Monash University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2014
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics
PhilPapers Editorships
Endurance
Perdurance
Stage Theory
  •  787
    Here I defend the compatibility of presentism and time travel against a few objections. Keller and Nelson argue that, if presentism is at all plausible, presentism and time travel are as compatible as eternalism and time travel. But Miller and Sider are not convinced. I reply that for their concerns to have merit, Miller and Sider must assume presentists are committed to positions they need not be; I explain why presentists are not so committed and, in the process, defend Keller and Nelson’s pos…Read more
  •  730
    Endurantism and Paradox
    Philosophia 41 (4): 1173-1179. 2013.
    Mereological challenges have recently been raised against the endurantist. For instance, Barker and Dowe (2003) have argued that eternalist endurantism entails (1) persisting objects are both 3D and 4D, and that (2) the lives of persisting objects last longer than they actually do. They also argue that presentist endurantism also entails, albeit in a tensed way, that (3) the lives of persisting objects last longer than they actually do. While they’ve further argued (2005) that the objections rai…Read more
  •  592
    Occupy Wall: A Mereological Puzzle and the Burdens of Endurantism
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (1): 91-101. 2014.
    Endurantists have recently faced a mereological puzzle in various forms. Here I argue that, instead of presenting a genuine worry, the puzzle actually reveals a common misunderstanding about the endurantist ontology. Furthermore, through this discussion of the alleged problem and the misunderstanding which motivates it, I reveal metaphysical commitments the endurantist has that may not be widely recognized. For instance, she is committed to interesting and perhaps controversial views about shape…Read more
  •  500
    Just War and Non-Combatants in the Private Military Industry
    Journal of Military Ethics 14 (2): 146-161. 2015.
    I argue that, according to Just War Theory, those who work as administrative personnel in the private military industry can be permissibly harmed while at work by enemy combatants. That is, for better or worse, a Just War theorist should consider all those who work as administrative personnel in the private military industry either: (i) individuals who may be permissibly restrained with lethal force while at work, or (ii) individuals who may be harmed by permissible attacks against their workpla…Read more
  •  210
    Mereology & Location (Edited by Shieva Kleinschmidt, OUP). [Book Review] (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 65 (260): 561-564. 2015.
  •  115
    Mereology
    Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy. 2016.
    This peer reviewed reference article is an annotated online bibliography on mereology with 80+ entries. It's aim is to provide a selective and balanced guide to the subject. It contains thematic headings with commentaries. The reader should come away cognizant of what the most influential work in mereology are. Topics highlighted herein include, but are not limited to: the history of mereology, classical extensional mereology and its challenges, parthood, connections with location relations, mer…Read more
  •  93
    The main theme of this thesis is time travel; time travel cases—both from relativistic physics and science fiction—provide or highlight deep problems for certain positions in contemporary debates about the metaphysical nature of time and of how material objects persist through time. This thesis explores the implications of these discussions; more specifically, I draw attention to some of the interesting things we can learn about presentism and endurantism from discussions of time travel cases th…Read more
  •  81
    Do Events Have Their Parts Essentially?
    Acta Analytica 32 (3): 313-320. 2017.
    We argue that mereological essentialism for events is independent of mereological essentialism for objects, and that the philosophical fallout of embracing mereological essentialism for events is minimal. We first outline what we should consider to be the parts of events, and then highlight why one would naturally be inclined to think that the object-question and the event-question are linked. Then, we argue that they are not. We also diagnose why this is the case and emphasize the upshot. In pa…Read more
  •  71
    Persistence, Temporal Extension, and Transdurantism
    Metaphysica 20 (1): 83-102. 2019.
    I explicate and defend a non-standard theory of persistence, which I calltransdurantism. In short, transdurantism is the view is that objects persist by being temporally extended simples. Transdurantism is sometime misrepresented as a version of endurantism. Other times, transdurantism is misrepresented as a version of perdurantism. But I argue transdurantism must be disambiguated from perdurantism and endurantism—when endurantism, perdurantism, and transdurantism are properly construed, transdu…Read more
  •  66
    Lewisian Time Travel in a Relativistic Setting
    Metaphysica 15 (2): 329-345. 2014.
    I argue that David Lewis’s philosophically dominant conception of time travel cannot straightforwardly handle what we might call cases of relativistic time travel—that is, the sort of time travel which could only plausibly occur in a relativistic setting. I evaluate whether or not the Lewisian account can be successfully adapted such that it would able to analyse potential cases of relativistic time travel satisfactorily while still being employable in the analysis of those cases that make no me…Read more
  •  53
    Sweeping Endurantism Is a Micharacterization of Endurantism
    American Philosophical Quarterly 54 (3): 295-302. 2017.
    Endurantism is commonly characterized as a sweeping thesis, according to which enduring objects persist by sweeping or moving through time. I argue that the endurantist should resist this characterization as it makes her view incompatible with eternalism, the moving spotlight theory, and the growing block theory. Moreover, even the presentist endurantist should resist this characterization as it undermines the modal analogy. As a result, those who argue against endurantism should avoid character…Read more
  •  21
    A Problem with the Traveller’s Dilemma
    Philosophical Investigations 45 (2): 146-160. 2021.
    Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 2, Page 146-160, April 2022.
  •  20
    Presentism & Passage
    Metaphysica 23 (2): 369-384. 2022.
    According to the presentist, only the present moment exists and, as time passes, what’s present changes. However some argue that, if only one moment exists, the presentist cannot explain the passage of time. While the presentist historically appeals to surrogates—proxies which exist in the present but play the role of non-existent past times—to evade this sort of worry, the appeal to surrogates has come under renewed attack from Lisa Leininger. But hope is not lost for the presentist. I argue th…Read more
  • In The Langoliers, passengers on an airline flight wake to find that they’ve mysteriously travelled a few minutes back in time… a few minutes behind everyone else. They find that the world still exists, after ‘the present’ has moved on, but only for a short duration before the Langoliers—the timekeepers of eternity—arrive to remove it permanently from existence. This story prompts two interesting questions: How should we understand the nature of time in The Langoliers? Could the nature of time i…Read more