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153Why use generic language in science?British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. forthcoming.Scientists often communicate using generic generalizations, which are unquantified generalizations such as ‘Americans overestimate social class mobility’ or ‘sound waves carry gravitational mass’. In this paper, I explain the role of such generic generalizations in science, based on a novel theory about their characteristic meaning. According to this theory, a scientific generalization of the form ‘Ks are F’ says that F is one property based on which category K qualifies as a scientific kind. Be…Read more
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596Hasty Generalizations Are Pervasive in Experimental Philosophy: A Systematic AnalysisPhilosophy of Science. 2023.Scientists may sometimes generalize from their samples to broader populations when they have not yet sufficiently supported this generalization. Do such hasty generalizations also occur in experimental philosophy? To check, we analyzed 171 experimental philosophy studies published between 2017 and 2023. We found that most studies tested only Western populations but generalized beyond them without justification. There was also no evidence that studies with broader conclusions had larger, more div…Read more
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521“Philosophers care about the truth”: Descriptive/normative genericsMind and Language 38 (3): 772-786. 2023.Some generic generalizations have both a descriptive and a normative reading. The generic sentence “Philosophers care about the truth”, for instance, can be read as describing what philosophers in fact care about, but can also be read as prescribing philosophers to care about the truth. On Leslie’s account, this generic sentence has two readings due to the polysemy of the kind term “philosopher”. In this paper, I first argue against this polysemy account of descriptive/normative generics. In res…Read more
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309The public relevance of philosophySynthese 200 (1): 1-28. 2022.Various authors have recently expressed doubts about the public relevance of philosophy. These doubts target both academic philosophy in general and particular subfields of philosophy. This paper investigates whether these doubts are justified through two tests in which the lack of public relevance of a philosophical paper is operationalized as the degree to which that paper is isolated. Both tests suggest that academic philosophy in general is more isolated from the broader public than it shoul…Read more
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407The causal structure of natural kindsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 85 200-207. 2021.One primary goal for metaphysical theories of natural kinds is to account for their epistemic fruitfulness. According to cluster theories of natural kinds, this epistemic fruitfulness is grounded in the regular and stable co- occurrence of a broad set of properties. In this paper, I defend the view that such a cluster theory is insufficient to adequately account for the epistemic fruitfulness of kinds. I argue that cluster theories can indeed account for the projectibility of natural kinds, but …Read more
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273Falsifying generic stereotypesPhilosophical Studies 178 (7): 2293-2312. 2020.Generic stereotypes are generically formulated generalizations that express a stereotype, like “Mexican immigrants are rapists” and “Muslims are terrorists.” Stereotypes like these are offensive and should not be asserted by anyone. Yet when someone does assert a sentence like this in a conversation, it is surprisingly difficult to successfully rebut it. The meaning of generic sentences is such that they can be true in several different ways. As a result, a speaker who is challenged after assert…Read more
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14The co-evolution of nativist beliefs and tolerant attitudesASEBL Journal 12 (1): 27-29. 2016.Commentary on Lesly Newson and Peter Richerson, Moral Beliefs about Homosexuality: Testing a Cultural Evolutionary Hypothesis
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133Soortgelijke stoornissen. Over nut en validiteit van classificatie in de psychiatrieTijdschrift Voor Filosofie 76 (2): 217-246. 2014.The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was published in 2013. This manual classifies all known mental disorders and provides operationalized criteria for their diagnosis. The goal of this manual is to facilitate communication, treatment and research with reliable and valid diagnoses. This article will provide a study of what this diagnostic validity actually entails. Firstly, it will include a discussion of the different conceptions of validity that have a…Read more
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318No purely epistemic theory can account for the naturalness of kindsSynthese 198 (Suppl 12): 2907-2925. 2018.Several philosophers have recently tried to define natural kinds in epistemic terms only. Given the persistent problems with finding a successful metaphysical theory, these philosophers argue that we would do better to describe natural kinds solely in terms of their epistemic usefulness, such as their role in supporting inductive inferences. In this paper, I argue against these epistemology-only theories of natural kinds and in favor of, at least partly, metaphysical theories. I do so in three s…Read more
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261Beyond the realism debate: The metaphysics of ‘racial’ distinctionsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 59 47-56. 2016.The current metaphysical race debate is very much focused on the realism question whether races exist. In this paper I argue against the importance of this question. Philosophers, biologists and anthropologists expect that answering this question will tell them something substantive about the metaphysics of racial classifications, and will help them to decide whether it is justified to use racial categories in scientific research and public policy. I argue that there are two reasons why these ex…Read more
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20Philosophy and the Biology of Male HomosexualityPhilosophy Compass 10 (7): 479-488. 2015.This paper is a review of how biological as well as other scientific theories, concepts and findings have been used to answer philosophical questions regarding the nature of male homosexuality. We argue that while these sciences are certainly relevant for present philosophical debates, few of the different philosophical issues surrounding male homosexuality can be settled by science alone. In the first section, we introduce a number of various essentialist and constructivist views on (male) homo…Read more
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542Is de filosofie te links?Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 109 (1): 105-122. 2017.Ideological diversity has been on the research agenda in the social sciences for a couple of years. Yet in philosophy, the topic has not attracted much interest. This article tries to start filling this gap. We discuss a number of possible causes for the underrepresentation of right-wing and conservative philosophers in the academic profession. We also argue why this should be an important concern, not only morally, but also and primarily epistemically. Lastly, we explore whether the situation i…Read more
Leuven, Vlaanderen, Belgium
Areas of Specialization
General Philosophy of Science |
Natural Kinds |
Philosophy of Language |
Generics |
Philosophy of Psychiatry |