My
main research areas are metaphysics and the philosophy of
language. I am especially interested in issues concerning the
metaphysics of modality and the utility and limits of explanation and
reduction in metaphysics. My work is largely sympathetic to the
dictates of common sense abetted by the sciences. I take
metaphysical disputes to pose questions worthy of serious inquiry,
eschewing, by and
large, attempts
to show
that there is less to these disputes than meets the eye. I also
find myself disinclined to radical metaphysical programs that take
metaphysical questions seriously,
but proposeanswers
to them opposed by common sense abetted by the sciences.
ABSTRACT: Saul Kripke has claimed that there are
necessary connections between material things and their material
origins. The usual defenses of such necessity of origin theses
appeal to either a sufficiency of origin principle or a
branching-times model of necessity. In this paper we offer a
different defense. Our argument proceeds from more modest
`independence principles', which govern the processes by which
material objects are produced. Independence principles are
motivated, in turn, by appeal to a plausible metaphysical
principle governing such processes, their invulnerability to
non-local prevention. We outline the new argument, and
distinguish it from both of the usual defenses.
ABSTRACT: In `A New Route to the Necessity of Origin' we
offered an argument for the thesis that there are necessary
connections between material things and their material
origins. Much of the philosophical interest lay in our claim that
the argument did not depend on so-called sufficiency principles
for crossworld identity. It has been the verdict of much recent
work on the necessity of origin that valid arguments for the
thesis require some such sufficiency principle as a premise but
that such principles are deeply problematic. These claims are now
the subject of a pair of insightful critiques by Robertson and
Forbes, and Cameron and Roca. Both critiques identify a weakness
in the formulation of the key premise of our argument, the
locality of prevention. Here we argue that the right lesson to
draw is that the old formulation of locality is inadequate to
express the underlying intuitions about prevention that were our
starting point. We suggest how that formulation may be improved
without injury to the argument.
Philosophical Review, April
2009 [.tex(penultimate draft)]
[.pdf]
ABSTRACT: A major source of latter-day skepticism about
necessity is the work of David Hume. Hume is widely taken to
have endorsed the Humean claim: there are no necessary
connections between distinct existences. The Humean claim is
defended on the grounds that necessary connections between
wholly distinct things would be mysterious and
inexplicable. Philosophers deploy this claim in the service of a
wide variety of philosophical projects. But Saul Kripke has
argued that it is false. According to Kripke, there are
necessary connections between distinct existences; in
particular, there are necessary connections between material
objects and their material origins. In this paper I argue that
the primary motivation for the Humean claim, Hume's
datum, also motivates the key premise in an argument for the
necessity of origins. The very considerations that the Humean
takes to show that necessary connections between wholly distinct
things would be mysterious and inexplicable indicate that there
must be some such necessary connections. Thus, in the absence of
alternative support, there is no reason to believe the Humean
claim.
Philosophical
Studies, 149(1), May 2010.
[.pdf]
[slides]
ABSTRACT: Consider the kinds of macroscopic concrete
objects that common sense and the sciences allege to exist:
tables, raindrops, tectonic plates, galaxies, and the rest. Are
there any such things? Opinions differ. Ontological
liberals say they do;
ontological radicals say they don't. Liberalism seems
favored by its plausible acquiescence to the dictates of common
sense abetted by science; radicalism by its ontological
parsimony. Priority theorists claim we can have the
virtues of both views. They hold that tables, raindrops, etc.,
exist, but they aren't fundamental. The ontological liberal's
ontology provides the correct inventory of existent
individuals. The ontological radical's more restricted ontology
provides the correct inventory of fundamental individuals. The
priority theorist claims that the derivative individuals are
``no addition in being'' to the fundamental ones, so we can have
our cake and eat it too. It would be nice if priority theorists
were right. In this paper I argue, with regret, that they are
not. One upshot is that the sort of explanations which
underwrite the priority theorist's distinction between
fundamental and derivative individuals do not mitigate our
ontological commitments. Another is that we still have to
choose between the charms of liberalism and radicalism.
forthcoming in the Australasian Journal of
Philosophy [.pdf]
[This is a preprint of an article whose final and
definitive form will be published in the Australasian Journal
of Philosophy; the Australasian Journal of Philosophy is
available online at: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/.]
