Published Papers
My PhilPapers Page - Contains links to official versions of all of my papers; please use official versions for citations, page references, etc. Some draft versions are linked below.
Emancipatory Methodology - (with the wonderful Dee Payton), Ethics (forthcoming) - In which we try to unpack (and criticize) various interpretations of what it might mean consider the political implications of a philosophical theory as part of the success conditions for that theory.
Trust, Distrust, and 'Medical Gaslighting', Philosophical Quarterly - This paper is a discussion of the potential over-application of the concept of gaslighting, focused on the particular complex case of so-called ‘medical gaslighting’. I argue that Katherine Hawley's framework of trust and distrust can provide a useful alternative lens for the issue. Even though patients can experience harm when they are disbelieved, there are nevertheless good reasons for physicians not to trust patients about at least some of their own narratives. From the special issue in honor of Katherine Hawley.
Gender Without Gender Identity: The Case of Cognitive Disability, Mind - I argue that the case of cognitive disability gives us reason to think that gender identity is not necessary for what I call 'gender classification'
Gender and Gender Terms, Nous - I argue that giving a theory of what gender is can (and probably should) come apart from giving definitions of or application conditions for our ordinary language gender terms like 'woman'. The best theory of gender might not tell us exactly who the women are - and that might be a good thing.
Against Impairment: Replies to Aas, Howard, and Francis, Philosophical Studies - Replies to commentary on my book The Minority Body from Leslie Pickering Francis, Dana Howard, and Sean Aas.
Symmetric Dependence - Reality and Its Structures, Ricki Bliss and Graham Priest, eds (forthcoming) - The orthodoxy in metaphysics is that ontological dependence is asymmetric. I argue that ontological dependence should instead be understood as nonsymmetric. If we give up the asymmetry of dependence, interesting things follow for what we can say about metaphysical explanation - particularly for the prospects of explanatory holism.
Realism and Social Structure, Philosophical Studies - Originally given at the Pacific APA symposium on Feminist Metaphysics, this paper explores Sally Haslanger's view of social structures, arguing that Haslanger is best understood as both a metaphysical realist and social constructionist about social kinds and that nothing about her commitment to social constructionism requires her to be an anti-realist. I then argue that Haslanger's metaphysics creates problems for some popular contemporary accounts of metaphysical realism, including Ted Sider's and Jonathan Schaffer's.
Reply to Kahane and Savulescu, Res Philosophica (forthcoming) - Guy Kahane and Julian Savulescu wrote a reply to my 'Valuing Disability, Causing Disability'. They argue that I was wrong to diagnose specific objections to the mere-difference view of disability as question begging. That's a strange reply, given that I don't say anything about question begging anywhere in my paper. I discuss that, and other very striking misunderstandings, in this reply to their reply.
What You Can Expect When You Don't Want to be Expecting, Philosophical and Phenomenological Research (2015) - My commentary for the Philosophy and Phenomenological Research symposium on LA Paul's Transformative Experience.
Social Identities and Transformative Experience, Res Philosophica (2015) - In which explore some of the normative implications of transformative experience. In particular, I argue that whether, and to what extent, an experience is transformative can sometimes be a matter of social justice. To be published in the special issue of Res Philosophica on transformative experience.
Going Beyond the Fundamental: Feminism in Contemporary Metaphysics, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (2014) - This paper argues that many contemporary attempts to define or categorize metaphysics have the (unjustified, unwarranted) result that feminist metaphysics isn’t ‘really metaphysics’
Valuing Disability, Causing Disability, Ethics (2014) - This paper explores a specific objection to what I call ‘mere-difference’ views of disability: that if the mere-difference view is correct, it’s permissible to cause disability. I argue that this objection doesn’t successfully undermine mere-difference views of disability. You can read my response to Guy Kahane and Julian Savulescu's reply here.
Fundamental Indeterminacy, Analytic Philosophy (2014) - Argues that (i) the case for metaphysical indeterminacy depends on the case for fundamental indeterminacy; (ii) there are good reasons to adopt fundamental indeterminacy.
