular, it is usually assumed that mereological nihilism entails eliminativism about ordinary objects—i.e. the counterintuitiv…Read more
  •  156
    Sweet Nothings
    Analysis 72 (2): 354-366. 2012.
    [This paper is part of a book symposium on Jody Azzouni's Talking about Nothing: Numbers, Hallucinations, and Fictions]
  •  266
    The thesis that a temporal asymmetry of counterfactual dependence characterizes our world plays a central role in Lewis’s philosophy, as. among other things, it underpins one of Lewis most renowned theses—that causation can be analyzed in terms of counterfactual dependence. To maintain that a temporal asymmetry of counterfactual dependence characterizes our world, Lewis committed himself to two other theses. The first is that the closest possible worlds at which the antecedent of a counterfactua…Read more
  •  72
    A Note on the Nomic Possibility of a Dynamic Shift
    Erkenntnis 68 (2): 187-190. 2008.
    In this note, I argue that a dynamically shifted world—i.e. a world identical to our own except for a fixed constant difference in the absolute acceleration of each object—is nomically impossible in a Newtonian world populated by finitely many objects. A dynamic shift however seems to be nomically possible in a world populated by infinitely many objects, but only in a broad sense of nomic possibility.
  •  458
    Does Your Metaphysics Need Structure?
    Analysis 73 (4): 715-721. 2013.
    This paper is part of a book symposium on Theodore Sider's Writing the Book of the World
  •  903
    Scientific Models and Representation
    In Steven French & Juha Saatsi (eds.), The Continuum Companion to the Philosophy of Science, Continuum Press. pp. 120--137. 2011.
    My two daughters would love to go tobogganing down the hill by themselves, but they are just toddlers and I am an apprehensive parent, so, before letting them do so, I want to ensure that the toboggan won’t go too fast. But how fast will it go? One way to try to answer this question would be to tackle the problem head on. Since my daughters and their toboggan are initially at rest, according to classical mechanics, their final velocity will be determined by the forces they will be subjected to b…Read more
  •  183
    [This paper is part of a book symposium on Bas van Fraassen's Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective (OUP, 2010)]
  •  332
    Only Powers Can Confer Dispositions
    Philosophical Quarterly 65 (259): 160-176. 2015.
    According to power theorists, properties are powers—i.e. they necessarily confer on their bearers certain dispositions. Although the power theory is increasingly gaining popularity, a vast majority of analytic metaphysicians still favors what I call ‘the nomic theory’—i.e. the view according to which what dispositions a property confers on its bearers is contingent on what the laws of nature happen to be. This paper argues that the nomic theory is inconsistent, for, if it were correct, then prop…Read more
  •  670
    Scientific representation, interpretation, and surrogative reasoning
    Philosophy of Science 74 (1): 48-68. 2007.
    In this paper, I develop Mauricio Suárez’s distinction between denotation, epistemic representation, and faithful epistemic representation. I then outline an interpretational account of epistemic representation, according to which a vehicle represents a target for a certain user if and only if the user adopts an interpretation of the vehicle in terms of the target, which would allow them to perform valid (but not necessarily sound) surrogative inferences from the model to the system. The main di…Read more
  •  120
    Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality, by Barbara Vetter (review)
    Mind 125 (500): 1236-1244. 2016.
    Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality, by VetterBarbara. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 335.
  •  258
    Constructive empiricism, observability and three kinds of ontological commitment
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (3): 454-468. 2006.
    In this paper, I argue that, contrary to the constructive empiricist’s position, observability is not an adequate criterion as a guide to ontological commitment in science. My argument has two parts. First, I argue that the constructive empiricist’s choice of observability as a criterion for ontological commitment is based on the assumption that belief in the existence of unobservable entities is unreasonable because belief in the existence of an entity can only be vindicated by its observation.…Read more
  •  405
    Fictionalism and deflationism are two moderate meta-ontological positions that try to occupy a middle ground between the extremes of heavy-duty realism and hard-line eliminativism. Deflationists believe that the existence of certain entities (e.g.: numbers) can be established by means of ‘easy’ arguments—arguments that, supposedly, rely solely on uncontroversial premises and trivial inferences. Fictionalists, however, find easy arguments unconvincing. Amie Thomasson has recently argued that, in …Read more
  •  462
    Scientific models and fictional objects
    Synthese 172 (2): 215-229. 2010.
    In this paper, I distinguish scientific models in three kinds on the basis of their ontological status—material models, mathematical models and fictional models, and develop and defend an account of fictional models as fictional objects—i.e. abstract objects that stand for possible concrete objects.
  •  70
    Introduction
    Synthese 172 (2): 193-195. 2010.
    In this paper, I distinguish scientific models in three kinds on the basis of their ontological status—material models, mathematical models and fictional models, and develop and defend an account of fictional models as fictional objects—i.e. abstract objects that stand for possible concrete objects.
  •  130
    There are Kinds and Kinds of Kinds: Ben-Yami on the Semantics of Kind Terms
    Philosophical Studies 136 (2): 217-248. 2007.
    Hanoch Ben-Yami has argued that the theory of the semantics of natural kind terms proposed by Kripke and Putnam is false and has proposed an allegedly novel account of the semantics of kind terms. In this article, I critically examine Ben-Yami’s arguments. I will argue that Ben-Yami’s objections do not show that Kripke and Putnam’s theory is false, but at most that the specific versions of it held by Kripke and Putnam have some weaknesses. Moreover, I will argue that Ben-Yami’s account is not a …Read more
  •  126
    Dispositions and Tricks
    Erkenntnis 81 (3): 587-596. 2016.
    According to the Simple Conditional Analysis of disposition ascriptions, disposition ascriptions are to be analyzed in terms of counterfactual conditionals. The Simple Conditional Analysis is notoriously vulnerable to counterexamples. In this paper, I introduce a new sort of counterexample to the Simple Conditional Analysis of disposition ascriptions, which I call ‘tricks’. I then explore a number of possible strategies to modify the Simple Conditional Analysis so as to avoid tricks and conclude…Read more