Defense of the thesis that full grounds imply a “free lunch” status; more precisely, if the fact that P is fully grounded by a collection G of facts, then the fact that P is nothing over and above the facts in G.
“Recipe for Confusion: Polger and Shapiro on Multiple Realization.”
A critical examination of the “Official Recipe” for multiple realization offered by Polger and Shapiro in their 2016 The Multiple Realization Book, arguing that their account is motivated by a conflation of distinct concerns and that their subsequent pessimism about the actual incidence of multiple realization is unwarranted.
Physicalism, Apriority, and Consciousness.
Book manuscript in (slow) progress defending a kind of a priori physicalism in a systematic fashion, with attention to phenomenal consciousness as the big troublemaker for physicalism and how an a priori link to such can plausibly be established.
“Making Sense of ‘Naturalism’.”
Advances a diagnosis of how ‘naturalism’ in the metaphysical sense is best understood, discerning a fundamental unity among many seemingly disparate formulations and using this to offer advice for future invocations of the term.
“Full and Partial Grounding.” Co-authored with Kelly Trogdon. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 7 (2): 252-270. Summer 2021.
“Physicalism UnBlocked.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (7): 890-904. October 2020.
“Physicality for Physicalists.” Topoi 37 (3): 457-472. September 2018. Special issue “The Character of Physicalism” edited by Andreas Elpidorou.
“Platonistic Physicalism without Tears.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 24 (9-10): 72-90. 2017. Part of a collection of papers responding to Susan Schneider’s “Does the Mathematical Nature of Physics Undermine Physicalism?”
“A Simple Theory of Intrinsicality.” In Robert M. Francescotti, ed., Companion to Intrinsic Properties. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2014. Pages 111-138.
Recent and upcoming presentations
Comments on Torrance Fung’s “Naive Realism and Color Primitivism.” To be presented January 15, 2024. Eastern Division, American Philosophical Association. New York, New York.
Comments on Ryan Miller’s “Artifacts: Ontology as Easy as it Gets.” January 6, 2023. Eastern Division, American Philosophical Association. Montreal, Canada.
“Now You See It, Now You Don’t: What Matters in Disputes over Multiple Realization.” Part of an invited symposium “Multiple Realization in Fact and Theory.” February 24, 2022. Central Division, American Philosophical Association. Chicago, IL.
Comments on Daniel Giberman and David Kovacs, “Property Dualism (not?) for Property Nominalists.” February 26, 2020. Central Division, American Philosophical Association. Chicago, IL.
“Grounds for a Free Lunch.” November 1, 2019. Florida Philosophical Association. Gainesville, FL.