Why does the universe exist rather than not exist? And why is it the way that it is and not otherwise? Some philosophers have contended that it is reasonable to ask such questions even if the universe is eternal, or held to be so. And some, Leibniz for instance, have claimed in addition that such questions can never be satisfactorily answered by looking to the universe itself, but only by acknowledging the reality of an extramundane and absolutely necessary being as the ultimate origin of […]

Identity politics has been critiqued in various ways. One central problem — the Reinforcement Problem — claims that identity politics reinforces groups rooted in oppression, thereby undermining its own liberatory aims. Here I consider two versions of the problem — one psychological and one metaphysical. I defang the first by drawing on work in social psychology. I then argue that careful consideration of the metaphysics of social groups and of the practice of identity politics provides […]

Global directional eliminativists deny that there is any global direction to time. This paper provides a way to understand everyday temporal assertions — assertions made outside the physics or metaphysics rooms, the truth of which appears to require that time has a global direction — on the assumption that global directional eliminativism is true.

Life’s meaning is a deeply important yet perplexing topic. It is often unclear what people are talking about when they talk about life having "meaning". This paper attempts to clarify things by articulating a schema for understanding claims about meaning. It defends a theory according to which X means Y iff Y is a correct interpretation of X—i.e., if Y is a correct answer to an interpretive question, Z. I argue that this (perhaps surprising) claim has impressive explanatory power. […]

In his unpublished freewill manuscripts, Ralph Cudworth seeks to complete the project that he begins in The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678) by arguing for an account of human liberty that avoids the opposing poles of necessitarianism and indifferency. I argue that Cudworth’s account rests upon a crucial distinction between the will and the power of freewill. Whereas we necessarily will the greater apparent good, freewill is a more fundamental power by which we endeavour to […]