Books
Monographs
Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency
Blackwell, 2008
Table of Contents and Preface
Chapter 2
The volume begins with two foundational chapters, defending a position on the metaphysics of ‘absolute’ possibility and necessity and developing an original perspective on its epistemology in Chapter 2. (The second chapter has been insufficiently attended to by philosophers interested in the epistemology of modality who are uninterested in the broader theme of the book, so I link to it here.) I then refurbish and defend a version of the cosmological argument from contingency in Ch.3-4. Ch.5 argues that we should expect the God of classical theism to create an infinity of distinct universes. Finally, Ch.6 explores the compatibility of classical metaphysical conceptions of God with that found in monotheistic religion.
Persons & Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will
Oxford U. Press, 2000
Chinese translation by The Commercial Press, Beijing, 2015
Table of Contents and Introduction
I develop an agent-causal account of the metaphysics of free will. I begin by refining the ‘Consequence Argument’ for incompatibilism and offering a unique critical perspective on Frankfurt’s celebrated attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities. I critique major extent noncausal and event-causal theories of free will before attempting to rehabilitate the agent-causal theory over three chapters, the first of which explores the accounts of Thomas Reid, Richard Taylor, and Roderick Chisholm. The book concludes with a chapter-length manifesto for a strong emergentist perspective on mind and action against the prevailing materialist and more or less reductionist trend in philosophy.
Edited Volumes
Religious Faith and Intellectual Virtue
Oxford U. Press, 2014
Table of Contents and Introduction
A diverse group of religious and non-religious epistemologists connect recent discussions of the epistemology of trust, testimony, disagreement, and intellectual virtue to the question of the rationality of theistic religious faith. Collectively, the volume provides a pretty thorough of exploration of these themes with good representation of major opposed perspectives.
Top-down Causation: An Integrating Theme Within and Across the Sciences?
The Royal Society, 2012
Scientists and philosophers engaged in fields spanning basic physics up through sociology provide state-of-the-art reviews of the place of both bottom-up and top-down causal perspectives in their disciplines. Collectively, they make a case against a broadly reductionist interpretation of contemporary science.
Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will
Springer, 2010
Table of Contents
This volume is the culmination of an intensive interdisciplinary workshop held at Yosemite National Park in 2007. It brought together neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers of action to debate the relative place of reductionist and emergentist perspectives in understanding human consciousness and volition. The conference and resulting volume have proven seminal, giving rise to a series of later events and volumes.
Emergence in Science and Philosophy
Routledge, 2010
Table of Contents and Introduction
A collection of new essays, mainly by European philosophers, on the theme of reductionism vs emergence. The volume divides into three sections: General Perspectives; Self, Agency, and Free Will; and Physics, Mathematics, and Special Sciences.
A Companion to the Philosophy of Action
Blackwell, 2010
Table of Contents
An expert, comprehensive guide to the field, unrivaled for its range. It includes 75 essays by leading philosophers and scientists discussing the nature of individual and collective action. It covers such recent, specialized topics as animal behavior, the evolutionary roots of agency, and legal and moral issues alongside foundational and perennial topics. A third of the volume is devoted to essays on major historical figures in the philosophy of action through the 20th century.
Philosophy of Mind: Contemporary Readings
Routledge, 2003
Introduction
A volume that gathers some of the most significant late 20th century essays that explore foundational metaphysical and epistemological issues concerning the nature of mind. While the majority of the essays are devoted to developing the dominant materialist program, several essays defend forms of dualism and idealism. The volume is intended to be suitable for use in advanced undergraduate courses, and our selections were made with that aim in mind.
Agents, Causes, & Events: Essays on Indeterminism and Free Will
Oxford U. Press, 1995
This volume was the first to gather then-recent essays that defended or criticized indeterministic theories of the will. (It also includes Roderick Chisholm’s final essay on the topic of human action, written especially for the volume.) It is fair to say that this volume, paired with Robert Kane’s The Significance of Free Will published in the following year, triggered a spate of subsequent writing that has led to free will being one of the most actively discussed topics in comtemporary philosophy.