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84The No-Category OntologyThe Monist 98 (3): 233-245. 2015.In this paper we argue that there are no categories of being⎯at least not in the robust metaphysical sense of something fundamental. Central arguments that metaphysicians provide in support of fundamental categories, such as indispensability and theoretical utility arguments, are not adequate to guarantee their existence. We illustrate this point by examining Jonathan Lowe’s [2006] four-category ontology, and indicating its shortcomings. In contrast, we offer an alternative, no-category ontology…Read more
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1222 God and Abstract ObjectsIn Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), Ontology of Divinity, De Gruyter. pp. 445-464. 2024.
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52The Routledge Handbook of Modality (edited book)Routledge. 2018.Modality - the question of what is possible and what is necessary - is a fundamental area of philosophy and philosophical research. The Routledge Handbook of Modality is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising thirty-five chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into seven clear parts: worlds and modality essentialism, ontological dependence, and modality m…Read more
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275Modalism and theoretical virtues: toward an epistemology of modalityPhilosophical Studies 172 (3): 671-689. 2015.According to modalism, modality is primitive. In this paper, we examine the implications of this view for modal epistemology, and articulate a modalist account of modal knowledge. First, we discuss a theoretical utility argument used by David Lewis in support of his claim that there is a plurality of concrete worlds. We reject this argument, and show how to dispense with possible worlds altogether. We proceed to account for modal knowledge in modalist terms.
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ModalismIn Otávio Bueno & Scott A. Shalkowski (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Modality, Routledge. 2018.
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Introduction. Modal matters : philosophical significanceIn Otávio Bueno & Scott A. Shalkowski (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Modality, Routledge. 2018.
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26Logical Properties: Identity, Existence, Predication, Necessity, TruthMind 111 (442): 449-453. 2002.
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189Troubles with Theoretical Virtues: Resisting Theoretical Utility Arguments in MetaphysicsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (2): 456-469. 2020.In this paper we examine theoretical utility arguments in metaphysics. While philosophers claim a procedural continuity with science when using such arguments, we argue that examining famous instances from the history of science expose their fundamental flaws. We find that arguments from theoretical utility invoke considerations that are not truth conducive and that justifications for claims that a theory possesses theoretical virtues often assume the truth of the theory such virtues are suppose…Read more
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36In this contribution, I defend two claims. First, theological problems do not arise, because there are insufficient grounds for thinking that there are abstract objects. Second, theological problems do not arise because even if abstract objects do exist as platonists think they do, they pose no problem for God’s sovereignty or aseity. The argument for the second has two components. First, there are limits and then there are limits. The so-called limits platonism would place upon God are merely n…Read more
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382A plea for a modal realist epistemologyActa Analytica 15 (24): 175--194. 2000.In this paper we examine Lewis's attempts to provide an epistemology of modality and we argue that he fails to provide an account that properly weds his metaphysics with an epistemology that explains the knowledge of modality that both he and his critics grant. We argue that neither the appeals to acceptable paraphrases of ordinary modal discourse nor parallels with Platonistic theories of mathematics suffice. We conclude that no proper epistemology for modal realism has been provided and that o…Read more
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1385Modalism and Logical PluralismMind 118 (470): 295-321. 2009.Logical pluralism is the view according to which there is more than one relation of logical consequence, even within a given language. A recent articulation of this view has been developed in terms of quantification over different cases: classical logic emerges from consistent and complete cases; constructive logic from consistent and incomplete cases, and paraconsistent logic from inconsistent and complete cases. We argue that this formulation causes pluralism to collapse into either logical ni…Read more
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1453Modal realism and modal epistemology: A huge gapIn Erik Weber Tim De Mey (ed.), Modal Epistemology, Springer. pp. 93--106. 2004.
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Richard Swinburne, "Revelation" (review)International Journal of Philosophical Studies 2 (1): 171. 1994.
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113Theoretical virtues and theological constructionInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 41 (2): 71-89. 1997.
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46Necessity, Worlds, and GodIn Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), God, Truth, and Other Enigmas, De Gruyter. pp. 217-240. 2015.
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58Semantic RealismReview of Metaphysics 48 (3). 1995.MICHAEL DEVITT HAS ARGUED that Michael Dummett unsuccessfully attacks realism because Dummett does not address the traditional, and perhaps more interesting, doctrines that have been called by the name "realism." Dummett will balk at the charge that his writings on realism, truth, and the theory of meaning do not bear on the traditional metaphysical issues of realism. Indeed, he thinks that his most singular philosophical achievement has been showing that different realisms have a common charact…Read more
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60Ontology, Modality, and the Fallacy of ReferencePhilosophical Review 104 (4): 630. 1995.This study in fundamental ontology calls for rethinking some pedestrian assumptions about what there is and provides the motivation for a new theory of reference. It contains clear, crisp discussions of mereology, identity, reference, and necessity and should be valuable to metaphysicians and philosophers of language.
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199Supervenience and causal necessitySynthese 90 (1): 55-87. 1992.Causal necessity typically receives only oblique attention. Causal relations, laws of nature, counterfactual conditionals, or dispositions are usually the immediate subject(s) of interest. All of these, however, have a common feature. In some way, they involve the causal modality, some form of natural or physical necessity. In this paper, causal necessity is discussed with the purpose of determining whether a completely general empiricist theory can account for the causal in terms of the noncaus…Read more
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1The Metaphysics of Modality: A Study in the Foundations of NecessityDissertation, University of Michigan. 1984.In the past three decades there has been a rapid development of the formal machinery for modal logic. Quantified modal logic has developed along with a semantics and model theory that is appropriate to it. With this technical development there has been relatively little discussion of what modality is all about. There are two fundamental questions that have gone unanswered. First, to what does necessity amount? Is this a new logical notion, or is it something that can be further analyzed in terms…Read more
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212The ontological ground of the alethic modalityPhilosophical Review 103 (4): 669-688. 1994.This paper is concerned with the wholly metaphysical question of whether necessity and possibility rest on nonmodal foundations—whether the truth conditions for modal statements are, in the final analysis, nonmodal. It is argued that Lewis’s modal realism is either arbitrary and stipulative or else it is circular. Even if there were Lewisean possible worlds, they could not provide the grounds for modality. D. M. Armstrong’s combinatorial approach to possibility suffers from similar defects. Sinc…Read more
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43Modal IntegrationPhilosophia Scientiae 16 (2): 85-98. 2012.Chris Daly défend « l'explicationisme », la position selon laquelle l'inférence a la meilleure explication constitue une façon acceptable de justifier une théorie. Il la défend en tentant de justifier la position explicationiste par ses propres ressources, c'est-a-dire par elle-même. Je soutiens que dans le contexte de la métaphysique, cette défense échoue. L'explicationiste échoue à se justifier par ses propres ressources et l'une de ses premisses centrales ne peut pas être justifiée uniquement…Read more
Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion |
Modal Epistemology |
Modality |