My primary research interests include the metaphysics of ordinary objects, mereology, mental fictionalism, and modality.
I am currently working on a monograph (under contract) with Cambridge University Press as part of their Elements series called Parts and Wholes. It is an opinionated overview of philosophical issues involving parts and wholes, lightly guided by a diagnosis of why we shouldn’t conclude a priori that there are an odd number of things in the universe.
Two of my papers – “Mental Fictionalism” and “Mental Fictionalism: a foothold amid deflationary collapse” – recently came out in T. Demeter, T. Parent, and A. Toon (eds.), Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations (Routledge), an anthology on the topic of mental fictionalism (April 2022).
Published – Professional Philosophy
2022 – “Mental Fictionalism” (draft; original paper written in 2007); T. Demeter, T. Parent, and A. Toon (eds.), Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations (Routledge) 2022
2022 – “Mental fictionalism – a foothold amid deflationary collapse ” (draft); T. Demeter, T. Parent, and A. Toon (eds.), Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations (Routledge) 2022
2021 – “The Polysemy of ‘part’” Synthese 198, 4331–4354 (2021); online 2019
2020 – “Counterexamples and Commonsense: When (Not) to Tollens a Ponens” Analysis 80(3): 544-558 (2020)
2019 – “The Lump Sum: A Theory of Modal Parts” Philosophical Papers (2019)
2018 – “The Haecceitic Euthyphro problem” co-authored with Jason Bowers, Analysis 78(1): 13-22 (2018)
2016 – “Saving Mental Fictionalism from Cognitive Collapse” in Res Philosophica 93(2): 405-424 (2016)
2015 – “Rearming the Slingshot?” Acta Analytica 30(3): 283-292 (2015)
2014 – “Composition as Identity, Mereological Essentialism, and Modal Parts” in Composition as Identity, eds. Donald Baxter and Aaron Cotnoir, OUP (2014)
2014 – “The Argument from Vagueness for Modal Parts” in dialectica vol. 68 (3): 355-373 (2014)
2013 – “Counterparts and Compositional Nihilism: A Reply to A. J. Cotnoir” in Thought: A Journal of Philosophy vol. 2 (3): 242-247 (2013)
2011 – “Composition as Identity: Part 1” in Philosophy Compass vol. 6(11): 804-816 (2011)
2011 – “Composition as Identity: Part 2 ” in Philosophy Compass vol. 6(11): 817-827 (2011)
Published – Public Philosophy & Pedagogy
2022 – “Circus and Philosophy: Teaching Aristotle Through Juggling” revised reprint in CircusTalk
2021 – “Circus and Philosophy: Teaching Aristotle Through Juggling” in Aesthetics for Birds
Under Contract – In Progress:
Parts and Wholes – under contract, submitted, under review (Cambridge University Press)
Objects and Worlds: A Theory of Modal Parts – manuscript in progress
“Modal Parts and Material Plenitude” – in progress
“Choose Your Own Essentia!” – in progress
“In Defense of the Spectacle” – in progress