Metaphysically Indeterminate Existence, Philosophical Studies (2013) - A paper defending metaphysically indeterminate existence from Sider’s argument - or at least a Sider-esque argument - that (at least on a precisificational characterization of indeterminacy) it’s untenable. I think the defender of metaphysical indeterminacy has a unique way of responding to worries about indeterminate existence - one that isn’t available to other versions of indeterminacy, and which sheds interesting light on how a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy should think about precisification.
Emergence and Fundamentality, Mind (2012) - This paper argues that ontological emergence can be made much less mysterious when it is explained within the context of a specific ontological framework. I try to show that many of the traditional problems associated with emergence are not problems for emergence per se, but rather problems with trying to explain emergence in the absence of such a framework.
Back to the Open Future (with Ross Cameron), Philosophical Perspectives: Metaphysics (2011) - This paper defends the thesis that the open future is a type of metaphysical indeterminacy. We first argue that the view has substantial advantages over its rivals and then offer replies to various kinds of objections to the idea that openness is just a species of indeterminacy. Ross chose the title.
A Theory of Metaphysical Indeterminacy (with Robbie Williams), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 6 (2011) - What it says in the title. Robbie and I motivate an interpretation of metaphysical indeterminacy as fundamental or primitive and then show how this construal of metaphysical indeterminacy can be elaborated by appeal to modal concepts. From there we develop a model theory (and logic) for indeterminacy understood as such.
Reply to Eklund (with Robbie Williams), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 6 (2011) - Reply to Matti Eklund’s OSM paper which discusses our account of indeterminacy.
Arguments Against Metaphysical Indeterminacy, Philosophy Compass (2010) - In which I discuss some arguments. Against metaphysical indeterminacy. I couldn’t think of a better title.
Ontic Vagueness: A Guide for the Perplexed, Noûs (2010) - Charlie Martin says that if you can't whistle it, you don't get it. Here's where I try to do some whistling. I attempt to give a theory-neutral working definition of ontic vagueness we can all agree to disagree about, and then within that definitional framework develop a (much less theory-neutral) fully classical theory of it.
Disability and Adaptive Preference, Philosophical Perspectives: Ethics (2009) - In which I argue, contra the capabilities approach to welfare, that you can't explain away the testimony of disabled people who claim to like being disabled as mere adaptive preference. The reasons why you can't do this highlight some basic problems about trying to explain away first-person testimony about wellbeing.
Vague Parts and Vague Identity (with Robbie Williams) Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (2009) - Robbie and I deconstruct Weatherson's (2003) argument against vague objects, and use it as an illustration of the general moral that the dual assumptions of classical logic and the Evans-Salmon reductio of vague identities (both of which we accept for the purposes here) do not have the dialectical force against metaphysical vagueness which they are often taken to have.
The Open Future: Bivalence, Determinism and Ontology (with Ross Cameron) Philosophical Studies (2009) - Ross and I detangle the thesis that the future is open from several claims that often get associated with it. Specifically, we argue that commitment to the open future does not conflict with the unrestricted application of bivalence, deterministic natural laws, or the existence of future ontology.
Disability, Minority, and Difference, The Journal of Applied Philosophy (2009) - In this paper I argue that having a disability is just another way of being a minority (i.e., disability isn't in any way 'sub-optimal'). I claim that you can maintain this while still holding on to the idea that disability is, at least in a restricted sense, a harm, and while avoiding the counter-intuitive ideas that are meant to follow from the 'neutral' status of disability (e.g., the permissibility of causing disability, etc).
Indeterminacy, Identity, and Counterparts, Synthese (2009) - This is my attempt to say something slightly original about the Evans argument against vague identity. I argue that the determinacy operators can very naturally be interpreted counterpart theoretically (it gets you some very nice results, regardless of whether or not you think it's whack in the modal case), and then show that on that interpretation the Evans argument is straightforwardly invalid. (Online preprint is available here.)
Vagueness and Arbitrariness: Merricks on Composition, Mind (2007) - Here I outline a charge of question-begging against the central argument in Trenton Merricks' paper 'Vagueness and Composition'. (The official version is available here.)
Vagueness in sparseness: a study in property ontology, Analysis (2005) - This paper argues that you can get potential examples of ontic vagueness from a sparse ontology in much the same way that you can from a more plentiful one. (The official version is available here.
Emancipatory Methodology - (with the wonderful Dee Payton), Ethics (forthcoming) - In which we try to unpack (and criticize) various interpretations of what it might mean consider the political implications of a philosophical theory as part of the success conditions for that theory.
Trust, Distrust, and 'Medical Gaslighting', Philosophical Quarterly - This paper is a discussion of the potential over-application of the concept of gaslighting, focused on the particular complex case of so-called ‘medical gaslighting’. I argue that Katherine Hawley's framework of trust and distrust can provide a useful alternative lens for the issue. Even though patients can experience harm when they are disbelieved, there are nevertheless good reasons for physicians not to trust patients about at least some of their own narratives. From the special issue in honor of Katherine Hawley.
Gender Without Gender Identity: The Case of Cognitive Disability, Mind - I argue that the case of cognitive disability gives us reason to think that gender identity is not necessary for what I call 'gender classification'
Gender and Gender Terms, Nous - I argue that giving a theory of what gender is can (and probably should) come apart from giving definitions of or application conditions for our ordinary language gender terms like 'woman'. The best theory of gender might not tell us exactly who the women are - and that might be a good thing.
Against Impairment: Replies to Aas, Howard, and Francis, Philosophical Studies - Replies to commentary on my book The Minority Body from Leslie Pickering Francis, Dana Howard, and Sean Aas.
Symmetric Dependence - Reality and Its Structures, Ricki Bliss and Graham Priest, eds (forthcoming) - The orthodoxy in metaphysics is that ontological dependence is asymmetric. I argue that ontological dependence should instead be understood as nonsymmetric. If we give up the asymmetry of dependence, interesting things follow for what we can say about metaphysical explanation - particularly for the prospects of explanatory holism.
Realism and Social Structure, Philosophical Studies - Originally given at the Pacific APA symposium on Feminist Metaphysics, this paper explores Sally Haslanger's view of social structures, arguing that Haslanger is best understood as both a metaphysical realist and social constructionist about social kinds and that nothing about her commitment to social constructionism requires her to be an anti-realist. I then argue that Haslanger's metaphysics creates problems for some popular contemporary accounts of metaphysical realism, including Ted Sider's and Jonathan Schaffer's.
Reply to Kahane and Savulescu, Res Philosophica (forthcoming) - Guy Kahane and Julian Savulescu wrote a reply to my 'Valuing Disability, Causing Disability'. They argue that I was wrong to diagnose specific objections to the mere-difference view of disability as question begging. That's a strange reply, given that I don't say anything about question begging anywhere in my paper. I discuss that, and other very striking misunderstandings, in this reply to their reply.
What You Can Expect When You Don't Want to be Expecting, Philosophical and Phenomenological Research (2015) - My commentary for the Philosophy and Phenomenological Research symposium on LA Paul's Transformative Experience.
Social Identities and Transformative Experience, Res Philosophica (2015) - In which explore some of the normative implications of transformative experience. In particular, I argue that whether, and to what extent, an experience is transformative can sometimes be a matter of social justice. To be published in the special issue of Res Philosophica on transformative experience.
Going Beyond the Fundamental: Feminism in Contemporary Metaphysics, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (2014) - This paper argues that many contemporary attempts to define or categorize metaphysics have the (unjustified, unwarranted) result that feminist metaphysics isn’t ‘really metaphysics’
Valuing Disability, Causing Disability, Ethics (2014) - This paper explores a specific objection to what I call ‘mere-difference’ views of disability: that if the mere-difference view is correct, it’s permissible to cause disability. I argue that this objection doesn’t successfully undermine mere-difference views of disability. You can read my response to Guy Kahane and Julian Savulescu's reply here.
Fundamental Indeterminacy, Analytic Philosophy (2014) - Argues that (i) the case for metaphysical indeterminacy depends on the case for fundamental indeterminacy; (ii) there are good reasons to adopt fundamental indeterminacy.
