•  126
    On Some Objections to the Powers-BSA
    The Philosophical Quarterly. forthcoming.
    This paper responds to Friend’s (2023) critique of the Powers-BSA, a view according to which laws of nature are efficient descriptions of how modally laden properties (powers) are possibly distributed in spacetime. In the course of this response, the paper discusses the nature of scientific and metaphysical explanation, the aim of science and the structure of modal space.
  •  176
    Debating Powers: Where the Real Puzzle Lies
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Stephen Mumford and Alexander Bird disagree about which properties are powers and, correspondingly, about the extent of the philosophical work to which powers may be put. Unfortunately, there is an important respect in which these authors are talking past each other and so the reason for their disagreement remains obscured. I highlight what has gone wrong in their recent exchange, attempt to clear up the confusion and pinpoint the true source of their disagreement. My hope is to redirect the eff…Read more
  •  192
    Dispositions and Powers
    Cambridge University Press. 2023.
    As we understand them, dispositions are relatively uncontroversial 'predicatory' properties had by objects disposed in certain ways. By contrast, powers are hypothetical 'ontic' properties posited in order to explain dispositional behaviour. Chapter 1 outlines this distinction in more detail. Chapter 2 offers a summary of the issues surrounding analysis of dispositions and various strategies in contemporary literature to address them, including one of our own. Chapter 3 describes some of the imp…Read more
  •  302
    Reconsidering the Dispositional Essentialist Canon
    Philosophical Studies 178 (10): 3421-3441. 2021.
    Dispositional Essentialism is a unified anti-Humean account of the metaphysics of low-level physical properties and laws of nature. In this paper, I articulate the view that I label Canonical Dispositional Essentialism, which comprises a structuralist metaphysics of properties and an account of laws as relations in the property structure. I then present an alternative anti-Humean account of properties and laws. This account rejects CDE’s structuralist metaphysics of properties in favour of a vie…Read more
  •  265
    This paper defends an account of the laws of nature in terms of irreducibly modal properties (aka powers) from the threat posed by functional laws, conservation laws and symmetries. It thus shows how powers theorists can avoid ad hoc explanations and resist an inflated ontology of powers and governing laws. The key is to understand laws not as flowing from the essences of powers, as per Bird (2007), but as features of a description of how powers are possibly distributed, as per Demarest (2017), …Read more
  •  510
    Laws of Nature: Necessary and Contingent
    Philosophical Quarterly 72 (4): 875-895. 2022.
    This paper shows how a niche account of the metaphysics of laws of nature and physical properties—the Powers-BSA—can underpin both a sense in which the laws are metaphysically necessary and a sense in which it is true that the laws could have been different. The ability to reconcile entrenched disagreement should count in favour of a philosophical theory, so this paper constitutes a novel argument for the Powers-BSA by showing how it can reconcile disagreement about the laws’ modal status. This …Read more
  •  228
    Pandispositionalism and the metaphysics of powers
    Synthese 200 (5): 1-21. 2022.
    Some philosophers maintain that physical properties are irreducibly modal: that properties are powers. Powers are then employed to provide explanations of other phenomena of philosophical interest such as laws of nature and modality. There is, however, a dispute among powers theorists about how far the powers ontology extends: are all manner of properties at all levels of fundamentality powers or are powers only to be found among the fundamental properties? This paper argues that the answer to t…Read more
  •  65
    The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 71 (2): 444-447. 2021.
    The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism. By Wilson Alastair.
  •  24
    Correction to: Reconsidering the dispositional essentialist canon
    Philosophical Studies 178 (11): 3843-3844. 2021.
    A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01620-5.
  •  417
    Can Hardcore Actualism Validate S5?
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2): 342-358. 2021.
    Hardcore actualism (HA) grounds all modal truths in the concrete constituents of the actual world (see, e.g., Borghini and Williams (2008), Jacobs (2010), Vetter (2015)). I bolster HA, and elucidate the very nature of possibility (and necessity) according to HA, by considering if it can validate S5 modal logic. Interestingly, different considerations pull in different directions on this issue. To resolve the tension, we are forced to think hard about the nature of the hardcore actualist's modal …Read more
  •  63
    Necessary Laws and the Problem of Counterlegals
    Philosophy of Science 87 (3): 518-535. 2020.
    Substantive counterlegal discourse poses a problem for those according to whom the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. I discern two types of necessitarianism about laws: dispositional essentialism and modal necessitarianism. I argue that Toby Handfield’s response to the problem of counterlegals cannot help the modal necessitarian, according to whom all possible worlds are identical with respect to the laws. I thus propose a fictionalist treatment of counterlegals. Fictions are not limi…Read more
  •  312
    Hardcore Actualism and Possible Non‐Existence
    Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 7 (2): 122-131. 2018.
    According to hardcore actualism (HA), all modal truths are grounded in the concrete constituents of the actual world. In this paper, I discuss some problems faced by HA when it comes to accounting for certain alleged possibilities of non‐existence. I focus particular attention on Leech (2017)'s dilemma for HA, according to which HA must either sacrifice extensional correctness or admit mere possibilia. I propose a solution to Leech's dilemma, which relies on a distinction between weak and strong…Read more
  •  91
    Humean Laws in an unHumean World
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 3 (2): 129-147. 2017.
    I argue that an unHumean ontology of irreducibly dispositional properties might be fruitfully combined with what has typically been thought of as a Humean account of laws, namely, the best-system account, made popular by David Lewis (e.g., 1983, 1986, 1994). In this paper I provide the details of what I argue is the most defensible account of Humean laws in an unHumean world. This package of views has the benefits of upholding scientific realism while doing without any suspect metaphysical entit…Read more