•  67
    What am I? And what is my relationship to the thing I call ‘my body’? Thus each of us can pose for himself the philosophical problems of the nature of the self and the relationship between a person and his body. One answer to the question about the relationship between a person and the thing he calls ‘his body’ is that they are two things composed of the same matter at the same time (like a clay statue and the piece of clay which presently constitutes it). This is the ‘constitution view’. In thi…Read more
  •  97
    Can identity itself be vague? Can there be vague objects? Does a positive answer to either question entail a positive answer to the other? In this paper we answer these questions as follows: No, No, and Yes. First, we discuss Evans’s famous 1978 argument and argue that the main lesson that it imparts is that identity itself cannot be vague. We defend the argument from objections and endorse this conclusion. We acknowledge, however, that the argument does not by itself establish either that there…Read more
  •  14
    In Chapter 12 of his book Material Beings (Van Inwagen, Peter. 1990. Material Beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press) van Inwagen argues that there are no artefacts, or very few, certainly fewer than most people believe. Artisans very rarely create, at least in the sense of causing things to come into existence. The argument in Chapter 12 is a very powerful one. I do not think that it establishes van Inwagen’s conclusion, but it does, I think, given its (plausible) premise, establish that if t…Read more
  •  9
    Relative Identity
    In Bob Hale, Crispin Wright & Alexander Miller (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Wiley. 2017.
    This chapter considers Geach's claims solely as pertaining to the philosophy of language and philosophical logic, though much of the interest of the concept of relative identity concerns its applicability to other areas: the metaphysical controversy about personal identity and the debate in philosophical theology on the doctrine of the Trinity. It describes Geach's views under six headings: the non‐existence of absolute identity; the sortal relativity of identity; the derelativization thesis; th…Read more
  •  285
    Identity
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.
    Much of the debate about identity in recent decades has been about personal identity, and specifically about personal identity over time, but identity generally, and the identity of things of other kinds, have also attracted attention. Various interrelated problems have been at the centre of discussion, but it is fair to say that recent work has focussed particularly on the following areas: the notion of a criterion of identity; the correct analysis of identity over time, and, in particular, the…Read more
  •  12
    T. V. Morris, "Understanding Identity Statements" (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 36 (44): 457. 1986.
  •  151
    The Accidental Properties of Numbers and Properties
    with Mark Jago
    Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 1 (2): 134-140. 2012.
    According to genuine modal realism, some things (including numbers and properties) lack distinct counterparts in different worlds. So how can they possess any of their properties contingently? Egan (2004) argues that to explain such accidental property possession, the genuine modal realist must depart from Lewis and identify properties with functions, rather than with sets of possibilia. We disagree. The genuine modal realist already has the resources to handle Egan's proposed counterexamples. A…Read more
  •  30
    Reply to Sawyer on brains in vats
    Analysis 60 (3): 247-249. 2000.
  •  15
    McKinsey-Brown survives
    Analysis 60 (4): 353-356. 2000.
  •  11
    Identity eliminated
    Analysis 67 (2): 122-127. 2007.
  •  37
    Are there vague objects?
    Analysis 64 (2): 131-134. 2004.
  •  81
    A note on temporal parts
    Analysis 45 (3): 151-152. 1985.
  •  15
    Thinking, Language and Experience
    Philosophical Quarterly 41 (162): 109-111. 1991.
  •  12
    All Designators are Rigid
    Metaphysica 24 (1): 101-107. 2023.
    In Naming and Necessity Kripke introduces the concept of a rigid designator and argues that proper names are rigid designators. He argues that in this way they are different from typical definite descriptions (though he allows that some definite descriptions, e.g., ‘the actual winner of the lottery’, ‘the square of 3’, are rigid designators). His opponents have either argued that names can be regarded as abbreviations of rigid descriptions (e.g., ‘actualized’ ones) or have tried to deny that nam…Read more
  •  15
    Fission, Self-Interest and Commonsense Ethics
    Philosophia 51 (3): 1509-1520. 2023.
