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182Is the Quality of Life Objectively Evaluable on Naturalism?Perichoresis 21 (1): 70-83. 2023.This article examines one of the sources of David Benatar’s anti-natalism. This is the view that ‘all procreation is [morally] wrong.’ (Benatar and Wasserman, 2015:12) One of its sources is the claim that each of our lives is objectively bad, hence bad whether we think so or not. The question I will pose is whether the constraints of metaphysical naturalism allow for an objective devaluation of human life sufficiently negative to justify anti-natalism. My thesis is that metaphysical naturalism d…Read more
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12Meinertsen on Non-Substantial Change, Trope Bundle Theory, and States of AffairsPhilosophia 51 (1): 425-429. 2022.In my (2020), I criticize how Meinertsen in Metaphysics of States of Affairs treats the main ‘internal’ problem of his state of affairs ontology: the problem of unity. In this note, I consider instead some questions about Meinertsen’s approach to one of his important ‘external’ problems: the problem of non-substantial change.
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872From Democrat to DissidentIn T. Allan Hillman & Tully Borland (eds.), Dissident Philosophers: Voices Against the Political Current of the Academy, Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 261-277. 2022.Recounts the author's experiences and reasons that led him to reject the Democratic Party and become a conservative.
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54Letters to the EditorProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 77 (2). 2003.
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30Letters to the EditorProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 71 (2). 1997.
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12Classical Theism and Global Supervenience PhysicalismThe Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 36 203-208. 1998.Could a classical theist be a physicalist? Although a negative answer to this question may seem obvious, it turns out that a case can be made for the consistency of a variant of classical theism and global supervenience physicalism. Although intriguing, the case ultimately fails due to the weakness of global supervenience as an account of the dependence of mental on physical properties.
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195Metaphysics of States of Affairs: Truthmaking, Universals, and a Farewell to Bradley’s Regress (review)Metaphysica 21 (1): 167-177. 2018.
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58A Most Unlikely God: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Nature of God (review)Dialogue 38 (3): 614-616. 1999.This is the sequel to Miller’s From Existence to God: A Contemporary Philosophical Argument. In that book, he presents a version of the cosmological argument for the existence of God that does not rely on the principle of sufficient reason in any of its forms. A central upshot of that argument is that God, as uncaused cause of the universe, must be Subsistent Existence, i.e., a being not distinct from its existence. The notion that anything could be non-distinct from its existence is, of course,…Read more
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367Does God Exist Because He Ought To Exist?In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), Ontology of Theistic Beliefs: Meta-Ontological Perspectives, De Gruyter. pp. 205-212. 2018.
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23Reply to Davies: Creation and ExistenceInternational Philosophical Quarterly 31 (2): 213-225. 1991.
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28Reply to Smith: The Question of IdealismInternational Philosophical Quarterly 31 (3): 343-348. 1991.
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51God, Modality, and Morality, by William E. Mann (review)Faith and Philosophy 33 (3): 374-381. 2016.
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261Butchvarov on the Dehumanization of PhilosophyStudia Neoaristotelica 13 (2): 181-196. 2016.This review article examines Panayot Butchvarov’s claim that philosophy in its three main branches, epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics, needs to be freed from anthropocentrism.
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213Facts: An Essay in AporeticsIn Francesco Federico Calemi (ed.), Metaphysics and Scientific Realism: Essays in Honour of David Malet Armstrong, De Gruyter. pp. 105-132. 2016.
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440Van Inwagen on Fiction, Existence, Properties, Particulars, and MethodStudia Neoaristotelica 12 (2): 99-125. 2015.This paper is a review of the book "Existence: Essays in Ontology" by Peter Van Inwagen.
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42A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology VindicatedSpringer Verlag. 2013.The heart of philosophy is metaphysics, and at the heart of the heart lie two questions about existence. What is it for any contingent thing to exist? Why does any contingent thing exist? Call these the nature question and the ground question, respectively. The first concerns the nature of the existence of the contingent existent; the second concerns the ground of the contingent existent. Both questions are ancient, and yet perennial in their appeal; both have presided over the burial of so many…Read more
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277Divine SimplicityFaith and Philosophy 9 (4): 508-525. 1992.The doctrine of divine simplicity, according to which God is devoid of physical or metaphysical complexity, is widely believed to be incoherent. I argue that although two prominent recent attempts to defend it fail, it can be defended against the charge of obvious incoherence. The defense rests on the isolation and rejection of a crucial assumption, namely, that no property is an individual. I argue that there is nothing in our ordinary concepts of property and individual to warrant the assum…Read more
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1Does Existence Itself Exist? Transcendental Nihilism Meets the Paradigm TheoryIn Larry Lee Blackman (ed.), The Philosophy of Panayot Butchvarov: A Collegial Evaluation, The Edwin Mellen Press. pp. 57-78. 2005.
Areas of Specialization
Metaphilosophical Skepticism |
Philosophy of Religion |
Existence |
Truthmakers |