Syracuse University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1984
Syracuse, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology
  •  74
    The worst of all worlds
    Philosophia 28 (1-4): 255-268. 2001.
  •  7
    Book reviews (review)
    with Victor N. Constantinescu, Robert Mayhew, Karen Offen, Gloria Mound, Ernest Krausz, Ludwig Finscher, Jean‐Philippe Mathy, Bruno Ferraro, Bent Greve, Jan Bednarich, David Potter, Tracy B. Strong, Steven Botterill, Joseph C. Bertolini, Richard Foulkes, Janusz Mucha, Keith D. White, Kevin J. Hayes, G. M. Ditchfield, Michael Rogin, Mike Hawkins, Devorah Greenberg, Stuart Rowland, Tracey Rowland, Nicholas Aylott, J. K. A. Thomaneck, Robert Winter, Brayton Polka, Sidney Pollard, Chushichi Tsuzuki, Greg Walker, Walter Leimgruber, Martin Conboy, Lavinia Stan, David Ward, Jane E. Phillips, Thomas A. Howard, Pamela M. Barnes, David Ian Rabey, Stephen J. Whitfield, Theodore R. Weeks, Takamaro Hanzawa, Pawel Luków, J. S. Myerov, and Oliver S. Buckton
    The European Legacy 3 (2): 97-148. 1998.
    Romania in Transition. Edited by Lavinia Stan xviii + 218 pp. £39.50 cloth. Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to the Sophists. Edited by Michael Gagarin and Paul Woodruff lvi + 324 pp. $59.95/£40.00 cloth, $18.95/£14.95 paper. Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes. Edited by Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge. Vol. 3 of A History of Women in the West, general editors, Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot x + 595 pp. $29.95 cloth, $16.95 paper. The Cross and the Pear Tree: A Sephardic Jou…Read more
  •  30
    Freedom from Necessity: The Metaphysical Basis of Responsibility, by Bernard Berofsky (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (2): 465-468. 1991.
  • Johna bella filozofia mechaniki kwantowej
    Studia Philosophiae Christianae 30 (2): 151-161. 1994.
  • Worlds, Pluriverses, and Minds
    In Dean Zimmerman (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics: Volume 3, Clarendon Press. 2007.
  •  20
    Practically StrangeDividing Reality
    with Eli Hirsch
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (1): 203. 1996.
    In Eli Hirsch’s clever and careful Dividing Reality he asks us to consider several strange languages. For example, in the Gricular language there is no word that applies to all and only green things and none that applies to all and only circular things, but there are the three words “gricular,” which applies to anything that is either green or circular, “grincular,” which applies to anything that is either green or not circular, and “ngricular,” which applies to anything that is either circular …Read more
  •  44
    Practically Strange (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (1): 203. 1996.
    In Eli Hirsch’s clever and careful Dividing Reality he asks us to consider several strange languages. For example, in the Gricular language there is no word that applies to all and only green things and none that applies to all and only circular things, but there are the three words “gricular,” which applies to anything that is either green or circular, “grincular,” which applies to anything that is either green or not circular, and “ngricular,” which applies to anything that is either circular …Read more
  •  13
    Hobartian Voluntarism: Grounding a Deontological Conceptionof Epistemic Justification
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 81 (2): 130-141. 2000.
  •  12
    Hudson Fine Tunes His Way to Hyperspace
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (2): 436-443. 2008.
  •  30
    Property Counterparts in Ersatz Worlds
    Journal of Philosophy 95 (6): 293. 1998.
  •  11
    Un travail inconnu de Georges Lemaître
    with O. Godart
    Revue d'Histoire des Sciences 31 (4): 345-359. 1978.
  •  38
    3. Worlds, Pluriverses, and Minds
    Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 3 77. 2007.
  •  15
    Review: Practically Strange (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (1). 1996.
    In Eli Hirsch’s clever and careful Dividing Reality he asks us to consider several strange languages. For example, in the Gricular language there is no word that applies to all and only green things and none that applies to all and only circular things, but there are the three words “gricular,” which applies to anything that is either green or circular, “grincular,” which applies to anything that is either green or not circular, and “ngricular,” which applies to anything that is either circular …Read more
  •  56
    Hudson fine tunes his way to hyperspace (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (2). 2008.
  •  27
    Time, Causality, and the Quantum Theory (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 37 (2): 408-409. 1983.
    Henry Mehlberg, an eminent philosopher educated in the best traditions of Polish logic, till his death professor at the University of Chicago, was for a long time interested in an interdisciplinary study of time, especially in its physical and philosophical aspects. "Mehlberg's command of the most recent relevant developments in theoretical physics was outstanding even within the relatively small circle of philosophers working in the foundations of physics, most of whom are better known than he"…Read more
  •  237
    Things change
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (3): 695-704. 1992.
  •  72
    Non-backtracking Counterfactuals and the Conditional Analysis
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 15 (1): 75-85. 1985.
    The conditional analysis of ability statements has many versions. In this paper I will deal with the version which claims that ‘x can do y’ is equivalent to ‘if x were to choose to do y, then x would do y.’ However, my comments should be equally applicable to any analysis of ability statements that can properly be called a version of the conditional analysis. The intuition behind the conditional analysis is that what it is for one to be able to do something is for one's choice to be effective. T…Read more
  •  166
    Anti-Essentialism and Counterpart Theory
    The Monist 88 (4): 600-618. 2005.
    Anti-essentialism holds that no thing has any modal properties except relative to a conceptualization—for instance, relative to a description. One and the same thing might be essentially rational relative to the description “mathematician” but only accidentally rational relative to the description “bicyclist.” Anti-essentialism was dominant in pre-Kripkean days. The old description theory of names made room for anti-essentialism by reducing apparently true de re modal attributions to de dicto on…Read more
  •  90
    Transworld Identity for the Ersatzist
    Philosophical Topics 30 (1): 77-101. 2002.
  •  1
    Hunks: An Ontology of Physical Objects
    Dissertation, Syracuse University. 1984.
    This text is devoted to arguing for the thesis that our standard ontology of physical objects is not correct, and to offering a replacement for that ontology. None of the things that we normally take to exist really do exist. There are no animals, vegetables, or minerals. Nothing that I say against the specific physical objects of our standard ontology counts against the general claim that there are physical objects. In fact, I propose an ontology of physical objects that does not suffer from th…Read more
  •  162
    Varieties of four dimensionalism
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71 (1). 1993.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  88
    Temporal Overlap is Not Coincidence
    The Monist 83 (3): 362-380. 2000.
    The best reason to believe in temporal parts is to avoid commitment to coincidence—roughly, two objects occupying exactly the same space at exactly the same time. Most anti-coincidence arguments for temporal parts are fission arguments. Gaining some notice, however, are vagueness arguments. One goal of this paper is to clarify the way a temporal-parts ontology avoids coincidence, and another is to clarify the vagueness argument, highlighting the fact that it too is an anti-coincidence argument. …Read more
  •  35
    Things Change
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (3): 695-704. 1992.
  •  12
    Parts: A Study in Ontology
    Philosophical Review 100 (3): 488. 1991.