•  384
    A New Puzzle About Aristotelian Accidents
    Metaphysics 4 (1): 1-17. 2021.
    Aristotle gives a surprisingly broad menu of examples of something being accidental to something else. But the breadth of these examples seems to threaten a basic feature of accidentality, namely its asymmetry. ‘Accident’ has different senses, and one might think that that fact offers a way out, but some examples resist such an understanding. The best way forward, I argue, is to take accidentality to be contextual: relative to some context or condition, something might be accidental to something…Read more
  •  15
    The Texture of Aristotle’s Ontology
    Apeiron 55 (4): 557-586. 2022.
    Typically, Aristotle’s notion of an accidental unity is explained using our concept of identity, but doing so is fraught and liable to mislead. I argue that we should explain accidental unities in terms of sameness: doing so not only shows a coherence among texts thought to be in tension with one another, it reconciles the two competing conceptions of accidental unities in a satisfying way. I conclude by answering several Boolean questions that naturally arise in response to the inclusion of acc…Read more
  •  9
    Questiones super Physicam (Books I-VII) by Nicole Oresme (review)
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 52 (3): 610-611. 2014.
    A review of the Latin text of Oresme's important work.
  •  17
    Aristotle on How Efficient Causation Works
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 104 (4): 633-687. 2022.
    I argue that, in light of his critique of rival theories of efficient causation, there is a puzzle latent in Aristotle’s own account. To show this, I consider one of his preferred examples of such causation, the activity of experts. Solving the puzzle yields a novel reading of Aristotle, one according to which experts, but not their characteristic arts or skills, are efficient causes.
  •  8
    A Study of Dialectic in Plato’s Parmenides (review)
    Ancient Philosophy 37 (1): 201-204. 2017.
  •  71
    Aristotle on Accidental Causation
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (4): 561-575. 2016.
    I offer a new analysis of Aristotle's concept of an accidental cause. Using passages fromMetaphysics Δ and Ε, as well as Physics II, I argue that accidental causes are causally inert. After defending this reading against some objections, I draw some conclusions about Aristotle's basic understanding of causation.
  •  24
    John Buridan’s Metaphysics of Persistence
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 54 (3): 373-394. 2016.
    John Buridan’s theory of persistence is based on a metaphysical foundation that has been misrepresented by contemporary scholars. I argue that this fact is both (i) suggested by his treatment of persistence itself, and (ii) explicit in his clearest exposition of the foundations of persistence. I also argue that while this fact has historical interest, its primary interest is philosophical in nature: it shows Buridan developing a distinction that contemporary philosophers find useful in elaborati…Read more