Summary of Research

My past research assigns special distinction to science as a source of evidence and stresses its importance to philosophy, particularly to a branch of philosophy called 'metaphysics'.

Metaphysics concerns the underlying nature of reality. In my work, I criticize a style of metaphysics that I call free range metaphysics, which is metaphysics conducted virtually independently of science. Such metaphysics is a speculative exercise, based largely on individual intuitions.

​I argue that theories should, as a rule, be well constrained, and the theories of free range metaphysics are not adequately well constrained. A better approach uses the data, theories, theoretical interpretations, and practices of science to constrain metaphysical speculation.

This research recognizes that science is an indispensable source of evidence and that the institutions, practices, and products of science are essential for understanding the world and interacting with it effectively. To the extent that philosophy aims to describe objective features of the world, it must do so in concert with science. 

Publications

"Grounding Interventionism: Conceptual and epistemological challenges" (2022). Metaphilosophy. 53: 2-3. 322-343. Download.

"The Supposed Spectre of Scientism" (2022). For and Against Scientism: Science, Methodology, and the Future of Philosophy. Ed. Moti Mizrahi. Rowman and Littlefield. 47-74. Download.

"A Thousand Flowers on the Road to Epistemic Anarchy: Comments on Chakravartty’s Scientific Ontology" (2021). Dialogue. 60:1. 1-13. Download.

"Epistemic Infrastructure for a Scientific Metaphysics"(2021). Grazer Philosophische Studien. 98. 27-49.  Download. 

​"Keep the Chickens Cooped: The Epistemic Inadequacy of Free Range Metaphysics"  (2020). Synthese. 197. 1867-1887. Download.

"Naturalisms" (2020). Think. 19:56. 35-50. Download.

"Physicalism" (2020). ​Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding. Ed. Michael Raven. New York: Routledge. 484-500. Download.

"Some Devils in the Details: Methodological Concerns Regarding Mizrahi's 'The Scientism Debate'" (2020). Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 9(11): 28-37. Link.

"Each Kuhn Mutually Incommensurable" (2018). Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 6: 1-7. Link.

"Naturalizing Grounding: How Theories of Ground Can Engage Science" (2018). Philosophy Compass​. 13:e12489. Download.

​​​“Resolving Quine’s Conflict: A Neo-Quinean View of the Rational Revisability of Logic” (2017). Australasian Journal of Logic. 14:1. 30-45.​ Download.

"What's Metaphysics All About?" (2017). The Institute of Art and Ideas. ​Download.