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“The Old Problem Problem“, Inquiry. January 2026. DOI
Conceptual Engineering promises to deliver a new (or unduly neglected) way of doing philosophy whereby progress is to be made by assessing and improving our representational devices (words, concepts, meanings). This methodology faces a famous objection. Namely, Strawson’s Objection: “To do [Conceptual Engineering] is not to solve the typical philosophical problem, but to change the subject” (Strawson 1963). Despite being over sixty years old, this Objection has yet to receive a fully satisfactory treatment—or so it will be argued. In fact, there are really two worries at large here. There is Strawson’s original worry plus a strengthened, deeper, problem: even if you are not changing the subject in doing Conceptual Engineering, you are still not solving the original problem. This deeper objection is The Old Problem Problem. The primary goal here is to offer a response to this Problem which, in turn, delivers a new solution to Strawson’s Objection. This then yields a response to a related worry (The New Problem Problem): Conceptual Engineers are just answering questions that weren’t being asked. The aim here is not to defend Conceptual Engineering as such but to gain a better (more pluralist) picture of what this new approach to philosophy does, and does not, involve.
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“Is Truth Consistent?”, 2023, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. http://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.13018
A popular and enduring approach to the liar paradox takes the concept of truth to be inconsistent. Very roughly, truth is an inconsistent concept if the central principles of this concept (taken together) entail a contradiction, where one of these central principles is Tarski’s T-schema for truth: a sentence S is true if and only if p, (where S says that p). This article targets a version of Inconsistentism which: retains classical logic and bivalence; takes the truth-predicate “is true” to pick out a property (and determine a non-empty extension relative to a given world); and holds that liar sentences exhibit a certain kind of indeterminacy in truth-value. Call such a view Modest Inconsistentism since it is somewhat more conservative in its outlook than various other forms of Inconsistentism. Such a modest view has its attractions: we retain the thesis that the liar sentence is meaningful; we get to respect the claims that there are truths and that there is a property of truth; we get to keep classical logic and bivalence; and, prima facie, no strengthened liar paradox is in the offing. The main aim in this paper is to show that Modest Inconsistentism, despite its initial attractions, is in deep trouble—because it does, after all, give rise to a strengthened liar paradox.
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“Conceptual Engineering for Analytic Theology”, (with Ian Church and Jean Gové), 2023, Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2244007
Conceptual Engineering is the method (or methods) via which we can assess and improve our concepts. Can Conceptual Engineering be usefully employed within analytic theology? Given that analytic theology and analytic philosophy effectively share the same philosophical toolkit then if Conceptual Engineering works well in philosophy then it ought to work well in analytic theology too. This will be our working hypothesis. To make good on this hypothesis, we first address two challenges. The first challenge makes conceptual engineering look to be too inclusive; the second challenge makes it look to be too revolutionary (for analytic theology). To address these challenges, we propose a refined characterisation of Conceptual Engineering. We then turn to consider a number of case studies where analytic theology and conceptual engineering may fruitfully cooperate. These are: theological disagreements, inter-faith dialogue, meaning change, celibacy, AI, the name of God and conceptual genealogy.
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“Neutralism and Conceptual Engineering“, in A. Burgess, H. Cappelen, and D. Plunkett (eds) Conceptual Ethics and Conceptual Engineering, Oxford: OUP, 2020. Open Access Link.
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“Knowledge for Nothing”, in P. Graham and N. Pedersen (eds) Essays on Entitlement, Oxford: OUP, 2020. Link.
Let Entitlement Epistemology be the theory of knowledge which says that entitlement—a special kind of unearned warrant to accept or believe—can help us successfully address a range of sceptical arguments. Prominent versions of this theory urge that epistemology should not be concerned with knowledge (and similar externalist states) but rather with justification, warrant, and entitlement (at least insofar as these are conceived of as internalist states). Knowledge does not come first, half-way, or even last in epistemological theorising—rather, it ought to come nowhere. The goal in what follows is two-fold: Firstly, to assess whether this extreme internalist version of Entitlement Epistemology is at all sustainable. (We shall find that it is not.) Secondly, to articulate a version of Entitlement Epistemology which arguably does much better. On the view to be explored, knowledge does not drop out of the epistemological picture: if we allow that there can be warrant for nothing, then there can be knowledge for nothing too.
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“Conceptual Marxism and Truth”, symposium on Kevin Scharp’s book Replacing Truth, Inquiry, 2017. DOI
In Replacing Truth (2013), Scharp takes the concept of truth to be fundamentally incoherent. As such, Scharp reckons it to be unsuited for systematic philosophical theorising and in need of replacement – at least for regions of thought and talk which permit liar sentences and their ilk to be formulated. This replacement methodology is radical because it not only recommends that the concept of truth be replaced (in troublesome domains), but that the word ‘true’ be replaced too. Only Tarski has attempted anything like it before. I dub such a view Conceptual Marxism. In assessing this view, my goals are fourfold: to summarise the many components of Scharp’s theory of truth; to highlight what I take to be some of the excess baggage carried by the view; to assess whether, and to what extent, the extreme methodology on offer is at all called for; finally, to briefly propose a less radical replacement strategy for resolving the liar paradox.
“The Semantic Error Problem for Epistemic Contextualism” (with Dirk Kindermann), Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism, edited by Jonathan Jenkins-Ichikawa, 2017.
“Discrimination and Self-Knowledge”, in D. Smithies and D. Stoljar (eds) Introspection and Consciousness, Oxford: OUP, 2012.
“Truthmaker Gaps and the No-No Paradox”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 82:3, pp. 547-563, 2011.
“Truth-Relativism, Norm-Relativism, and Assertion”, in J. Brown and H. Cappelen (eds) Assertion: New Philosophical Essays, Oxford: OUP, 2011.
“Deflationism and Truth-Value Gaps”, in Cory Wright and N. Pedersen (eds) New Waves in the Philosophy of Truth, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
“Hold the Context Fixed, Vagueness Still Remains”, (with J. Åkerman) in R. Dietz and S. Moruzzi (eds) Cuts and Clouds: Vagueness, its Nature and its Logic, Oxford: OUP, 2010.
“Vagueness and Non-Indexical Contextualism”, (with J. Åkerman), in S. Sawyer (ed.) New Waves in the Philosophy of Language, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
“On what it is to be in a Quandary”, Synthese, 2009.
“Indeterminate Truth”, in Truth and Its Deformities, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. XXXII, pp. 213-241, edited by Peter French, 2008. (pdf)
“Contextualism about Vagueness and Higher-Order Vagueness”, Proc. Aristotelian Soc., Suppl Vol., 78, July 2005.
“Vagueness: A Minimal Theory”, Mind, Volume 112, Issue 446, pp. 235-281, March 2003.
“Free Assumptions and the Liar Paradox”, American Philosophical Quarterly, 38:2, pp. 115-135, April 2001.
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