Forthcoming in Analysis.

Abstract: Formal mereologies are axiomatised in a variety of different ways, with a variety of different primitives. This paper distinguishes three such ways, whose primitives are part, overlap, and proper part respectively. Not every formal mereology can be axiomatised in each of these ways. This paper considers what formal features a mereology much have in order to be successfully axiomatisable in each way.

I wrote this paper in 2005. It is now finding a home after a long time in the wilderness.

A reply to James MacLaurin and Heather Dyke’s paper “What is analytic metaphysics for?” (co-authored with Mike McLeod).

This is the main statement of my current (2010-2013) project on imperative logic. See also Cognitivism about imperatives; Conditional commands; Preposcription semantics and KDDc4; The transformational approach to imperative consequence; and Permissives and epistemic modals,

Abstract: I offer a simple-minded analysis of presupposition in which if a sentence has a presupposition, then both that sentence and its negation logically entail the presupposition; and in which sentence with failed presuppositions are neither true nor false. This account naturally generates an analysis of what it takes to disagree and what it takes to be at fault in a disagreement. A simple generalisation gives rise to the possibility of disagreements in which no party is at fault, as is be required by leading theories on predicates of taste.

Parsons, Josh. 2012. “Cognitivism About Imperatives.” Analysis 72 (1): 49–54. doi:10.1093/analys/anr132.

Parsons, Josh. 2012. “Against Advanced Modalizing.” In Rationis Defensor, edited by James Maclaurin, 139–53. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 28. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

Abstract: In this paper, I consider whether tenses, temporal indexicals, and other indexicals are contextually dependent on the context of assessment a-contextual rather than, as is usually thought, contextually dependent on the context of utterance u-contextual.

Parsons, Josh. 2008. “Are There Irreducibly Relational Facts?” In Truth and Truth-Making, edited by E.J. Lowe and A. Rami, 217–26. Stocksfield: Acumen Publishing.

Parsons, Josh. 2007. “Theories of Location.” Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 3: 201–32. http://otago.academia.edu/JoshParsons/Papers/1015465/Theories_of_Location.

Parsons, Josh. 2007. “Is Everything a World.” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 134 (2): 165–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40208713.

Parsons, Josh. 2006. “Negative Truths from Positive Facts?” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (4): 591–602. doi:10.1080/00048400601079144.

Parsons, Josh. 2006. “Topological Drinking Problems.” Analysis 66 (290): 149–54. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8284.2006.00603.x.

Parsons, Josh. 2005. “I Am Not Now, nor Have I Ever Been, a Turnip.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (1): 1–14. doi:10.1080/00048400500043894.

Parsons, Josh. 2004. “The Eleatic Hangover Cure.” Analysis 64 (284): 364–66. doi:10.1111/j.0003-2638.2004.00512.x.

Parsons, Josh. 2004. “Distributional Properties.” In Lewisian Themes: The Philosophy of David K. Lewis, edited by Frank Jackson and Graham Priest, 173–80. Oxford University Press.

Parsons, Josh. 2004. “Dion, Theon, and Daup.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85 (1): 85–91. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00188.x.

Parsons, Josh. 2003. “Why the Handicapped Child Case Is Hard.” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 112 (2): 147–62. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4321334.

Parsons, Josh. 2003. “A–theory for Tense Logicians.” Analysis 63 (277): 4–6. doi:10.1111/j.0003-2638.2003.00386.x.

Parsons, Josh. 2002. “Axiological Actualism.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (2): 137–47. doi:10.1093/ajp/80.2.137.

Parsons, Josh. 2002. “A-Theory for B-Theorists.” The Philosophical Quarterly 52 (206): 1–20. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3543006.

Marshall, Dan, and Josh Parsons. 2001. “Langton and Lewis on ‘Intrinsic’.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (2): 347–51. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2001.tb00107.x.

Parsons, Josh. 2000. “Must a Four-Dimensionalist Believe in Temporal Parts?” The Monist 83 (3): 399–418.

Parsons, Josh. 1999. “There Is No ‘Truthmaker’ Argument Against Nominalism.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (3): 325–34. doi:10.1080/00048409912349081.