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61Towards a Deflationary Truthmakers Account of Social GroupsErkenntnis 1-18. forthcoming.I outline a deflationary truthmakers account of social groups. Potentially, the approach allows us to say, with traditional ontological individualists, that there are only pluralities of individuals out there, ontologically speaking, but that there are nevertheless colloquial and social-scientific truths about social groups. If tenable, this kind of theory has the virtue of being both ontologically parsimonious and compatible with ordinary and social-scientific discourse—a virtue which the stoc…Read more
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309The Truth about Social EntitiesIn Andrés Garcia, Mattias Gunnemyr & Jakob Werkmäster (eds.), Value, Morality & Social Reality: Essays dedicated to Dan Egonsson, Björn Petersson & Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Department of Philosophy, Lund University. pp. 483-497. 2023.
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92Sparse Causation and Mere Abundant CausationPhilosophical Studies 179 (11): 3259-3280. 2022.Setting off from a familiar distinction in the philosophy of properties, this paper introduces a tripartite distinction between sparse causation, abundant causation and mere abundant causation. It is argued that the contrast between sparse and mere abundant causation allows us to resolve notorious philosophical issues having to do with negative causation, causation involving institutional properties and physical macro-causation in a way that is unified, intuitive and in line with scientific doct…Read more
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178Are there any Institutional Facts?In Robin Stenwall & Tobias Hansson Wahlberg (eds.), Maurinian Truths : Essays in Honour of Anna-Sofia Maurin on her 50th Birthday, Department of Philosophy, Lund University. pp. 83-88. 2019.
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153Why the social sciences are irreducibleSynthese 196 (12): 4961-4987. 2019.It is often claimed that the social sciences cannot be reduced to a lower-level individualistic science. The standard argument for this position is the Fodorian multiple realizability argument. Its defenders endorse token–token identities between “higher-level” social objects and pluralities/sums of “lower-level” individuals, but they maintain that the properties expressed by social science predicates are often multiply realizable, entailing that type–type identities between social and individua…Read more
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134The creation of institutional reality, special theory of relativity, and mere Cambridge changeSynthese 198 (6): 5835-5860. 2021.Saying so can make it so, J. L. Austin taught us long ago. Famously, John Searle has developed this Austinian insight in an account of the construction of institutional reality. Searle maintains that so-called Status Function Declarations, allegedly having a “double direction of fit”, synchronically create worldly institutional facts, corresponding to the propositional content of the declarations. I argue that Searle’s account of the making of institutional reality is in tension with the special…Read more
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485Maurinian Truths : Essays in Honour of Anna-Sofia Maurin on her 50th Birthday (edited book)Department of Philosophy, Lund University. 2019.This book is in honour of Professor Anna-Sofia Maurin on her 50th birthday. It consists of eighteen essays on metaphysical issues written by Swedish and international scholars.
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83Active Powers and Passive Powers – Do Causal Interactions Require Both?Philosophia 47 (5): 1603-1612. 2019.Many powers metaphysicians postulate both active and passive powers, understood as distinct kinds of intrinsic causal properties of objects. I argue that the category of passive power is superfluous. I also offer a diagnosis of how philosophers are misled to postulate passive powers.
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155Causal powers and social ontologySynthese 197 (3): 1357-1377. 2020.Over the last few decades, philosophers and social scientists have applied the so-called powers ontology to the social domain. I argue that this application is highly problematic: many of the alleged powers in the social realm violate the intrinsicality condition, and those that can be coherently taken to be intrinsic to their bearers are arguably causally redundant. I end the paper by offering a diagnosis of why philosophers and social scientists have been tempted to think that there are powers…Read more
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146The problem(s) of change revisitedDialectica 61 (2). 2007.Two recurrent arguments levelled against the view that enduring objects survive change are examined within the framework of the B-theory of time: the argument from Leibniz's Law and the argument from Instantiation of Incompatible Properties. Both arguments are shown to be question-begging and hence unsuccessful.
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164The Tenseless Copula in Temporal PredicationErkenntnis 72 (2): 267-280. 2010.In this paper I explore how the tenseless copula is to be interpreted in sentences of the form “a is F at t”, where “a” denotes a persisting, changeable object, “F” stands for a prima facie intrinsic property and “t” for a B-time. I argue that the interpretation of the copula depends on the logical role assigned to the time clause. Having rejected the idea that the time clause is to be treated as a sentence operator, I argue: that if “at t” is thought of as being associated with “a” or “F”, then…Read more
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99Is Phosphorus Hesperus?Axiomathes 19 (1): 101-102. 2009.It is argued that philosophers who adopt the perdurance theory of persistence and who subscribe to the principle of Unrestricted Mereological Composition (UMC) are in a position to regard “Phosphorus is Hesperus” as false.
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92Meso-level Objects, Powers, and Simultaneous CausationMetaphysica 18 (1): 107-125. 2017.I argue that Mumford and Anjum’s recent theory of simultaneous causation among powerful meso-level objects is problematic in several respects: it is based on a false dichotomy, it is incompatible with standard meso-level physics, it is explanatory deficient, and it threatens to render the powers metaphysics incoherent. Powers theorists are advised, therefore, to adopt a purely sequential conception of causation.
