•  8
    Pragmatic encroachment in epistemology is the idea that whether one knows some proposition depends on whether one can rely on it practically. Total pragmatic encroachment affirms that practical considerations of this sort encroach not just on knowledge but on all interesting normative epistemic statuses a belief might have. Ichikawa, Jarvis, and Rubin (2012) have argued that this stronger thesis conflicts with mainstream belief‐desire psychology. Worse still, they argue that attempting to defend…Read more
  •  154
    Advocates of occasional identity have two ways of interpreting putative cases of fission and fusion. One way—we call it the Creative view—takes fission to involve an object really dividing (or being replicated), thereby creating objects which would not otherwise have existed. The more ontologically parsimonious way takes fission to involve merely the ‘separation’ of objects that were identical before: strictly speaking, no object actually divides or is replicated, no new objects are created. In …Read more
  •  85
  •  231
    Rigidity, occasional identity and Leibniz' law
    Philosophical Quarterly 50 (201): 518-526. 2000.
    André Gallois (1998) attempts to defend the occasional identity thesis (OIT), the thesis that objects which are distinct at one time may nonetheless be identical at another time, in the face of two influential lines of argument against it. One argument involves Kripke’s (1971) notion of rigid designation and the other, Leibniz’s law (affirming the indiscernibility of identicals). It is reasonable for advocates of (OIT) to question the picture of rigid designation and the version of Leibniz’s law…Read more
  •  49
    Pragmatic Encroachment and the Threshold Problem
    Erkenntnis 88 (1): 173-188. 2021.
    The threshold problem for knowledge is the problem of saying where the threshold for knowledge lies in various cases and explaining why it lies there rather than elsewhere. Pragmatic encroachment is the idea that the knowledge-threshold is sensitive to practical factors. The latter idea seems to help us make progress on the former problem. However, Jessica Brown has argued that appearances are deceiving in this case: the threshold problem is still a thorny one even for those who accept pragmatic…Read more
  •  279
    Knowledge judgements and cognitive psychology
    Synthese 197 (8): 3245-3259. 2020.
    Certain well-known intuitions suggest that, contrary to traditional thinking in epistemology, knowledge judgements are shifty—i.e., that judgements about whether somebody knows something can shift in stringency with context. Some take these intuitions to show that knowledge judgements are shifty. Jennifer Nagel and Mikkel Gerken have argued, however, that closer attention to the psychological processes which underlie knowledge judgements shows how traditional non-shifty thinking can be preserve…Read more
  •  149
    Is Personal Identity Analysable?
    Acta Analytica 29 (3): 309-316. 2014.
    Trenton Merricks has argued that given endurantism personal identity is unanalysable in terms of psychological continuity, while Anthony Brueckner has argued against this claim. This article shows that neither philosopher has made a compelling case and also shows what it would take to settle the issue either way. It is then argued that whether personal identity is analysable or not may not be of crucial importance to those wanting to defend a psychological continuity approach to personal identit…Read more
  •  356
    A defence of anti-criterialism
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47 (5): 613-630. 2017.
    According to philosophical orthodoxy, there are informative criteria of identity over time. Anti-criterialism rejects this orthodoxy and claims that there are no such criteria. This paper examines anti-criterialism in the light of recent attacks on the thesis by Matt Duncan, Sydney Shoemaker and Dean Zimmerman. It is argued that those attacks are not successful. Along the way, a novel strategy to defend anti-criterialism against the critics’ most challenging objection is developed. Under-appreci…Read more
  •  460
    On What We are and How We Persist
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 95 (3): 356-371. 2014.
    This article defends novel approaches to what we are and how we persist. First it is claimed that we have disjunctive persistence conditions: we can persist by way of either biological continuity or psychological continuity. Then it is claimed that we are neither human beings nor persons essentially. Rather, we are essentially bio-psycho-continuers, a concept to be explained along the way. A variety of objections are considered and found wanting
  •  284
    Mathematical explanation and indispensability arguments
    with Chris Daly
    Philosophical Quarterly 59 (237): 641-658. 2009.
    We defend Joseph Melia's thesis that the role of mathematics in scientific theory is to 'index' quantities, and that even if mathematics is indispensable to scientific explanations of concrete phenomena, it does not explain any of those phenomena. This thesis is defended against objections by Mark Colyvan and Alan Baker.
  •  290
    3D Cohabitation
    Erkenntnis 81 (6): 1195-1210. 2016.
    The cohabitation theory is a popular solution to the problem of personal fission. It affirms that all the people who result from fission were there cohabiting the pre-fission body all along. Adopting this solution is an uncontroversial move for four-dimensionalists, but is it open to three-dimensionalists too? Some have thought so, but Katherine Hawley, Mark Johnston, and Eric Olson have argued to the contrary. They claim three-dimensionalists simply cannot be cohabitation theorists. In this pap…Read more
  •  93
    Reply to Roache
    Analysis 70 (4): 676-681. 2010.
  •  121
    Two Anti-Platonist Strategies
    with Chris Daly
    Mind 119 (476): 1107-1116. 2010.
    This paper considers two strategies for undermining indispensability arguments for mathematical Platonism. We defend one strategy (the Trivial Strategy) against a criticism by Joseph Melia. In particular, we argue that the key example Melia uses against the Trivial Strategy fails. We then criticize Melia’s chosen strategy (the Weaseling Strategy.) The Weaseling Strategy attempts to show that it is not always inconsistent or irrational knowingly to assert p and deny an implication of p . We argue…Read more
  •  124
    How to defend the cohabitation theory
    Philosophical Quarterly 57 (227). 2007.
    David Lewis's cohabitation theory suffered damaging criticism from Derek Parfit. Though many have defended versions of Lewis's theory Parfit's criticism has not been answered. This paper shows how to defend the cohabitation theory against Parfit's criticism.
  •  162
    Three-dimensionalism and counterpart theory
    Analysis 65 (4): 321-325. 2005.
    Jim Stone argues that one cannot combine three-dimensionalism with counterpart theory. This paper argues to the contrary.
  •  30