•  141
    Patrick Todd's The Open Future defends the view that all future contingent statements, like ‘It will rain tomorrow’, are false.1 Not only is ‘It will rain tomor.
  •  391
    De se knowledge and the possibility of an omniscient being
    Faith and Philosophy 23 (2): 191-200. 2006.
    In this paper I examine an argument that has been made by Patrick Grim for the claim that de se knowledge is incompatible with the existence of an omniscient being. I claim that the success of the argument depends upon whether it is possible for someone else to know what I know in knowing (F), where (F) is a claim involving de se knowledge. I discuss one reply to this argument, proposed by Edward Wierenga, that appeals to first-person propositions and argue that this response is unsuccessful. I …Read more
  •  75
    Knowledge of the Future and Reliable Belief-Forming Processes
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    This paper embraces the view that we have substantial knowledge of the future and investigates how such knowledge fundamentally differs from knowledge of the past and present. I argue for a new source of context-sensitivity with respect to knowledge attributions arising from presuppositions about reliable belief-forming processes. This context sensitivity has important consequences for knowledge of the future, as well as the appropriateness of assertions about the future. I argue that not only i…Read more
  •  516
    The Growing Block, the Open Future and Future Truths
    Disputatio 13 (63): 423-432. 2021.
    In Nothing to Come, Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz provide a sophisticated, compelling, and thoroughly defended account of the growing block theory. This note critically evaluates two aspects of this account. First, it evaluates Correia and Rosenkranz’s attempt at providing a grounding principle for future truths and argues that this principle fails to make progress in explaining why future truths are true. Second, it evaluates Correia and Rosenkranz’s construal of the open future arguing t…Read more
  •  259
    Wondering about the future
    Philosophical Studies 179 (8): 2449-2473. 2021.
    Will it rain tomorrow? Will there be a sea battle tomorrow? Will my death be painful? Wondering about the future plays a central role in our cognitive lives. It is integral to our inquiries, our planning, our hopes, and our fears. The aim of this paper is to consider various accounts of future contingents and the implications that they have for wondering about the future. I argue that reflecting on the nature of wondering about the future supports an Ockhamist account of future contingents accor…Read more
  •  263
    There are different ways in which imaginings can involve the first-person. I can imagine skiing down a mountain, looking down the slope, the wind whipping me in the face. I can also imagine myself skiing down a mountain from the outside, adopting the point of view of a spectator watching myself fly down the mountain. I can also imagine that I am someone else entirely, say Angela Merkel, skiing down a mountain. In this paper I develop and defend a new account of the content of first-person imagin…Read more
  •  664
    De Se Puzzles and Frege Puzzles
    with Clas Weber
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (1): 50-76. 2022.
    What is the relationship between Frege’s puzzle and the puzzle of the de se? An increasingly influential view claims that the de se puzzle is merely an instance of Frege’s puzzle and that the idea that de se attitudes pose a distinctive theoretical challenge rests on a myth. Here we argue that this view is misguided. There are important differences between the two puzzles. First, unlike Frege puzzle cases, de se puzzle cases involve unshareable Fregean senses. Second, unlike Frege puzzle cases, …Read more
  •  568
    What is Special about De Se Attitudes?
    with Clas Weber
    In Stephen Biggs & Heimir Geirsson (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Reference, Routledge. pp. 464-481. 2021.
    De se attitudes seem to play a special role in action and cognition. This raises a challenge to the traditional way in which mental attitudes have been understood. In this chapter, we review the case for thinking that de se attitudes require special theoretical treatment and discuss various ways in which the traditional theory can be modified to accommodate de se attitudes.
  •  86
    (No abstract is available for this citation)
  •  165
    De Se Thought and Communication: An Introduction
    In Manuel Garcia-Carpintero & Stephan Torre (eds.), About Oneself: De Se Thought and Communication, Oxford University Press. pp. 1-21. forthcoming.
    This chapter provides a critical overview of various influential accounts of de se attitudes including those proposed by Frege, Lewis and Perry. It also addresses the charge that there is nothing distinctive about de se attitudes. The second half outlines a widely accepted and influential model of communication and various complications that arise in applying this model to the communication of de se thoughts. The final section provides an overview of the papers in this volume.
  •  405
    Tense, Timely Action and Self-Ascription
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (1): 112-132. 2009.
    I consider whether the self-ascription theory can succeed in providing a tenseless (B-theoretic) account of tensed belief and timely action. I evaluate an argument given by William Lane Craig for the conclusion that the self-ascription account of tensed belief entails a tensed theory (A-theory) of time. I claim that how one formulates the selfascription account of tensed belief depends upon whether one takes the subject of selfascription to be a momentary person-stage or an enduring person. I pr…Read more
  •  830
    The Open Future
    Philosophy Compass 6 (5): 360-373. 2011.
    A commonly held idea regarding the nature of time is that the future is open and the past is fixed or closed. This article investigates the notion that there is an asymmetry in openness between the past and the future. The following questions are considered: How exactly is this asymmetry in openness to be understood? What is the relation between an open future and various ontological views about the future? Is an open future a branching future? What is the relation between an open future and the…Read more
  •  281
    In Defense of De Se Content
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (1): 172-189. 2018.
    There is currently disagreement about whether the phenomenon of first-person, or de se, thought motivates a move towards special kinds of contents. Some take the conclusion that traditional propositions are unable to serve as the content of de se belief to be old news, successfully argued for in a number of influential works several decades ago.1 Recently, some philosophers have challenged the view that there exist uniquely de se contents, claiming that most of the philosophical community has be…Read more
  •  571
    Truth-conditions, truth-bearers and the new B-theory of time
    Philosophical Studies 142 (3): 325-344. 2009.
    In this paper I consider two strategies for providing tenseless truth-conditions for tensed sentences: the token-reflexive theory and the date theory. Both theories have faced a number of objections by prominent A-theorists such as Quentin Smith and William Lane Craig. Traditionally, these two theories have been viewed as rival methods for providing truth-conditions for tensed sentences. I argue that the debate over whether the token-reflexive theory or the date theory is true has arisen from a …Read more
  •  601
    About Oneself: De Se Thought and Communication (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2016.
    Inspired by Castañeda (1966, 1968), Perry (1979) and Lewis (1979) showed that a specific variety of singular thoughts, thoughts about oneself “as oneself” – de se thoughts, as Lewis called them – raise special issues, and they advanced rival accounts. Their suggestive examples raise the problem of de se thought – to wit, how to characterize it so as to give an accurate account of the data, tracing its relations to singular thoughts in general. After rehearsing the main tenets of two contrasting …Read more
  •  593
    Restricted Diachronic Composition and Special Relativity
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (2): 235-255. 2015.
    When do objects at different times compose a further object? This is the question of diachronic composition. The universalist answers, ‘under any conditions whatsoever’. Others argue for restrictions on diachronic composition: composition occurs only when certain conditions are met. Recently, some philosophers have argued that restrictions on diachronic compositions are motivated by our best physical theories. In Persistence and Spacetime and elsewhere, Yuri Balashov argues that diachronic compo…Read more
  •  401
    Centered assertion
    Philosophical Studies 150 (1): 97-114. 2010.
    I suggest a way of extending Stalnaker’s account of assertion to allow for centered content. In formulating his account, Stalnaker takes the content of assertion to be uncentered propositions: entities that are evaluated for truth at a possible world. I argue that the content of assertion is sometimes centered: the content is evaluated for truth at something within a possible world. I consider Andy Egan’s proposal for extending Stalnaker’s account to allow for assertions with centered content. I…Read more