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897Dissolving McTaggart's ParadoxIn Christer Svennerlind, Almäng Jan & Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson (eds.), Johanssonian Investigations: Essays in Honour of Ingvar Johansson on His Seventieth Birthday, Ontos Verlag. pp. 240-258. 2013.
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72Causally Redundant Social Objects: Rejoinder to Elder-VassPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 44 (6): 798-809. 2014.In Elder-Vass’s response to my critical discussion of his social ontology, it is maintained (1) that a social object is not identical with but is merely composed of its suitably interrelated parts, (2) that a social object is necessarily indistinguishable in terms of its causal capacities from its interrelated parts, and (3) that ontological individualism lacks an adequate ontological justification. In this reply, I argue that in view of (1) the so-called redescription principle defended by Elde…Read more
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235Can I be an Instantaneous Stage and yet Persist Through Time?Metaphysica 9 (2): 235-239. 2008.An alternative to the standard endurance/perdurance accounts of persistence has recently been developed: the stage theory (Sider, T. Four-Dimensionalism: an Ontology of Persistence and Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Hawley, K. How Things Persist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). According to this theory, a persisting object is identical with an instantaneous stage (temporal part). On the basis of Leibniz's Law, I argue that stage theorists either have to deny the alleged ide…Read more
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186The Endurance/Perdurance Controversy is No Storm in a TeacupAxiomathes 24 (4): 463-482. 2014.Several philosophers have maintained in recent years that the endurance/perdurance debate is merely verbal: these prima facie distinct theories of objects’ persistence are in fact metaphysically equivalent, they claim. The present paper challenges this view. Three proposed translation schemes are examined; all are shown to be faulty. In the process, constructive reasons for regarding the debate as a substantive one are provided. It is also suggested that the theories may have differing practical…Read more
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1132Objects in Time: Studies of Persistence in B-timeDissertation, Lund University. 2009.This thesis is about the conceptualization of persistence of physical, middle-sized objects within the theoretical framework of the revisionary ‘B-theory’ of time. According to the B-theory, time does not flow, but is an extended and inherently directed fourth dimension along which the history of the universe is ‘laid out’ once and for all. It is a widespread view among philosophers that if we accept the B-theory, the commonsensical ‘endurance theory’ of persistence will have to be rejected. The…Read more
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165Institutional objects, reductionism and theories of persistenceDialectica 68 (4): 525-562. 2014.Can institutional objects be identified with physical objects that have been ascribed status functions, as advocated by John Searle in The Construction of Social Reality (1995)? The paper argues that the prospects of this identification hinge on how objects persist – i.e., whether they endure, perdure or exdure through time. This important connection between reductive identification and mode of persistence has been largely ignored in the literature on social ontology thus far.
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1624-D Objects and Disposition AscriptionsPhilosophical Papers 38 (1): 35-72. 2009.Disposition ascription has been discussed a good deal over the last few decades, as has the revisionary metaphysical view of ordinary, persisting objects known as 'fourdimensionalism'. However, philosophers have not merged these topics and asked whether four-dimensional objects can be proper subjects of dispositional predicates. This paper seeks to remedy this oversight. It argues that, by and large, four-dimensional objects are not suited to take dispositional predicates
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216Can Persistence be a Matter of Convention?Axiomathes 21 (4): 507-529. 2011.This paper asks whether persistence can be a matter of convention. It argues that in a rather unexciting de dicto sense persistence is indeed a matter of convention, but it rejects the notion that persistence can be a matter of convention in a more substantial de re sense. However, scenarios can be imagined that appear to involve conventional persistence of the latter kind. Since there are strong reasons for thinking that such conventionality is impossible, it is desirable that our metaphysical-…Read more
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100Too Many Dispositional PropertiesSATS 7 (2): 37-42. 2006.This paper identifies an overdetermination problem faced by the non-reductive dispositional property account of disposition ascriptions. Two possible responses to the problem are evaluated and both are shown to have serious drawbacks. Finally it is noted that the traditional conditional analysis of dispositional ascriptions escapes the original difficulty
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100Names introduced with the help of unsatisfied sortal predicatesAxiomathes 20 (4): 511-514. 2010.In this paper I answer Aranyosi’s (Axiomathes 19(2):223–224, 2009) criticism of my “Is Phosphorus Hesperus?” (Axiomathes 19(1):101–102, 2009).
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131Elder-Vass on the Causal Power of Social StructuresPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 44 (6): 774-791. 2014.In this review essay, I examine the central tenets of sociologist Dave Elder-Vass’s recent contribution to social ontology, as put forth in his book The Causal Power of Social Structures: Emergence, Structure and Agency. Elder-Vass takes issue with ontological individualists and maintains that social structures exist and have causal powers in their own right. I argue that he fails to establish his main theses: he shows neither that social structures have causal powers “in their own right” (in an…Read more
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112Endurance Per Se in B-timeMetaphysica 10 (2): 175-183. 2009.Three arguments for the conclusion that objects cannot endure in B-time even if they remain intrinsically unchanged are examined: Carter and Hestevolds enduring-objects-as-universals argument (American Philosophical Quarterly 31(4):269-283, 1994) and Barker and Dowe's paradox 1 and paradox 2 (Analysis 63(2):106-114, 2003, Analysis 65(1):69-74, 2005). All three are shown to fail.
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Social Ontology, Misc |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Theories of Causation |
Areas of Interest
Metaphilosophy |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Physical Science |