ABSTRACT: A standard view of reference holds that a
speaker's use of a name refers to a certain thing in virtue of
the speaker's associating a condition with that use that
singles the referent out. This view has been criticized by
Saul Kripke as empirically inadequate. Recently, however, it
has been argued that a version of the standard view, a
response-based theory of reference, survives the charge of
empirical inadequacy by allowing that associated conditions
may be largely or even entirely implicit. This paper argues
that response-based theories of reference are prey to a
variant of the empirical inadequacy objection, because they
are ill-suited to accommodate the successful use of proper
names by pre-school children. Further, I argue that there is
reason to believe that normal adults are, by and large, no
different from children with respect to how the referents of
their names are determined. I conclude that speakers typically
refer positionally: the referent of a use of a proper
name is typically determined by aspects of the speaker's
position, rather than by associated conditions present,
however implicitly, in her psychology.
forthcoming in Philosophical
Studies [.tex(penultimate draft)][.pdf]
ABSTRACT: A philosophical standard in the debates
concerning material constitution is the case of a statue and a
lump of clay, Lumpl and Goliath respectively. According to the
story, Lumpl and Goliath are coincident throughout their
respective careers. Monists hold that they are
identical; pluralists that they are distinct. This paper
is concerned with a particular objection to pluralism, the
Grounding Problem. The objection is roughly that the
pluralist faces a legitimate explanatory demand to explain
various differences she alleges between Lumpl and Goliath, but
that the pluralist's theory lacks to resources to give any such
explanation. In this paper, I explore the question of whether
there really is any problem of this sort. I argue (i)
that explanatory demands that are clearly legitimate are easy
for the pluralist to meet; (ii) that even in cases of
explanatory demands whose legitimacy is questionable the
pluralist has some overlooked resources; and (iii) there
is some reason for optimism about the pluralist's prospects for
meeting every legitimate explanatory demand. In short, no
clearly adequate statement of a Grounding Problem is extant, and
there is some reason to believe that the pluralist can overcome
any Grounding Problem that we haven't thought of yet.
"Possible Worlds I: Modal Realism"
A survey article in Philosophy Compass, 4(6) 2009.
[.tex(penultimate draft)][.pdf]
ABSTRACT: It is difficult to wander far in contemporary
metaphysics without bumping into talk of possible worlds. And
reference to possible worlds is not confined to metaphysics. It
can be found in contemporary epistemology and ethics, and has
even found its way into linguistics and decision theory. But
what are those possible worlds, the entities to which theorists
in these disciplines all appeal? This paper sets out and
evaluates a leading contemporary theory of possible worlds,
David Lewis's Modal Realism. I note two competing ambitions for
a theory of possible worlds: that it be reductive and
user-friendly. I then outline Modal Realism and consider
objections to the effect that it cannot satisfy these ambitions.
I conclude that there is some reason to believe that Modal
Realism is not reductive and overwhelming reason to believe that
it is not user-friendly.
"Possible Worlds II: Nonreductive Theories of Possible Worlds"
A survey article in Philosophy Compass, 4(6) 2009.
[.tex(penultimate draft)][.pdf]
ABSTRACT: It is difficult to wander far in contemporary
metaphysics without bumping into talk of possible worlds. But
reference to possible worlds is not confined to metaphysics. It
can be found in contemporary epistemology and ethics, and has
even found its way into linguistics and decision theory. What
are those possible worlds, the entities to which theorists in
these disciplines all appeal? Some have hoped that a theory of
possible worlds can be used to reduce modality to non-modal
terms. This paper sets reductive theories aside, and
articulates and applies a framework for evaluating nonreductive
theories of possible worlds. I argue that, if we abjure
reduction, we should aim for a theory of possible worlds that is
\emph{user-friendly}. I then outline four leading contemporary
theories and consider objections to each. My conclusions are
negative: every theory we discuss fails to be user-friendly in
some significant respect.
