My research interests are metaphysics and history of analytic philosophy (broadly construed).
My present focus is on the metaphysics of properties, metaphysics of time, and metaphysics of modality. I am presently writing on the metaphysics of tropes, pursuing an in-depth examination of the classical version of trope theory as defended by Donald C. Williams. This work has grown fruitfully into a monograph on Williams.
The broader theme of my research is the history of twentieth century metaphysics. I am concerned with how metaphysics evolved and had its ups and downs over the course of the twentieth century, from being respectable, to being ridiculed, to being reborn. In pursuing this research I have worked on analytic philosophers – such as Williams, David Lewis – and philosophers who usually fall under non-analytic traditions such as Samuel Alexander and Grace de Laguna.
Books
forthcoming. The Metaphysics of Donald C. Williams. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (under contract)
[This book is a systematic examination of Williams’s metaphysics and his place in the history of analytic metaphysics. He wrote his most important works on metaphysics and epistemology in the mid-twentieth century at a time when metaphysics was wildly and widely unpopular. This book covers his defence of metaphysics, his trope ontology (of substance, universals, processes), his theory of existence, his metaphysics of time.]
Edited books
forthcoming. The Philosophical Correspondence of David Armstrong and David Lewis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (with Peter R. Anstey and Stephanie R. Lewis)
[This volume is the complete set of the correspondence between two great figures in analytic philosophy: Armstrong and Lewis. It is intended to be a historical and scholarly record of their correspondence for study by analytic philosophers and historians of analytic philosophy.]
2024. The Routledge Handbook of Properties. London: Routledge. (with Anna-Sofia Maurin)
[This volume is part of the Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy series. This volume covers meta-ontological issues about properties, key distinctions, theories on the nature of properties (realism, nominalism, trope theory), and properties in such contexts as causation, time, modality, natural and formal sciences, language and mind, as well as the normative realm, the social world, and aesthetics.]
2022. Perspectives on the Philosophy of David K. Lewis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (with Helen Beebee)
[This volume is a collection of essays on David Lewis’s philosophy. It is the end product of research connected to the Lewis project The Age of Metaphysical Revolution. The essays draw from Lewis’s recently published correspondence. Contributors include: Frank Jackson, John Bigelow, Wolfgang Schwarz, Sara Bernstein, Daniel Nolan, David Chalmers, Angelika Kratzer, Fraser MacBride, Frederique Janssen-Lauret, John Heil, Alastair Wilson.]
[Samuel Alexander was an important figure in the rise of realism in the early twentieth century. Alongside Moore and Russell he forwarded the cause of realism in England with a systematic exposition of a realist metaphysics in his magnum opus Space, Time and Deity (1920). This volume is a collection of essays on Alexander’s philosophy, ranging from his metaphysics of spacetime, theory of categories, epistemology and account of perception, naturalism, and interpretations of reactions by R.G. Collingwood and John Anderson.]
2020. Philosophical Letters of David K. Lewis: Volume 1: Causation, Modality, Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (with Helen Beebee)
[David Lewis was one of the most influential analytic philosophers of the twentieth century. Almost 20 years after his untimely death his work remains part of many on-going debates. During his life time he maintained a vast and well-organised correspondence. This is volume 1 of his letters, which cover a wide range of topics in metaphysics from causation to ontology.]
2020. Philosophical Letters of David K. Lewis: Volume 2: Mind, Language, Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (with Helen Beebee)
[This is volume 2 of Lewis’s letters. This volume contains letters on philosophy of mind (mind-body problem, propositional attitudes, consciousness and qualia, etc), philosophy of language (theoretical terms, referential semantics, game theory, categorial grammar, vagueness, etc), and epistemology (confirmation theory, induction, decision theory, probability, analysis of knowledge, scepticism, etc).]
[Donald C. Williams was a Harvard philosopher who defended metaphysics when the anti-metaphysical trends of positivism and linguisticism were in fashion. He constructed a one-category ontology of tropes and a four-dimensionalist metaphysics of time and persistence. His work has played a role in the revival of metaphysics in the analytic tradition. This volume bundles together his most important works in metaphysics with previously unpublished papers that help to fill out his views.]
Journal Articles
2023. Musical Works as Structural Universals. Erkenntnis 88(3): 1245-67.
2020. Abstracta and Abstraction in Trope Theory. Philosophical Papers 49(1): 41-67.
2018. Structural Universals. Philosophy Compass 13(10): e12518.
2018. On Lewis Against Magic: A Study of Method in Metaphysics. Synthese 195(5): 2335-53.
2018. Instantiation in Trope Theory. American Philosophical Quarterly 55(2): 153-64.
2016. Truthmaking and Fundamentality. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97(4): 448-73.
2015. Samuel Alexander’s Theory of Categories. The Monist 98(3): 246-67.
2015. Priority Monism, Partiality, and Minimal Truthmakers. Philosophical Studies 172(2): 477-91.
2014. Examination of Merricks’ Primitivism about Truth. Metaphysica 15(2): 281-98.
2013. Bennett on Parts Twice Over. Philosophia 41(3): 757-61.