•  11
    Transformations in philosophy and legal practice
    with Jill Marshall, Anna Pathe-Smith, and Victoria Adkins
    In Transformations in philosophy and legal practice, . 2023.
    This chapter provides a historical account of the transformation of pregnancy through philosophical theory and legal practice. What has remained seemingly consistent across history, though, is the lack of rights a pregnant woman can enjoy. Whilst it may manifest differently across time and place, unfortunately misogynistic attitudes persist, and this is reflected in the continual degrading of the gestator (and gestation), which is reinforced by certain philosophical theorising and technological …Read more
  •  49
    The Metaphysics of Nothing
    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2023.
    The Metaphysics of Nothing This article is about nothing. It is not the case that there is no thing that the article is about; nevertheless, the article does indeed explore the absence of referents as well as referring to absence. Nothing is said to have many extraordinary properties, but in predicating anything of nothingness we … Continue reading The Metaphysics of Nothing →
  •  25
    Nothing to Speak Of
    Think 22 (63): 39-45. 2023.
    This article is about nothing. Does that mean it is about something, namely, ‘nothing’? Or is there quite literally no thing that this article is about? Follow the dialogue between characters discussing the nature of non-existence and absences to find out! Along the way there will be tongue twisters, contradictions, paradoxes and riddles, ready to challenge our preconceptions of reality as we embark into the mysterious realm of nothingness.
  •  20
    Mereotopology of Pregnancy
    Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 48 (3): 283-298. 2023.
    Consider the following two metaphysical questions about pregnancy: (1) When does a new organism of a certain kind start to exist? (2) What is the mereological and topological relationship between the pregnant organism and with what it is pregnant? Despite assumptions made in the literature, I take these questions to be independent of each other, such that an answer to one does not provide an answer to the other. I argue that the way to connect them is via a maximality principle that prevents one…Read more
  •  9
    Bitak-od-rođenja
    European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 19 (1): 7-32. 2023.
    Žene su nedovoljno zastupljene u filozofiji, a trudnoća je nedovoljno istražena u filozofiji. Može li se uspostaviti veza između ta dva fenomena? Tvrdit ću da, iako je kontrafaktična tvrdnja "da su žene bile povijesno bolje zastupljene u filozofiji, trudnoća bi bila također zastupljena" možda istinita, to ne znači nužno da sada, u sadašnjosti, možemo očekivati (ili poželjeti) da postoji korelacija. Kako bismo shvatili jaz između ovih dvaju područja nedovoljne zastupljenosti, dovoljno je usvojiti…Read more
  •  21
    Being-from-Birth: Pregnancy and Philosophy
    European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 19 (1): 7-32. 2023.
    Women are underrepresented in philosophy. And pregnancy is under-researched in philosophy. Can a connection be made between the two? I will argue that whilst the counterfactual of ‘had women historically been better represented in philosophy then pregnancy would have been too’ may be true, it is not necessarily the case that we can now, in the present day, expect (or desire) a correlation. In order to understand the gap between these two areas of underrepresentation, one need only adopt a non- e…Read more
  •  28
    Against Ectogenesis as Liberation
    with Sasha Isaac
    The Philosophers' Magazine 98 74-81. 2022.
  • Quantifier Variance Dissolved
    with Otávio Bueno
    In Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Metaphysics, Cambridge University Press. 2018.
  •  33
    The philosophy of reproduction
    Think 20 (59): 49-62. 2021.
    Every one of us has had some interaction with pregnancy, having been pregnant ourselves or having been the result of someone else's pregnancy. Pregnancy is a source of fascinating philosophical issues, yet has been historically underexplored. In this article, I examine why this might be, and propose how to proceed in the investigation within the context of philosophizing today.
  •  31
    Methodology for the metaphysics of pregnancy
    European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3): 1-19. 2021.
    One of the central questions in the metaphysics of pregnancy is this: Is the foetus a part of the mother? In this paper I aim not to answer this question, but rather to raise methodological concerns regarding how to approach answering it. I will outline how various areas attempt to answer whether the foetus is a part of the mother so as to demonstrate the methodological problems that each faces. My positive suggestion will be to adopt a method of reflective equilibrium. The aim of this is to ens…Read more
  •  556
    Ectogenesis, or “artificial womb technology,” has been heralded by some, such as prominent feminist Shulamith Firestone, as a way to liberate women. In this chapter, we challenge this view by offering an alternative analysis of the technology as relying upon and perpetuating a problematic model of pregnancy which, rather than liberating women, serves to devalue them. We look to metaphysics as the abstract study of reality to elucidate how the entities in a pregnancy are related to one another. W…Read more
  •  7
    Women of Ideas (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2021.
