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12John W. Carroll , Readings on Laws of Nature. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press , 296 pp., $26.95 (review)Philosophy of Science 75 (3): 409-411. 2008.
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22Review of D. M. Armstrong, Truth and Truthmakers (review)Philosophical Books 46 (4): 369-370. 2005.
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119In Defence of Pan-DispositionalismMetaphysica 9 (2): 139-157. 2008.Pan-Dispositionalism – the view that all properties (and relations) are irreducibly dispositional – currently appears to have no takers amongst major analytic metaphysicians. There are those, such as Mumford, who are open to the idea but remain uncommitted. And there are those, such as Ellis and Molnar, who accept that some properties are irreducibly dispositional but argue that not all are. In this paper, I defend Pan-Dispositionalism against this ‘Moderate’ Dispositionalism
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228Are all possible laws actual laws?Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (4). 2003.Suppose it is a law that all Fs are G. Does the law hold in all possible worlds? According to Necessitarianism, it holds in at least all those worlds containing F-ness. I argue that the Necessitarian must also take the law to hold in all those possible worlds which do not contain F-ness. Accepting the principle that a law can only hold in a world if it has some ontological grounding in that world, I argue that Necessitarianism is committed to the claim that any law holding in the actual world is…Read more
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Nomic Inversion And The Contingency Of LawsPhilosophical Writings 30 (3). 2005.According to the Contingency Theory of Laws, if there are possible worlds in which it is a law that all Fs are G, there are also possible F-containing worlds in which it is not. I argue here that the theory is forced to accept the possibility of nomic inversion: i.e. pairs of properties that have their actual nomic roles swapped in some possible world. Such inversions cannot be ruled out on grounds of logical or metaphysical inconsistency, and therefore – since nomic inversion is counterintuitiv…Read more
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54Stephen Mumford, Laws In Nature. London, Routledge, 2004 Hardback £60.00 ISBN 0-415-31128-4 (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (2): 449-452. 2006.
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16From an ontological point of view by John Heil clarendon press, oxford, 2003. Pp. XV+267. £30Philosophy 79 (3): 491-494. 2004.
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43The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science - by E.J. LowePhilosophical Books 48 (3): 274-277. 2007.
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105Nature's metaphysics: Laws and properties (by Alexander Bird) (review)Philosophy 85 (1): 152-157. 2010.
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The Necessity of Natural LawsDissertation, University of Sheffield. 2001.I argue that the best explanation of law-like regularity is that properties are universals and that universals are irreducibly dispositional entities.
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5From an Ontological Point of View By John Heil Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2003. Pp. xv+267. £30 (review)Philosophy 79 (3): 491-494. 2004.
Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |