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2005
Introduction: In this paper, I argue that a surprisingly widespread strategy in metaphysics is suspect for various reasons and hence ought to be abandoned. In very broad strokes, situations which give rise to ‘The Suspect Strategy’ (TSS) contain as one of their ingredients a general metaphysical...
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2004
Whenever an object constitutes, makes up or composes another object, the objects in question share a striking number of properties. This paper is addressed to the question of what might account for the intimate relation and striking similarity between constitutionally related objects. According...
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1997
Introduction: There is considerable dispute in the literature as to how much, in Aristotle's universe, artifacts and living things really have in common. To what extent is the relation between form and matter in living things comparable to the relation between form and matter in artifacts?...
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1999
In this paper I propose a novel treatment of generic sentences, which proceeds by means of different levels of analysis. According to this account, all generic sentences (I-generics and D-generics alike) are initially treated in a uniform manner, as involving higher-order predication (following...
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1997
In §54 of the Grundlagen, Frege advances an interesting proposal on how to distinguish among different sorts of concepts, only some of which he thinks can be associated with number. This paper is devoted to an analysis of the two criteria he offers, isolation and non-arbitrary division. Both...
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2008
The aim of this article is to illustrate how a belief in the existence of kinds may be justified for the particular case of natural kinds: particularly noteworthy in this respect is the weight borne by scientific natural kinds (e.g., physical, chemical, and biological kinds) in (i) inductive...
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2005
This paper concerns a fundamental dispute in ontology between the “Foundational Ontologist”, who believes that there is only one correct way of characterizing what there is, and the ontological “Skeptic”, who believes that there are viable alternative characterizations of what there is. I examine...
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2014
In various texts (e.g., Met. Z.17), Aristotle assigns priority to form, in its role as a principle and cause, over matter and the matter-form compound. Given the central role played by this claim in Aristotle's search for primary substance in the Metaphysics, it is important to understand what...
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2003
Introduction: How do the familiar concrete objects of common-sense –houses, trees, people, cars and the like-- persist through time? According to the position known as ‘four-dimensionalism’ or ‘the doctrine of temporal parts’, ordinary concrete objects persist through time by perduring, i.e., by...
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1999
Introduction: Along with many other languages, English has a relatively straightforward gram- matical distinction between mass-occurrences of nouns and their count- occurrences. To illustrate, consider the distinction between the role of ‘hair’ in (1) and (2): ~1! There is hair in my soup. (2)...