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377Transformative experience and the principle of informed consent in medicineSynthese 202 (3): 1-21. 2023.This paper explores how transformative experience generates decision-making problems of particular seriousness in medical settings. Potentially transformative experiences are especially likely to be encountered in medicine, and the associated decisions are confronted jointly by patients and clinicians in the context of an imbalance of power and expertise. However in such scenarios the principle of informed consent, which plays a central role in guiding clinicians, is unequal to the task. We deta…Read more
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537Player Engagement with Games: Formal Reliefs and Representation ChecksJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 80 (1): 95-104. 2022.Alongside the direct parallels and contrasts between traditional narrative fiction and games, there lie certain partial analogies that provide their own insights. This article begins by examining a direct parallel between narrative fiction and games—the role of fictional reliefs and reality checks in shaping aesthetic engagement—before arguing that from this a partial analogy can be developed stemming from a feature that distinguishes most games from most traditional fictions: the presence of ru…Read more
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53Quine's metametaphysicsIn Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics, Routledge. pp. 49-60. 2020.W. V. Quine stands out as one of the foremost figures of twentieth-century analytic philosophy. This chapter aims to show that a significant part of his work’s enduring value lies in its contribution to metametaphysics, which will include showing how some more contentious aspects of Quine’s thought can be seen as indispensable to it; we will problematise the widespread belief that one can isolate basic elements of Quine’s metametaphysics without eroding their warrant. §1 introduces the broad con…Read more
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113It Takes More than Moore to Answer Existence-QuestionsErkenntnis 86 (2): 355-366. 2019.Several recent discussions of metaphysics disavow existence-questions, claiming that they are metaphysically uninteresting because trivially settled in the affirmative by Moorean facts. This is often given as a reason to focus metaphysical debate instead on questions of grounding. I argue that the strategy employed to undermine existence-questions fails against its usual target: Quineanism. The Quinean can protest that the formulation given of their position is a straw man: properly understood, …Read more
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336Getting off the Inwagen: A Critique of Quinean MetaontologyJournal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 4 (6). 2016.Much contemporary ontological inquiry takes place within the so-called ‘Quinean tradition’ but, given that some aspects of Quine’s project have been widely abandoned even by those who consider themselves Quineans, it is unclear what this amounts to. Fortunately recent work in metaontology has produced two relevant results here: a clearer characterisation of the metaontology uniting the aforementioned Quineans, most notably undertaken by Peter van Inwagen, and a raft of criticisms of that metaont…Read more
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75Found Guilty by Association: In Defence of the Quinean CriterionRatio 31 (1): 37-56. 2016.Much recent work in metaontology challenges the so-called ‘Quinean tradition’ in metaphysics. Especially prominently, Amie Thomasson argues for a highly permissive ontology over ontologies which eliminate many entities. I am concerned with disputing not her ontological claim, but the methodology behind her rejection of eliminativism – I focus on ordinary objects. Thomasson thinks that by endorsing the Quinean criterion of ontological commitment eliminativism goes wrong; a theory eschewing quanti…Read more
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University of LeedsSchool of Philosophy, Religion, and History of ScienceVisiting Fellow (Part-time)
Nottingham, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland