Philosophical Background / Interests

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This page includes a general description of my work, with links to some current drafts.  Many of the linked files are in the PDF format.  You should be able to view and print them with the free Acrobat Reader.  For an additional account of professional activities, see my Curriculum Vita.

Research Projects

Since my dissertation, I have been working toward a book on issues associated with possibility and necessity.  In different places, I have allowed that there are "possible worlds," and that possible worlds have a certain utility.  However, I claim, possible worlds do not ground modal truth.  Rather, grounds for modal truth, both de dicto and de re, are to be found in the non-modal way ordinary things and properties are.  This thesis has pushed me, in recent times, to thinking about properties.  I now see some property theory as an essential component of my overall approach to necessity and possibility.

Publications central to this project (with links for CSUSB access) are,

"Things and De Re Modality."  Nous 34 (2000): 56-84.

"In Defense of Linguistic Ersatzism."  Philosophical Studies 80 (1995): 217-242.

"Worlds and Modality."  The Philosophical Review 102 (1993): 335-61.

A draft related to the issues about properties is , What's So Bad About Infinite Regress?  A number of natural derivation systems for non-classical logics are developed in "Natural Derivations for Priest, An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic" in the electronic Australasian Journal of Logic (2006).  Related drafts are Making Sense of Relevant Semantics (which has a separate Supplement), and On Permutation in Simplified Semantics (Greg Restall first author).   Naturally, comments are welcome!

Textbook Projects

In addition, somewhat to my surprise, I am producing texts for upper-division (and early graduate) metaphysics, and for intermediate to advanced logic.  For metaphysics, my aim is to engage with, and provide a pathway through, central original works—and so to make accessible topics which may seem initially mysterious or bizarre, including reality and truth, abstract objects, possible worlds, and the like.  A special emphasis on method, with extended discussion of Quine's, "On What There Is," motivates the working title, About What There Is: An Introduction to Contemporary Metaphysics.  One aim of this book is to set out a metaphysical perspective which is interesting in its own right, and so to give students and philosophers something to which they can react.  For logic, my aim is to bridge the gap between introductory courses, where students do derivations, and advanced ones, where  students often are already expected to be familiar with mathematical induction, etc.---without sacrifice of rigor.

For further information on the logic text, including some whole chapters, see Symbolic Logic: An Accessible Introduction to Serious Mathematical Logic.  For further information on the metaphysics text, again including some whole chapters, see About What There Is: An Introduction to Contemporary Metaphysics.

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