•  306
    This paper defends a conceptualist answer to the question how objects come by their modal properties. It isolates the controversial metaphysical assumptions that are needed to get ontological conceptualism off the ground, outlines the conceptualist answer to the question and shows that conceptualism is not in as bad a shape as some critics have maintained.
  •  180
    Inner and Outer Truth
    Philosophers' Imprint 12. 2012.
    Kit Fine and Robert Adams have independently introduced a distinction between two ways in which a proposition might be true with respect to a world. A proposition is true at a world if it correctly represents the world. A proposition is true in a world, if it exists in that world and correctly represents it. In this paper, I clarify this distinction between outer and inner truth, defend it against recent charges of unintelligibly and argue that outer truth tracks counterfactual possibility while…Read more
  •  179
    Three Forms of Truth-Relativism
    In Manuel García-Carpintero & Max Kölbel (eds.), Relative truth, Oxford University Press. pp. 187-203. 2008.
  •  171
    Counterconventional Conditionals
    Philosophical Studies 127 (3): 459-482. 2006.
    Some philosophical positions maintain that some aspect of reality depends on human practices, cognitive attitudes or sentiments. This paper presents a framework for understanding such positions in a way that renders them immune to a number of natural but allegedly devastating objections.
  •  160
    Some remarks on “language-created entities”
    Acta Analytica 24 (3): 185-192. 2009.
    Some entities, such as fictional characters, propositions, properties, events and numbers are prima facie promising candidates for owing their existence to our linguistic and conceptual practices. However, it is notoriously hard to pin down just what sets such allegedly “language-created” entities apart from ordinary entities. The present paper considers some of the features that are supposed to distinguish between entities of the two kinds and argues that, on an independently plausible account …Read more
  •  147
    Relativized Propositions and the Fregean Orthodoxy
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (3): 590-603. 2012.
    This paper answer the question how propositions whose truth is relativized to times, places, asserters or assessers can, despite their relativity, be used to represent the world
  •  130
    Two types of rigid designation
    Dialectica 59 (3). 2005.
    The notion of a rigid designator was originally introduced with respect to a modal semantics in which only one world, the world of evaluation, is shifted. Several philosophical applications employ a modal semantics which shifts not just the world of evaluation, but also the world considered as actual. How should the notion of a rigid designator be generalized in this setting? In this note, I show that there are two options and argue that, for the currently most popular application of two-dimensi…Read more
  •  109
    Nonexistence, Vague Existence, Merely Possible Existence
    Disputatio 4 (33): 427-443. 2012.
    This paper explores a new non-deflationary approach to the puzzle of nonexistence and its cousins. On this approach, we can, under a plausible assumption, express true de re propositions about certain objects that don’t exist, exist indeterminately or exist merely possibly. The defense involves two steps: First, to argue that if we can actually designate what individuates a nonexistent target object with respect to possible worlds in which that object does exist, then we can express a de re prop…Read more
  •  97
    Is There a (Meta-)Problem of Change?
    Analytic Philosophy 53 (4): 344-351. 2012.
  •  31
    Paul Boghossian, Fear of Knowledge (review)
    Philosophical Review 117 (3): 451-455. 2008.
    A critical review of Paul Bogossian's `Fear of Knowledge', focusing on his criticism of factual relativism.
  • Conventionalism
    Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2003.
    Certain fundamental philosophical disputes, in contrast to disputes in the empirical sciences, are characterized by the persistence of disagreement. This has led some to endorse conventionalism, the view that the 'facts of the matter' partly depend on our conventions and that disagreements persist because both sides to the dispute employ different conventions. What does it mean to say that the facts of the matter partly depend on conventions? My thesis is concerned with this question. It has fou…Read more