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Keeping track of Neurath's bill: abstract concepts, stock models and the unity of classical physicsIn Olga Pombo (ed.), The Unity of Science: Essays in Honour of Otto Neurath, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2011.
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60The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. W.W. Norton, 2019, xvi + 232 pp., $27.95 (hbk), ISBN: 9781324002727 (review)Economics and Philosophy 37 (3): 489-494. 2021.
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453A Minimalist Theory of AppropriationThe 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
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482Shopping for expertsSynthese 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
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40The Robot Apocalypse is Already Here (But the Robots Are Not What You Think)The Philosophers' Magazine 54-58. 2021.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.
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967It Takes a Village to Trust Science: Towards a (Thoroughly) Social Approach to Public Trust in ScienceErkenntnis 88 (7): 2941-2966. 2023.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
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130Review of Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy (New York, Public Affairs, 2020) (review)Economics and Philosophy 38 (2): 315-320. 2022.
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335On the mitigation of inductive riskEuropean 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
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82Inductive risk in macroeconomics: Natural Rate Theory, monetary policy, and the Great Canadian SlumpEconomics and Philosophy 37 (3): 353-375. 2021.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
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181Powerful 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
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345Only Powers Can Confer DispositionsPhilosophical 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
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684Scientific representation, interpretation, and surrogative reasoningPhilosophy 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
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130Potentiality: 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.
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265Constructive empiricism, observability and three kinds of ontological commitmentStudies 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
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418It Ain’t Easy: Fictionalism, Deflationism, and Easy Arguments in OntologyMind 125 (499): 763-773. 2016.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
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469Scientific models and fictional objectsSynthese 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.
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79IntroductionSynthese 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.
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451The junk argument: safe disposal guidelines for mereological universalistsAnalysis 72 (3): 455-457. 2012.
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141There are Kinds and Kinds of Kinds: Ben-Yami on the Semantics of Kind TermsPhilosophical 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
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88Review of Bas C. Van Fraassen, Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (3). 2009.
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133Dispositions and TricksErkenntnis 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
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562This book defends a two-tiered account of epistemic representation--the sort of representation relation that holds between representations such as maps and scientific models and their targets. It defends a interpretational account of epistemic representation and a structural similarity account of overall faithful epistemic representation.
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193Scientific models, partial structures and the new received view of theories (review)Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (2): 370-377. 2006.
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527Modal truthmakers and two varieties of actualismSynthese 174 (3). 2010.In this paper, I distinguish between two varieties of actualism—hardcore actualism and softcore actualism—and I critically discuss Ross Cameron’s recent arguments for preferring a softcore actualist account of the truthmakers for modal truths over hardcore actualist ones. In the process, I offer some arguments for preferring the hardcore actualist account of modal truthmakers over the softcore actualist one.
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132Keeping Track of Neurath's Bill: Abstract Concepts, Stock Models, and the Unity of Classical PhysicsIn Olga Pombo (ed.), The Unity of Science: Essays in Honour of Otto Neurath, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2011.
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464Dispositions and InterferencesPhilosophical Studies 165 (2): 401-419. 2013.The Simple Counterfactual Analysis (SCA) was once considered the most promising analysis of disposition ascriptions. According to SCA, disposition ascriptions are to be analyzed in terms of counterfactual conditionals. In the last few decades, however, SCA has become the target of a battery of counterexamples. In all counterexamples, something seems to be interfering with a certain object’s having or not having a certain disposition thus making the truth-values of the disposition ascription and …Read more
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113Who 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
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450Representing Reality: The Ontology of Scientific Models and Their Representational FunctionDissertation, University of London. 2007.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
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302Do 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