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22Running it up the flagpole to see if anyone salutesTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 37 (1): 53-62. 2022.Does smoke cause fire or does fire cause smoke? James Woodward’s “Flagpoles anyone? Causal and explanatory asymmetries” argues that various statistical independence relations not only help us to uncover the directions of causal and explanatory relations in our world, but also are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. We raise questions about Woodward’s envisioned epistemology, but our primary focus is on his metaphysics. We argue that any alleged connection between statistical …Read more
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26Running it up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes: A response to Woodward on causal and explanatory asymmetriesTheoria. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science 37 (1). 2022.Does smoke cause fire or does fire cause smoke? James Woodward’s “Flagpoles anyone? Causal and explanatory asymmetries” argues that various statistical independence relations not only help us to uncover the directions of causal and explanatory relations in our world, but also are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. We raise questions about Woodward’s envisioned epistemology, but our primary focus is on his metaphysics. We argue that any alleged connection between statistical …Read more
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285Running up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes: A response to Woodward on causal and explanatory asymmetriesTheoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science. forthcoming.Does smoke cause fire or does fire cause smoke? James Woodward’s “Flagpoles anyone? Causal and explanatory asymmetries” argues that various statistical independence relations not only help us to uncover the directions of causal and explanatory relations in our world, but also are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. We raise questions about Woodward’s envisioned epistemology, but our primary focus is on his metaphysics. We argue that any alleged connection between statistic…Read more
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530Inference to the best explanation and the new size elitism1Philosophical Perspectives 35 (1): 170-188. 2021.Philosophical Perspectives, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 170-188, December 2021.
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81Where are the chances?Synthese 199 (3-4): 6761-6783. 2021.Not all probability ascriptions that appear in scientific theories describe chances. There is a question about whether probability ascriptions in non-fundamental sciences, such as those found in evolutionary biology and statistical mechanics, describe chances in deterministic worlds and about whether there could be any chances in deterministic worlds. Recent debate over whether chance is compatible with determinism has unearthed two strategies for arguing about whether a probability ascription d…Read more
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85How to Know That Time Travel Is Unlikely Without Knowing WhyPacific Philosophical Quarterly 100 (1): 90-113. 2018.What's the point of time travel? Not to change the past; no matter how carefully a time traveler plans, all of her attempts to change the past end in failure. Paul Horwich has argued that the implausibility of such failures gives us reason to doubt that there will be frequent time travel to the local past. I defend a modified version of Horwich's argument and show how we might gain evidence about the chance of there being frequent time travel in the future without having any information that exp…Read more
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52Exploring a New Argument for Synchronic ChancePhilosophers' Imprint 18. 2018.A synchronic probability is the probability at a time that an outcome occurs at that very time. Common sense invokes synchronic probabilities with values between 0 and 1, as do scientific theories such as classical statistical mechanics. Recently, philosophers have argued about whether any synchronic probabilities are best interpreted as objective chances. I add to this debate an underappreciated reason we might have to believe in synchronic chance; it might turn out that the best interpretation…Read more
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86Explaining (One Aspect of) the Principal Principle without (Much) MetaphysicsPhilosophy of Science 83 (4): 480-499. 2016.According to David Lewis’s Principal Principle, our beliefs about the objective chances of outcomes determine our rational credences in those outcomes. Lewis influentially argues that any adequate metaphysics of objective chance must explain why the Principal Principle holds. Since no theory of chance is widely agreed to have met this burden, I suggest we change tack. On the view I develop, a central aspect of the Principal Principle holds not because of what objective chances are but rather bec…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |