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28Why Mathematical Fictionalism isn't PsychologisticJournal of Consciousness Studies 24 (9-10): 103-111. 2017.This paper provides comments on Susan Schneider's paper 'Does the Mathematical Nature of Physics Undermine Physicalism?'. In particular, it argues that, in contrast with what Schneider suggests, mathematical fictionalism is not a psychologistic view in any interesting sense.
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41Strawson, Ordinary Language, and the Priority of Holding Responsible over Being ResponsibleThe Harvard Review of Philosophy 30 121-141. 2023.It is often held that P. F. Strawson endorsed a radical and groundbreaking priority thesis according to which holding someone morally responsible is prior to (or more fundamental than) being morally responsible. I do three things in this paper. First, I argue for a novel interpretation of Strawson according to which he did not endorse a priority thesis that is radical or groundbreaking or original; instead, Strawson’s “priority thesis” is just a consequence of his view that the meanings of our w…Read more
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9Bare Bones Moral Realism and the Objections from RelativismIn Steven D. Hales (ed.), A Companion to Relativism, Wiley-blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Three Objections From Relativism Bare Bones Moral Realism References.
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8Anti‐Metaphysicalism, Necessity, and Temporal Ontology†Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (1): 145-167. 2014.This paper argues for a certain kind of anti‐metaphysicalism about the temporal ontology debate, i.e., the debate between presentists and eternalists over the existence of past and future objects. Three different kinds of anti‐metaphysicalism are defined—namely, non‐factualism, physical‐empiricism, and trivialism. The paper argues for the disjunction of these three views. It is then argued that trivialism is false, so that either non‐factualism or physical‐empiricism is true. Finally, the paper …Read more
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43Socially Responsible Investment in the Spanish financial marketJournal of Business Ethics 69 (3): 305-316. 2006.This paper reviews the development of socially responsible investment (SRI) in the Spanish financial market. The year, 1997 saw the appearance in Spain of the first SRI mutual fund, but it was not until late 1999, that major Spanish fund managers offered SRI mutual funds on the retail market. The development of SRI in the Spanish financial market has not experienced the high levels of development seen in other European countries, such as France or Italy, where interest in SRI began during the sa…Read more
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37Measuring Investors' Socially Responsible Preferences in Mutual FundsJournal of Business Ethics 103 (2): 305-330. 2011.The aim of this study is to analyze investor behavior towards socially responsible mutual funds. The analysis is based on an experimental study where a sample of individuals takes investment decisions under different parameters of information about the investment alternatives and expected returns. In the experiment, each participant decides how to distribute an investment budget between two funds, returns on which are uncertain and change over time. Two treatments are conducted, each providing a…Read more
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116Critical notice of C. Pincock's Mathematics and Scientific Representation (2012).
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148Non-uniqueness as a non-problemPhilosophia Mathematica 6 (1): 63-84. 1998.A response is given here to Benacerraf's (1965) non-uniqueness (or multiple-reductions) objection to mathematical platonism. It is argued that non-uniqueness is simply not a problem for platonism; more specifically, it is argued that platonists can simply embrace non-uniqueness—i.e., that one can endorse the thesis that our mathematical theories truly describe collections of abstract mathematical objects while rejecting the thesis that such theories truly describe unique collections of such obje…Read more
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295Fictionalism, theft, and the story of mathematicsPhilosophia Mathematica 17 (2): 131-162. 2009.This paper develops a novel version of mathematical fictionalism and defends it against three objections or worries, viz., (i) an objection based on the fact that there are obvious disanalogies between mathematics and fiction; (ii) a worry about whether fictionalism is consistent with the fact that certain mathematical sentences are objectively correct whereas others are incorrect; and (iii) a recent objection due to John Burgess concerning “hermeneuticism” and “revolutionism”
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65Can we know that platonism is true?Philosophical Forum 34 (3): 459-475. 2003.? Mark BALAGUER Philosophical forum 34:3-43-4, 459-475, Blackwell, 2003
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285A platonist epistemologySynthese 103 (3). 1995.A response is given here to Benacerraf's 1973 argument that mathematical platonism is incompatible with a naturalistic epistemology. Unlike almost all previous platonist responses to Benacerraf, the response given here is positive rather than negative; that is, rather than trying to find a problem with Benacerraf's argument, I accept his challenge and meet it head on by constructing an epistemology of abstract (i.e., aspatial and atemporal) mathematical objects. Thus, I show that spatio-temporal…Read more
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133This paper argues that contrary to what is commonly claimed, presentism is perfectly consistent with the special theory of relativity. More precisely, this paper provides a formulation of a novel relativistic version of presentism that preserves the core “metaphysical stance” of classical presentism, and is fully compatible with special relativity. Others have tried to relativize presentism, but the view put forward here is different from the views that have been proposed in the past.
