A reply to James MacLaurin and Heather Dyke’s paper “What is analytic metaphysics for?” (co-authored with Mike McLeod).
Abstract: We argue that Maclaurin and Dyke’s recent critique of non-naturalistic metaphysics suffers from difficulties analogous to those that caused trouble for earlier positivist critiques of metaphysics. Maclaurin and Dyke say that a theory is naturalistic iff it has observable consequences. Depending on the details of this criterion, either no theory counts as naturalistic or every theory does.
McLeod, Mike, and Josh Parsons. 2013. “Maclaurin and Dyke on Analytic Metaphysics.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (1): 173–78. doi:10.1080/00048402.2012.730534.
Until September 2016 I am a Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College and an Associate Professor in the Oxford Philosophy Faculty. From then on, I'll be a Senior Adviser at the New Zealand Ministry of Transport.
My intellectual interests are mainly in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and ethics, and of course transport policy.
Read published version
Read draft