  •  492
    A 2017 Nature report was widely touted as hailing the arrival of the artificial womb. But the scientists involved claim their technology is merely an improvement in neonatal care. This raises an under-considered question: what differentiates neonatal incubation from artificial womb technology? Considering the nature of gestation—or metaphysics of pregnancy—(a) identifies more profound differences between fetuses and neonates/babies than their location (in or outside the maternal body) alone: fet…Read more
  •  28
    Quantifier Variance Dissolved – Addendum
    with Otávio Bueno
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 85 273-273. 2019.
  •  671
    Limiting logical pluralism
    Synthese 198 (Suppl 20): 4905-4923. 2019.
    In this paper I argue that pluralism at the level of logical systems requires a certain monism at the meta-logical level, and so, in a sense, there cannot be pluralism all the way down. The adequate alternative logical systems bottom out in a shared basic meta-logic, and as such, logical pluralism is limited. I argue that the content of this basic meta-logic must include the analogue of logical rules Modus Ponens and Universal Instantiation. I show this through a detailed analysis of the ‘adopti…Read more
  •  845
    The Adoption Problem and Anti-Exceptionalism about Logic
    Australasian Journal of Logic 16 (7): 231. 2019.
    Anti-exceptionalism about logic takes logic to be, as the name suggests, unexceptional. Rather, in naturalist fashion, the anti-exceptionalist takes logic to be continuous with science, and considers logical theories to be adoptable and revisable accordingly. On the other hand, the Adoption Problem aims to show that there is something special about logic that sets it apart from scientific theories, such that it cannot be adopted in the way the anti-exceptionalist proposes. In this paper I assess…Read more
  •  494
    The Metaphysics of Surrogacy
    In David Boonin (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy, Springer International Publishing Ag. pp. 649-659. 2018.
    As with most other areas of reproduction, surrogacy is highly regulated. But the legislation and policies on surrogacy are written in such ways that make large (and possibly mistaken) assumptions about the metaphysical relationship between the mother and the fetus – whether the fetus is a part of, or contained by, the mother. It is the purpose of this chapter to highlight these assumptions, and to demonstrate the impact that alternative metaphysical views can have on our conceptualization of sur…Read more
  •  558
    Quantifier Variance Dissolved
    with Otávio Bueno
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 82 289-307. 2018.
    Quantifier variance faces a number of difficulties. In this paper we first formulate the view as holding that the meanings of the quantifiers may vary, and that languages using different quantifiers may be charitably translated into each other. We then object to the view on the basis of four claims: (i) quantifiers cannot vary their meaning extensionally by changing the domain of quantification; (ii) quantifiers cannot vary their meaning intensionally without collapsing into logical pluralism; (…Read more
  •  2751
    Metametametaphysics and Dialetheism
    Australasian Journal of Logic 14 (1): 128-146. 2017.
    This paper reflects on metametaphysics and as such develops a metametameta-physical view: that quietist metametaphysics requires dialetheism, and in turn a paraconsistent logic. I demonstrate this using Carnap’s metametaphysical position in his 'Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology' as an example, with regard to how it exhibits self-reference and results in inconsistency. I show how applying Carnap’s position to itself produces a dilemma, both horns of which lead to a contradiction. Such inconsist…Read more
  •  488
    Dissolving Yablo’s Hostage Crisis: In Defence of Defiance
    Australasian Philosophical Review 1 (2): 184-188. 2017.
    Yablo suggests a ‘hostage crisis’ occurs when an unproblematic statement ϕ entails, and is therefore hostage to, a problematic statement ψ. Yablo proposes a technical solution to this kind of problem by diminishing ϕ to ϕ*, where ϕ* does not entail ψ and thus is not hostage to it. I argue that Yablo’s proposal is unnecessary because the original, undiminished ϕ does not in fact entail ψ. This is what Yablo calls a ‘defiant’ position. I defend defiance by arguing that ϕ and ψ are of different met…Read more
  •  983
    Scientific realism holds that the terms in our scientific theories refer and that we should believe in their existence. This presupposes a certain understanding of quantification, namely that it is ontologically committing, which I challenge in this paper. I argue that the ontological loading of the quantifiers is smuggled in through restricting the domains of quantification, without which it is clear to see that quantifiers are ontologically neutral. Once we remove domain restrictions, domains …Read more
  •  382
    Humean Supervenience Rebugged
    Philosophia 42 (4): 959-970. 2014.
    This paper is a response to Lewis’ ‘Humean Supervenience Debugged’ . Lewis was in the business of defending Humean Supervenience, and the project seemed successful until the case of chance. Lewis thus originally named chance the ‘big bad bug’ for Humean Supervenience until the aforementioned paper in which he claims victory. Here I argue that he was unsuccessful and that Humean Supervenience remains bugged by chance. I will show how this bug remains due to a misdiagnosis of where the problem lie…Read more