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Darwinian metaphysics: Species and the question of essentialismSynthese 131 (2): 191-213. 2002.Biologists and philosophers of biology typically regard essentialism about speciesas incompatible with modern Darwinian theory. Analytic metaphysicians such asKripke, Putnam and Wiggins, on the other hand, believe that their essentialist thesesare applicable to biological kinds. I explore this tension. I show that standard anti-essentialist considerations only show that species do not have intrinsic essential properties. I argue that while Putnam and Kripke do make assumptions that contradict re…Read more
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Gödel's Incompleteness TheoremsThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Ed.). 2013.Gödel's two incompleteness theorems are among the most important results in modern logic, and have deep implications for various issues. They concern the limits of provability in formal axiomatic theories. The first incompleteness theorem states that in any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of arithmetic can be carried out, there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F. According to the second incompleteness theorem, such a formal…Read more
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Hilbert's Program RevisitedSynthese 137 (1-2): 157-177. 2003.
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Causation, exclusion, and the special sciencesErkenntnis 73 (3): 349-363. 2010.
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Ramsification and inductive inferenceSynthese 187 (2): 569-577. 2012.
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Realism: Metaphysical, Scientific, and SemanticIn Kenneth R. Westphal (ed.), Realism, Science, and Pragmatism, Routledge. pp. 139-158. 2014.Three influential forms of realism are distinguished and interrelated: realism about the external world, construed as a metaphysical doctrine; scientific realism about non-observable entities postulated in science; and semantic realism as defined by Dummett. Metaphysical realism about everyday physical objects is contrasted with idealism and phenomenalism, and several potent arguments against these latter views are reviewed. Three forms of scientific realism are then distinguished: (i) scientif…Read more
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Chalmers' Blueprint of the WorldInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 22 (1): 113-128. 2014.
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Neo-Logicism and Its LogicHistory and Philosophy of Logic 41 (1): 82-95. 2020.The rather unrestrained use of second-order logic in the neo-logicist program is critically examined. It is argued in some detail that it brings with it genuine set-theoretical existence assumptions and that the mathematical power that Hume’s Principle seems to provide, in the derivation of Frege’s Theorem, comes largely from the ‘logic’ assumed rather than from Hume’s Principle. It is shown that Hume’s Principle is in reality not stronger than the very weak Robinson Arithmetic Q. Consequently, …Read more
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Theories of Reference: What Was the Question?In Andrea Bianchi (ed.), Language and reality from a naturalistic perspective: Themes from Michael Devitt, Springer. 2020.The new theory of reference has won popularity. However, a number of noted philosophers have also attempted to reply to the critical arguments of Kripke and others, and aimed to vindicate the description theory of reference. Such responses are often based on ingenious novel kinds of descriptions, such as rigidified descriptions, causal descriptions, and metalinguistic descriptions. This prolonged debate raises the doubt whether different parties really have any shared understanding of what the c…Read more
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Tampere UniversityAssociate Professor
University of Helsinki
Department of Philosophy (Theoretical Philosophy, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy in Swedish)
PhD, 1998
PhilPapers Editorships
Realism and Anti-Realism |