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Title: Essence, Potentiality, and Modality Abstract: According to essentialism, metaphysical modality is founded in the essences of things, where the essence of a thing is roughly akin to its real definition. According to potentialism (also known as dispositionalism), metaphysical modality is founded in the potentialities of things, where a potentiality is roughly the generalized notion of a disposition. Essentialism and…

Title: Indicative Conditionals: Probabilities and Relevance Abstract: Adams’ Thesis claims that the acceptability of a simple indicative conditional equals the corresponding conditional probability. The Thesis is widely endorsed, but arguably false and refuted by empirical research. To fix it, we submit, we need a relevance constraint: we accept a simple conditional ‘If Ï•, then ψ’ to the extent…

Title: “Good News for the Subregion Theory of Parthood” Abstract: The Subregion Theory of Parthood is probably the most intuitive theory of parthood. It says that whatever is exactly located at a subregion of your exact location is part of you, and nothing else is. Mutatis mutandisfor all material objects. I defend this view from…

Title: Modeling contingently existing propositions (and other intensions). Abstract: The traditional Montagovian framework for the analysis of intensional language uses constant domain models. However, in other areas of philosophy which employ modal logic, it is much more common to use variable domain models which permit various forms of contingent existence. Part of the difficulty in…

Title: CONVERSE PREDICATES AND THE INTERPRETATION OF SECOND ORDER QUANTIFICATION   ABSTRACT: In this paper I argue that we cannot interpret second-order quantification as quantification over properties and relations. My argument forges a hitherto unexplored connection between debates typically conducted independently, one metaphysical, about whether there are converse relations, the other logical, about the interpretation of…

Abstract: The denial of necessary connections between distinct existences is generally taken to be at the heart of Humanism, and any philosophical account that requires necessary connections is rejected on the grounds that it violates Hume’s dictum.  In this paper, I focus on Armstrong’s account of lawhood.  Lewis objects to Armstrong’s account on Humean grounds…

Title: The Genesis of Lewis’s Counterfactual Analysis of Causation Abstract: Lewis presented a prototype counterfactual analysis of causation back in 1958 — aged just 16 or 17 — in the very first undergraduate philosophy essay he ever wrote. I place this paper in its historical context, relating it to the state of the debate at…