Research
My work to date has mostly focused on some questions at the intersection of metaphysics, philosophy of logic, philosophy of math, and epistemology, while being informed (at least sometimes) by the philosophy of science. I'm most interested in questions about the metametaphysics, metaphysics, and epistemology of stuff that it's hard to know anything about (or explain why we know anything about): abstract objects, math, logic, fundamental reality, etc. I try not to get too methodological but sometimes it happens. It keeps turning out that I need to think about perception.
I'm also interested in social/political philosophy, feminist philosophy, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of psychiatry, aesthetics, philosophy of sport, philosophy of physics, and social epistemology. I'm currently working on a project at the intersection of the philosophy of mental illness and social/political/feminist philosophy, and am in the beginning stages of two projects at the intersection of (a) feminist philosophy and logic and (b) logic and ameliorative metaphysics.
Below is my published work. Below that is some of my work in progress and descriptions of current projects.
Published & Forthcoming Work:
In 'Following Logical Realism Where it Leads' (in Philosophical Studies, phil papers link here), I consider the view that there is logical structure in the world. I call this view 'logical realism'. I argue that, if logical realism is true, then we are deeply ignorant of that logical structure: either we can't know which of our logical concepts accurately capture it, or none of our logical concepts accurately capture it at all.
In 'Logical Realism and the Metaphysics of Logic' (in Philosophy Compass, phil papers link here), I briefly survey some discussions of logical realism, and also sketch an argument that metaphysical realism entails logical realism.
In 'An Epistemic Account of Metaphysical Equivalence' (in Philosophical Perspectives, phil papers link here), I argue for the unified perspective thesis, which says that we can only be justified in believing that two theories, T and T', are metaphysically equivalent if there is some way that we can see the two theories as unified into a single theory, T+, which says nothing over and above either T or T'. I show that metametaphysicians of most stripes (including neocarnapians) should accept this thesis. I then explore one potential way of cashing it out, by appealing to a revised version of common definitional extension. I show that this way of cashing out the unified perspective thesis rules out quantifier variance, and finally briefly discuss the position the quantifier variantist is in with respect to finding a way to respect the thesis more generally.
In 'Theories as Recipes: Third-Order Virtue and Vice' (forthcoming in Philosophical Studies), I develop an account of what it is for a metaphysical theory to be "third-order" virtuous--that is, what properties theories should have in order for them to be apt for assessment for the more standard theoretical virtues and vices, e.g. parsimony, unification, explanatory value, etc.
In 'Debunking Logical Ground: Distinguishing Metaphysics from Semantics' (forthcoming in the Journal of the APA), I argue that purported cases of logical grounding are easily explained away by two quite innocent semantic determination relations; and I also show that even given an expansive notion of ground, these two semantic determination relations cannot be species of ground.
In 'Grounding Logically Complex Facts' (forthcoming in the Routledge Handbook of Grounding), I survey some issues with the grounding logically complex facts, and develop some preexisting metaphysical views into objections to the standard assumptions about logical ground.
Current Projects:
Feminist Philosophy/Social Epistemology/Political Philosophy/Mental Illness: I'm writing a paper about the way in which norms about well-being and rationality conflict when it comes to our emotional states, and what to do about that conflict (down for revisions, but email me if you want to see a draft). I'm also in the earlier stages of writing two papers about feminism and the philosophy of logic; more on those as they progress.
Abstract Objects: I'm currently working on a series of papers and a book manuscript about the metaphysics and epistemology of abstract objects. One of those papers is a paper about musical works and geometry, in which I give a novel argument for a specific kind of structuralism about certain abstract objects. More drafts coming soon.
Logic: I'm also working on a few more logic/metaphysics of logic papers, including a paper about "anti-exceptionalism" about logic and its relationship to metaphysics (draft coming very soon) and a paper about scientific theories (draft coming soon-ish).
Metaontology: Here is a paper draft that tries to resist naturalizing metaphysics by suggesting that metaphysics is essentially imaginative and much more like art than like science; I also discuss what we need arguments for on such a view, and whether we can respond to perennial challenges to metaphysics.