ABSTRACT: Among the most remarkable developments in
metaphysics since the 1950's is the explosion of philosophical
interest in possible worlds. Inspired by technical advances in
quantified modal logic, philosophers explored the idea that the
metaphysical theory of possible worlds could serve as a
foundation for theories of modality. I propose an explanation of
what possible worlds are, and argue that this proposal, the
interpreted models conception, should be attractive to
anyone who thinks that modal facts are primitive, and so not to
be explained in terms of some non-modal notion of ``possible
world.'' I articulate three constraints on any acceptable
primitivist explanation of the nature of possible worlds, show
that the interpreted models conception meets the three
constraints, and argue that a plausible competitor, the
property-based conception, does not.
ABSTRACT: A familiar and plausible view holds that reality
comes in layers: at the bottom are (perhaps) the physical
entities. Higher up, we find chemical, biological, geological,
psychological, sociological, economic, etc., entities:
molecules, human beings, diamonds, mental states, nations,
interest rates, and so on. The higher-level entities are "an
ontological free lunch", because their existence and features
are completely explicable in terms of the existence and features
of lower-level entities. In this sense, higher-level entities
are "nothing over and above" lower-level entities. In
this paper, I apply the central argument of "Getting
Priority Straight" to show that this layered conception of
reality faces a problem: barring reduction, every entity is
fundamental, in the sense that some of its features are
explanatorily basic.
ABSTRACT: According to skeptics about de re
modality, the answers to
de re modal questions depend on how we think of the
individual in question. No individual bears simpliciter
the sorts of modal properties apparently attributed by de
re modal constructions. Realists about de re modality
defend the view that individuals bear modal properties
simpliciter, independently of how they are described. One
major argument for skepticism highlights the phenomenon of
inconstancy: sometimes de re modal attributions
differ in truth value despite involving the same individual and
modal predicate. Skepticism offers a plausible diagnosis: we get
differences in truth value without differences in referent or
predicate because there is a hidden third factor on which the
truth of the utterance depends: the manner in which the individual
in question is represented or described. This third factor is
supplied somehow by context. In this paper, I argue that
inconstancy does not motivate scepticism about de re
modality. I claim that (i) skepticism has a difficult time
explaining related linguistic data; and (ii) the best
explanation of all of the linguistic data, including inconstancy,
supports realism.
ABSTRACT: A compelling idea holds that reality has a
layered structure. We often disagree about what inhabits the
bottom layer (or even if there is one), but we agree that higher up
we find chemical, biological, geological, psychological,
sociological, economic, etc., entities: molecules, human beings,
diamonds, mental states, cities, interest rates, and so on. How is
this intuitive talk of a layered structure of entities to be
understood? Traditionally, philosophers have proposed to
understand layered structure in terms of either reduction or
supervenience. But these traditional views face
well-known problems. A plausible alternative is that layered
structure is to be explicated by appeal to explanations of a
certain sort, termed grounding explanations. Grounding
explanations tell us what obtains in virtue of what.
Unfortunately, the use of grounding explanations to articulate the
layered conception faces a problem, which I call the collapse. The
collapse turns on the question of how to ground the facts stated by
the explanations themselves. In this paper I make a suggestion
about how to ground explanations that avoids the collapse.
Briefly, the suggestion is that the fact stated by a grounding
explanation is grounded in its explanans. After articulating and
motivating this suggestion and showing how it avoids the collapse,
I argue that it motivates a deflationary view of the nature of
grounding explanation.
"Modal Primitivism: A Study in the
Metaphysics of Necessity and Possibility"
(my dissertation)
[.pdf] [WARNING: this file is
approximately 0.5 Mb.]
