• University of Oxford
    Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, Kellogg
    Lecturer & Senior Researcher In Evidence-Based Healthcare
University of Leeds
School of Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science
PhD, 2014
Oxford, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  •  381
    Antirealist Essentialism
    Dissertation, University of Leeds. 2014.
    This project is an investigation into the prospects for an antirealist theory of essence. Essentialism is the claim that at least some things have some of their properties essentially. Essentialist discourse includes claims such as “Socrates is essentially human”, and “Socrates is accidentally bearded”. Historically, there are two ways of interpreting essentialist discourse. I call these positions ‘modal essentialism’ and ‘neo-Aristotelian essentialism’. According to modal essentialism, for…Read more
  •  161
    The Contingency Problem for Neo-Conventionalism
    Erkenntnis 82 (3): 653-671. 2017.
    Traditional conventionalism about modality claims that a proposition is necessarily true iff it is true by convention. In the wake of the widespread repudiation of truth-byconvention, traditional conventionalism has fallen out of favour. However, a family of theories of modality have arisen that, whilst abandoning truth-by-convention, retain the spirit of traditional conventionalism. These ‘neo-conventionalist’ theories surpass their forebears and don’t fall victim to the criticisms inherited th…Read more
  •  216
    In defence of modal essentialism
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 60 (8): 816-838. 2017.
    Kit Fine’s arguments in Essence and Modality are widely accepted as being a decisive blow against modal essentialism. A selection of replies exist that have done little to counter the general view that modally construed essence is out of touch with what we really mean when we make essentialist claims. I argue that Fine’s arguments fail to strike a decisive blow, and I suggest a new interpretation of the debate that shows why Fine’s arguments fall short of achieving their goal.