Jonah PB Goldwater
PUBLICATIONS
"Uploads, Faxes, and You: Why Personal Identity is Non-Transferable"
(Forthcoming). American Philosophical Quarterly.
You can be faxed only if you're an abstract object, so you can be uploaded only if you're an abstract object. So Chalmers' argument for 'gradual uploading' fails.
"Freedom and Actual Interference"
(Forthcoming). The Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy.
Liberal or noninterference conceptions of freedom do indeed have the resources to explain what proponents of republican or non-dominination conceptions of freedom claim they cannot.
"Six Arguments Against 'Ought Implies Can'"
(Forthcoming). Southwest Philosophy Review 36 (1), 2020.
I present six arguments against 'OIC' that only invoke general principles; no cases.
(Forthcoming). Philosophia.
How many things exist can be genuinely, metaphysically, indeterminate- contra the orthodox view. Upshot: the 'are there n or n+1 things?' approach to metaphysics is likely misguided.
“The Lump and the Ledger: Material Coincidence At Little-to-No-Cost”
(Forthcoming). Erkenntnis.
I defend a number of methodological theses regarding cost-benefit tradeoffs in metaphysical theory choice. I also explain why it’s fine if the statue and the clay coincide.
"The Physical as the Nomalous"
(2019). The Journal of Consciousness Studies, 26 (5–6): 65–88.
I defend a new conception of physicalism as true iff all events are law-governed. Free will—not consciousness—is likely the crux.
"Ryle, the Double Counting Problem, and the Logical Form of Category Mistakes"
(2018). Journal of the History of Philosophy, 56 (2): 337–359.
Category mistakes are not only mistakes of predication. They are also mistakes of conjunction and quantification. Big restrictions on ontology follow.
"Physicalism and the Sortalist Conception of Objects"
(2018). Synthese, 195 (12): 5497–5519.
Physicalism is incompatible with the (neo)Aristotelian metaphysics of objects- in particular its kind-based essentialism. The physicalist picture is likely Heraclitean instead.
"Authority and Natural Kind Essence"
(2018). Axiomathes, 28 (1): 1–12.
Water may be H2O, but the essence of water being H2O is conventional or trivial- and likely dictated by authority.
"Existence and Strong Uncountability"
(2017). Acta Analytica, 32 (3): 321–331.
Existence is standardly understood in terms of number: for something to exist is for one thing to exist. I argue this is a mistake. A revisionary reading of quantification follows.
"No Composition, No Problem: Ordinary Objects as Arrangements"
(2015). Philosophia, 43 (2): 367-379.
Tables and chairs exist- even if atoms arranged table- and chair-wise don't compose wholes. For tables and chairs are whatever you're sitting on- even if that's just an arrangements of atoms!
(2014). Metaphysica: International Journal for Ontology and Metaphysics, 15 (1): 99–112.
Taking quantifiers and connectives to carve at nature's joints undercuts the ontology/ideology distinction, and requires an exotic form of logical realism. Despite Sider's claims to the contrary.
PAPERS UNDER REVIEW
"Fatalism and the Artifice of Logic"*
Like physical laws, many logical laws are idealized. But then arguing for fatalism via a logical law can be like arguing friction doesn't exist via a law that idealizes away friction.
"How Nature Threatens Freedom Too"*
The standard view in political philosophy is that only persons can take away a person's freedom. I argue nature can too.
"Paraphrase, Categories, Ontology"*
Paraphrasing away ontological commitment is a misguided enterprise, as commitment is nothing to fear!
* Names changed for anonymous review
SOME WORKS IN PROGRESS
"Autonomy and Freedom"
Not so different after all.
"Liberty and regulations"
Laws and regulations protect freedom, rather than interfere with it. (Even Mill's classical liberalism justifies this.)
“Ordinary-Object Eliminativism is Empirically False”
One can tell a table exists just by looking.
“Metaphysical Theory Choice and Cost-Benefit Analyses"
CBAs don't work like metaphysicians think they do (a cost), and aren't good for selecting theories (also a cost).
"Metaontology and Category Mistakes"
The debate over the existence of composite objects rests on a category mistake.
"A Dilemma for Property-Quidditism"
Structuralism about properties avoids a dilemma faced by property-quidditism
“A Puzzle for Ontological Novelty"
It is surprisingly difficult to formulate the distinction between substantial and accidental change.