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33Metaphysics, Sophistry, and Illusion: Toward a Widespread Non-FactualismOxford University Press. 2021.This book does two things. First, it introduces a novel kind of non-factualist view, and it argues that we should endorse views of this kind in connection with a wide class of metaphysical questions, most notably, the abstract-object question and the composite-object question (so, more specifically, the book argues that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any such things as abstract objects or composite objects—or material objects of any other kind). Second, the book explains how t…Read more
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186A fictionalist account of the indispensable applications of mathematicsPhilosophical Studies 83 (3). 1996.The main task of this paper is to defend anti-platonism by providing an anti-platonist (in particular, a fictionalist) account of the indispensable applications of mathematics to empirical science.
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120Replies to McKenna, Pereboom, and KanePhilosophical Studies (1): 1-22. 2012.The purpose of this essay is to respond to critiques of my recent book (Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem) put forward by Michael McKenna, Derk Pereboom, and Bob Kane in an Author-Meets-Critics session at the 2011 Pacific Division meeting of the APA.
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25Thinking about Mathematics. The Philosophy of MathematicsBulletin of Symbolic Logic 8 (1): 89-91. 2002.
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17Stewart Shapiro. Thinking about mathematics. The philosophy of mathematics. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 2000, xiii + 308 pp (review)Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 8 (1): 89-91. 2002.
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105Free Will, Determinism, and EpiphenomenalismFrontiers in Psychology 9. 2019.This paper provides articulates a non-epiphenomenal, libertarian kind of free will—a kind of free will that’s incompatible with both determinism and epiphenomenalism—and responds to scientific arguments against the existence of this sort of freedom. In other words, the paper argues that we don’t have any good empirical scientific reason to believe that human beings don’t possess a non-epiphenomenal, libertarian sort of free will.
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56A Coherent, Naturalistic, and Plausible Formulation of Libertarian Free WillNoûs 38 (3): 379-406. 2004.Let libertarianism be the view that humans are capable of making decisions that are simultaneously undetermined and appropriately non-random. It’s often argued that this view is incoherent because indeterminacy entails randomness (of some appropriate kind). I argue here that the truth is just the opposite: the right kind of indeterminacy in our decisions actually entails appropriate non-randomness, so that libertarianism is coherent, and the question of whether it’s true reduces to the wide-op…Read more
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51Mathematical Pluralism and PlatonismJournal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 34 (2): 379-398. 2017.PurposeThis paper aims to establish that a certain sort of mathematical pluralism is true. MethodsThe paper proceeds by arguing that that the best versions of mathematical Platonism and anti-Platonism both entail the relevant sort of mathematical pluralism. Result and ConclusionThis argument gives us the result that mathematical pluralism is true, and it also gives us the perhaps surprising result that mathematical Platonism and mathematical pluralism are perfectly compatible with one another.
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214Why the debate about composition is factually emptySynthese 195 (9): 3975-4008. 2018.I argue in this paper that the debate over composition is factually empty; in other words, I argue that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any composite objects like tables and rocks and cats. Moreover, at the end of the paper, I explain how my argument is suggestive of a much more general conclusion, namely, that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any material objects at all. Roughly speaking, the paper proceeds by arguing that if there were a fact of the matter about …Read more
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23Platonism and Anti-Platonism in MathematicsBulletin of Symbolic Logic 8 (4): 516-518. 1998.This book does three main things. First, it defends mathematical platonism against the main objections to that view (most notably, the epistemological objection and the multiple-reductions objection). Second, it defends anti-platonism (in particular, fictionalism) against the main objections to that view (most notably, the Quine-Putnam indispensability objection and the objection from objectivity). Third, it argues that there is no fact of the matter whether abstract mathematical objects exist a…Read more
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Knowledge of Mathematical ObjectsDissertation, City University of New York. 1992.This dissertation provides a refutation of the epistemological argument against mathematical platonism; that is, it provides an epistemology of abstract objects, in particular, of mathematical objects. ;After an introductory first chapter, I formulate what I argue is the strongest version of the epistemological argument against platonism. It is stronger than Paul Benacerraf's version because the only plausible way for a platonist to respond to it is to actually provide an epistemology of mathema…Read more
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96Review of Mathematics as a Science of Patterns, by M. ResnikPhilosophia Mathematica 7 (1): 108-126. 1999.
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105Against (maddian) naturalized platonismPhilosophia Mathematica 2 (2): 97-108. 1994.It is argued here that mathematical objects cannot be simultaneously abstract and perceptible. Thus, naturalized versions of mathematical platonism, such as the one advocated by Penelope Maddy, are unintelligble. Thus, platonists cannot respond to Benacerrafian epistemological arguments against their view vias Maddy-style naturalization. Finally, it is also argued that naturalized platonists cannot respond to this situation by abandoning abstractness (that is, platonism); they must abandon perce…Read more
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226Platonism in metaphysicsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.Platonism is the view that there exist such things as abstract objects — where an abstract object is an object that does not exist in space or time and which is therefore entirely non-physical and nonmental. Platonism in this sense is a contemporary view. It is obviously related to the views of Plato in important ways, but it is not entirely clear that Plato endorsed this view, as it is defined here. In order to remain neutral on this question, the term ‘platonism’ is spelled with a lower-case ‘…Read more
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