    Jacob Ross argues that the fission cases discussed in the personal identity literature cannot be accommodated without rejecting basic intuitions of everyday ethical thinking. He notes that many philosophers have responded to the challenge of fission ‘by rejecting the metaphysical assumptions on which it rests’. In particular, that many have denied that in fission one ceases to exist. He contends that these denials do not meet the challenge to commonsense ethical thinking. I reject these claims. …Read more
  •  16
    Concepts May Still Be Objects
    Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 2022 (3): 376-388. 2022.
  •  97
    Personal Identity and the Hybrid View: A Middle Way
    Metaphysica 22 (2): 263-283. 2021.
    Two of the main contenders in the debate about personal persistence over time are the neo-Lockean psychological continuity view and animalism as defended by Olson and Snowdon. Both are wrong. The position I shall argue for, which I call, following Olson, the hybrid view, takes psychological continuity as a sufficient but, pace the neo-Lockeans, not necessary condition for personal persistence. It sides with the animalist in allowing that mere biological continuity is also sufficient. So I am, in…Read more
  •  30
    In the Addenda to Naming and Necessity (1980), Kripke famously argues that it is false that there could have been unicorns, or more properly, that “no counterfactual situation is properly describable as one in which there would have been unicorns.” He adds that he holds similarly that ‘one cannot say of any possible person that he would have been Sherlock Holmes, had he existed.” He notes the “cryptic brevity” of these remarks and refers to a forthcoming work for elaborations—the work being, of …Read more
  •  16
    No Trust is Hybrid: Reply to Faulkner
    Philosophia 49 (5): 2189-2195. 2021.
    There is a well-developed literature on trust. In his important article Faulkner, 424−429, 2015) distinguishes three-place, two-place and one-place trust predicates. He then argues that our more basic notions of trust are expressed by the one-place and two-place predicates. Three-place trust, contractual trust, is not fundamental. This matters. Having a clear understanding of our concepts of trust is important. The most important assumption of Faulkner’s argument is that the notion of trust expr…Read more
  •  51
    In his book Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Williamson argues that the traditional actualist‐possibilist debate should be abandoned as hopelessly unclear and that we should get on with the clearer contingentism‐necessitism debate. We think that Williamson’s pessimism is not warranted by the brief arguments he gives. In this paper, we explain why and provide a clear formulation of the traditional actualist‐possibilist debate.
  •  53
    From Essence to Metaphysical Modality?
    Axiomathes 32 (2): 345-354. 2020.
    How can we acquire knowledge of metaphysical modality? How can someone come to know that he could have been elsewhere right now, or an accountant rather than a philosophy teacher, but could not have been a turnip? Jago proposes an account of a route to knowledge of the way things could have been and must be. He argues that we can move to knowledge of metaphysical modality from knowledge about essence. Curtis rejects Jago’s explanation. It cannot, he argues, explain our knowledge of de re necessi…Read more
  •  75
    Are personites a problem for endurantists?
    Philosophical Forum 51 (4): 399-409. 2020.
    Personites are shorter lived, very person‐like things that extend across part but not the whole of a person's life. That there are such things is a consequence of the standard perdurance view championed by Lewis and Quine; it is also a consequence of liberal endurantist views which allow such things coinciding with persons during part of their lives, though not themselves parts of the persons. Johnston and Olson argue that the existence of personites has bizarre moral consequences and renders wh…Read more
  •  12
    The Great Western Railway
    Philosophia 49 (2): 741-744. 2020.
    In On The Plurality of Worlds Lewis presents the case of the Great Western Railway as a candidate counter-example, along with the usual suspects, to the thesis that two things cannot be in the same place at the same time. Typically, pluralists or many-thingers, i.e., those who reject the thesis, point to modal or historical or aesthetic differences to justify their judgement of non-identity. Lewis’s aim to is to show the inadequacy of this justification, at least as regards modal differences, by…Read more