Metaphysically Indeterminate Existence, Philosophical Studies (2013) - A paper defending metaphysically indeterminate existence from Sider’s argument - or at least a Sider-esque argument - that (at least on a precisificational characterization of indeterminacy) it’s untenable. I think the defender of metaphysical indeterminacy has a unique way of responding to worries about indeterminate existence - one that isn’t available to other versions of indeterminacy, and which sheds interesting light on how a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy should think about precisification.
Emergence and Fundamentality, Mind (2012) - This paper argues that ontological emergence can be made much less mysterious when it is explained within the context of a specific ontological framework. I try to show that many of the traditional problems associated with emergence are not problems for emergence per se, but rather problems with trying to explain emergence in the absence of such a framework.
Back to the Open Future (with Ross Cameron), Philosophical Perspectives: Metaphysics (2011) - This paper defends the thesis that the open future is a type of metaphysical indeterminacy. We first argue that the view has substantial advantages over its rivals and then offer replies to various kinds of objections to the idea that openness is just a species of indeterminacy. Ross chose the title.
A Theory of Metaphysical Indeterminacy (with Robbie Williams), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 6 (2011) - What it says in the title. Robbie and I motivate an interpretation of metaphysical indeterminacy as fundamental or primitive and then show how this construal of metaphysical indeterminacy can be elaborated by appeal to modal concepts. From there we develop a model theory (and logic) for indeterminacy understood as such.
Reply to Eklund (with Robbie Williams), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 6 (2011) - Reply to Matti Eklund’s OSM paper which discusses our account of indeterminacy.
Arguments Against Metaphysical Indeterminacy, Philosophy Compass (2010) - In which I discuss some arguments. Against metaphysical indeterminacy. I couldn’t think of a better title.
Ontic Vagueness: A Guide for the Perplexed, Noûs (2010) - Charlie Martin says that if you can't whistle it, you don't get it. Here's where I try to do some whistling. I attempt to give a theory-neutral working definition of ontic vagueness we can all agree to disagree about, and then within that definitional framework develop a (much less theory-neutral) fully classical theory of it.
Disability and Adaptive Preference, Philosophical Perspectives: Ethics (2009) - In which I argue, contra the capabilities approach to welfare, that you can't explain away the testimony of disabled people who claim to like being disabled as mere adaptive preference. The reasons why you can't do this highlight some basic problems about trying to explain away first-person testimony about wellbeing.
Vague Parts and Vague Identity (with Robbie Williams) Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (2009) - Robbie and I deconstruct Weatherson's (2003) argument against vague objects, and use it as an illustration of the general moral that the dual assumptions of classical logic and the Evans-Salmon reductio of vague identities (both of which we accept for the purposes here) do not have the dialectical force against metaphysical vagueness which they are often taken to have.
The Open Future: Bivalence, Determinism and Ontology (with Ross Cameron) Philosophical Studies (2009) - Ross and I detangle the thesis that the future is open from several claims that often get associated with it. Specifically, we argue that commitment to the open future does not conflict with the unrestricted application of bivalence, deterministic natural laws, or the existence of future ontology.
Disability, Minority, and Difference, The Journal of Applied Philosophy (2009) - In this paper I argue that having a disability is just another way of being a minority (i.e., disability isn't in any way 'sub-optimal'). I claim that you can maintain this while still holding on to the idea that disability is, at least in a restricted sense, a harm, and while avoiding the counter-intuitive ideas that are meant to follow from the 'neutral' status of disability (e.g., the permissibility of causing disability, etc).
Indeterminacy, Identity, and Counterparts, Synthese (2009) - This is my attempt to say something slightly original about the Evans argument against vague identity. I argue that the determinacy operators can very naturally be interpreted counterpart theoretically (it gets you some very nice results, regardless of whether or not you think it's whack in the modal case), and then show that on that interpretation the Evans argument is straightforwardly invalid. (Online preprint is available here.)
Vagueness and Arbitrariness: Merricks on Composition, Mind (2007) - Here I outline a charge of question-begging against the central argument in Trenton Merricks' paper 'Vagueness and Composition'. (The official version is available here.)
Vagueness in sparseness: a study in property ontology, Analysis (2005) - This paper argues that you can get potential examples of ontic vagueness from a sparse ontology in much the same way that you can from a more plentiful one. (The official version is available here.