Philosophy Essays

As a philosophy minor, I've taken a bunch of classes where the best part was arguing about stuff with no right answer. This page has some of that - either coursework or essays I write for fun.

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If something has a property, does it exist? I argue not always - fictional and modal discourse let us ascribe properties without the subject existing in the actual world.

Velocity is usually treated as a property at an instant. I argue it is really a relation over time - and the limit definition does not change that metaphysically.

Presentism needs an objective present. I argue special relativity's relativity of simultaneity makes that hard to defend.

Can you act freely without being able to do otherwise? I argue Frankfurt cases show you can—what matters is the source of the action.

Newton's spinning bucket is supposed to show that absolute space is real. I argue, with Dasgupta (2015), that relationalism can explain the water's curvature without it.

Does the Everett interpretation solve the measurement problem? I argue it keeps the formalism clean but leaves definiteness of experience, probability, and evidence unclear.

Brown and Wallace claim Bohmian mechanics already contains Everettian worlds. I argue the particle configuration still does essential explanatory work.

Should the quantum state be read as a field in 3N-dimensional configuration space? I argue the view is coherent but fails to non-circularly recover three-dimensional space.

When Beauty wakes up, should her credence in Heads be 1/2 or 1/3? I argue the Thirder view better fits her self-locating evidence.

Can infinitely many harmless steps produce an impossible outcome? I argue omega sequence paradoxes show completion breaks down when no single condition does the preventing.

Why is it so hard to leave roles that limit you? I argue with Simon de Beauvoir that oppression can actually make unfreedom feel like safety, love, and belonging.

"I didn't mean it" only gets you so far. On Anscombe, intention is about how you understand what you're doing - and negligence is when that understanding was way too narrow.