•  57
    Time Travel, Double Occupancy, and The Cheshire Cat
    with Daniel Ellis and Brandon Moore
    Philosophia 45 (2): 541-549. 2017.
    The possibility of continuous backwards time travel—time travel for which the traveler follows a continuous path through space between departure and arrival—gives rise to the double-occupancy problem. The trouble is that the time traveler seems bound to have to travel through his or her younger self as the trip begins. Dowe and Le Poidevin agree that this problem is solved by putting the traveler in motion for a gradual trip to the past. Le Poidevin goes on to argue, however, that the gradual tr…Read more
  • The Nature of Physical Laws
    Dissertation, The University of Arizona. 1986.
    A program for advancing a new philosophical account of physical laws is presented. The program is non-reductive in that it maintains that any correct account of physical laws must recognize law sentences as irreducible--that is, as not admitting of an analysis which does not invoke any unanalyzed nomic facts . The program has the unusual attraction of being consistent with Nominalism and epistemically in the spirit of Empiricism. ;Initially motivating my program is a two-stage attack in chapters…Read more
  •  87
    Context, conditionals, fatalism, time travel, and freedom
    In Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke & Harry Silverstein (eds.), Time and Identity, Mit Press. pp. 79. 2010.
    This chapter illustrates a theory that describes how certain modal statements, including counterfactual sentences, are dependent on context. Building on the work of Robert Stalnaker and David Lewis, its application to a familiar argument for fatalism and a recent exchange about time-traveler freedom between Kadri Vihvelin and Ted Sider is considered. This chapter presents a new perspective on the flaws and the seductiveness of both the fatalist argument and the freedom paradox. This new perspect…Read more
  •  5
    English riots, 2011: Two comments
    Thesis Eleven 109 (1): 24-28. 2012.
  •  223
    Self Visitation, Traveler Time, and Compatible Properties
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (3): 359-370. 2011.
    Ted Sider aptly and concisely states the self-visitation paradox thus: 'Suppose I travel back in time and stand in a room with my sitting 10-year-old self. I seem to be both sitting and standing, but how can that be?' (2001, 101). I will explore a relativist resolution of this paradox offered by, or on behalf of, endurantists.1 It maintains that the sitting and the standing are relative to the personal time or proper time of the time traveler and is intended to yield the result that Ted is sitti…Read more
  •  207
    Counterfactuals all the way down? Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9437-9 Authors Jim Woodward, History and Philosophy of Science, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA Barry Loewer, Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA John W. Carroll, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8103, USA Marc Lange, Department of Philosophy, University of Nor…Read more
  •  79
    The Backward Induction Argument
    Theory and Decision 48 (1): 61-84. 2000.
    The backward induction argument purports to show that rational and suitably informed players will defect throughout a finite sequence of prisoner's dilemmas. It is supposed to be a useful argument for predicting how rational players will behave in a variety of interesting decision situations. Here, I lay out a set of assumptions defining a class of finite sequences of prisoner's dilemmas. Given these assumptions, I suggest how it might appear that backward induction succeeds and why it is actual…Read more
  •  67
    Boundary in context
    Acta Analytica 20 (1): 43-54. 2005.
    A contextualist account of modal assertions is sketched that makes their truth sensitive to the presuppositions of the conversation. Support for the account is mustered by considering its application to the context-sensitivity of assertions of subjunctive conditional sentences, explanation sentences, and knowledge sentences.
  •  7
    Keith Tester: In memory
    Thesis Eleven 158 (1): 17-18. 2020.
  •  45
    Ways to Commit Autoinfanticide
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (1): 180--191. 2016.
  •  31
    What Are the Pragmatics of Explanation?
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 51 (3): 337-357. 2020.
    An enticing view about explanation consists of two theses. First, there is the Relevance Thesis, the thesis that the truth of explanation sentences depends on a contextually selected relevance relation. The idea is that whether an utterance is true depends on what factors the context counts as relevant. Second, there is the Contrastivity Thesis, the thesis that the truth of explanation sentences depends on a contextually determined contrastive focus. This metalinguistic view is enticing, and ele…Read more
  •  13
    Causation and Persistence: A Theory of Causation
    Philosophical and Phenomenological Research 60 (2): 483-486. 1997.
  •  13
    Causation and Universals (Review) (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (4): 1001-1004. 1992.
  •  5
    The self-visitation paradox is one paradox of time travel. As Ted Sider puts it, “Suppose I travel back in time and stand in a room with my sitting 10-year-old self. I seem to be both sitting and standing, but how can that be?” (2001, 101). So as not to beg any questions, let us label what is sitting B and what is standing C. The worry is about how B can be C in light of the looming contradiction that this one person would be sitting and standing. Sider’s own approach is perdurantist, and holds …Read more
  • Laws of Nature
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (4): 603-609. 1995.
  •  28
    Humean justified belief
    Philosophical Quarterly 48 (192): 373-378. 1998.
  •  69
    Iterated n-player prisoner's dilemma games
    Philosophical Studies 53 (3). 1988.
  •  42
    From an Ontological Point of View (review)
    Philosophical Review 115 (1): 127-131. 2006.
    From an Ontological Point of View is a highly original and accessible exploration of fundamental questions about what there is. John Heil discusses such issues as whether the world includes levels of reality; the nature of objects and properties; the demands of realism; what makes things true; qualities, powers, and the relation these bear to one another. He advances an account of the fundamental constituents of the world around us, and applies this account to problems that have plagued recent w…Read more
  •  35
    Causation and Universals, by Evan Fales (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (4): 1001-1004. 1992.
  •  11
    A Puzzle About Persistence
    with Lee Wentz
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33 (3): 323-342. 2003.
    Our topic is the ontology and persistence conditions of material objects. One widely held doctrine is that identity-over-time has causal commitments. Another is that identity-over-time is just identity as it relates one object that exists at two times. We believe that a tension exists between these two apparently sensible positions: very roughly, if identity is the primary conceptual component of identity-over-time and—as is plausible—identity is noncausal, then the conceptual origins of the cau…Read more
  •  65
    A Time Travel Dialogue
    with Steven Carpenter, Beth Ehrlich Slater, Gray Maddrey, Kevin Martell, Stuart Miller, Nathan Sasser, Stephen Sutton, Robert Todd, Diana Tysinger, and Laura Wingler
    Open Book Publishers. 2014.
    Is time travel just a confusing plot device deployed by science fiction authors and Hollywood filmmakers to amaze and amuse? Or might empirical data prompt a scientific hypothesis of time travel? Structured on a fascinating dialogue involving  ...