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Logic (earlier draft titled 'Grounding Logically Complex Facts')In Michael J. Raven (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding, Routledge. 2020.
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Why Mary Left Her RoomPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research. forthcoming.I argue for an account of grasping, or understanding that, on which we grasp via a higher-order mental act of Husserlian fulfillment. Fulfillment is the act of matching up the objects of our phenomenally presentational experiences with those of our phenomenally representational thought. Grasping-by-fulfilling is importantly different from standard epistemic aims, in part because it is phenomenal rather than inferential. (I endorse Bourget’s 2017 arguments to that effect.) I show that grasping-…Read more
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Understanding in Science and PhilosophyIn Sanford C. Goldberg & Mark Walker (eds.), Attitude in Philosophy, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.I first quickly outline what I think grasping is, and suggest that it is both among our basic aims of inquiry and not essentially tied to belief, justification, or knowledge. Then, I briefly look at some places in the metaphysics of science in which it looks like our aim of grasping and our aim in knowing—or perhaps more specifically in knowing the explanations for things—might seem to conflict. I will use this conflict to support a broader view: sometimes, we might develop philosophical views o…Read more
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Theories as recipes: third-order virtue and vicePhilosophical Studies 177 (2): 391-411. 2020.A basic way of evaluating metaphysical theories is to ask whether they give satisfying answers to the questions they set out to resolve. I propose an account of “third-order” virtue that tells us what it takes for certain kinds of metaphysical theories to do so. We should think of these theories as recipes. I identify three good-making features of recipes and show that they translate to third-order theoretical virtues. I apply the view to two theories—mereological universalism and plenitudinous …Read more
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MaladjustmentPhilosophical Studies 180 (3): 843-869. 2022.Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that “the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted”. I elaborate on King’s claim by focusing on the way in which we treat and understand ‘maladjustment’ that is responsive to severe trauma (e.g. PTSD that is a result of military combat or rape). Mental healthcare and our social attitudes about mental illness and disorder will prevent us from recognizing real injustice that symptoms of mental illness can be appropriately responding to, unless we r…Read more
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Metaphysics as Essentially Imaginative and Aiming at UnderstandingAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 60 (1): 83-97. 2023.
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Philosophers of science often assume that logically equivalent theories are theoretically equivalent. I argue that two theses, anti-exceptionalism about logic (which says, roughly, that logic is not a priori, that it is revisable, and that it is not special or set apart from other human inquiry) and logical realism (which says, roughly, that differences in logic reflect genuine metaphysical differences in the world), make trouble for both this commitment and the closely related commitment to the…Read more
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The Metaphysical Basis of LogicDissertation, Princeton University. 2016.
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Debunking Logical Ground: Distinguishing Metaphysics from SemanticsJournal of the American Philosophical Association 6 (2): 156-170. 2020.Many philosophers take purportedly logical cases of ground ) to be obvious cases, and indeed such cases have been used to motivate the existence of and importance of ground. I argue against this. I do so by motivating two kinds of semantic determination relations. Intuitions of logical ground track these semantic relations. Moreover, our knowledge of semantics for first order logic can explain why we have such intuitions. And, I argue, neither semantic relation can be a species of ground even on…Read more
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Following logical realism where it leadsPhilosophical Studies 176 (1): 117-139. 2019.
Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
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