•  207
    A Quinean Critique of Ostrich Nominalism
    Philosophers' Imprint 12. 2012.
    Ostrich nominalists often cite Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment in order to claim that their view is more parsimonious than rival positions in ontology such as realism. We show that Quine’s criterion, properly understood, does not support this claim. Indeed, we show that ostrich nominalism has a far more profligate ontology than realism
  •  85
    Difference, Identity and Quantification
    Dialectica 68 (2): 183-207. 2014.
    Most theorists treat the ‘relation’ of identity as being more fundamental (or basic) than the ‘relation’ of (numerical) difference. Herbert Hochberg suggests, instead, that difference is to be treated as basic. My goal in this paper is to answer two related questions. First, what is it for a theorist to treat difference or identity as basic? Second, which of these two ‘relations’ is to be treated as basic? I begin by outlining four reasons that one might be motivated to endorse the view that dif…Read more
  •  213
    Instantiation is not partial identity
    Philosophical Studies 163 (3): 697-715. 2013.
    In order to avoid the problems faced by standard realist analyses of the “relation” of instantiation, Baxter and, following him, Armstrong each analyze the instantiation of a universal by a particular in terms of their partial identity. I introduce two related conceptions of partial identity, one mereological and one non-mereological, both of which require at least one of the relata of the partial identity “relation” to be complex. I then introduce a second non-mereological conception of partial…Read more