southampton

About

I'm an Associate Professor in philosophy at the University of Southampton working on issues in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and aesthetics. I'm also Editor of Analysis (with David Liggins and Stacie Friend); Treasurer of the British Society of Aesthetics; and a member of the executive committee of the Aristotelian Society.

I was lucky enough to have been a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow (2016/17), and a junior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, CEU, Budapest (2015). Before joining Southampton in 2013, I taught for two years at Somerville College, Oxford. Previously, I took an MA, MPhil, and PhD in Philosophy at University College London.

Research

Research groups

Member of:

Southampton Ethics Centre

Research interests

Metaphysics
Philosophy of Language and Logic
Aesthetics

Current research

Most of my research is focused on:

1. Fictional characters. I'm writing a monograph arguing that 1) fictional names have use on which they don't refer and a use on which they refer to fictional characters; 2) authors create fictional characters which are representations of things that don't exist; and 3) there are true sentences containing empty names.

2. Free logic and metaontology. Given that there are true sentences containing empty names, and generalizations from such sentences, how should we approach ontological commitment? See The Linguistic Appaorach to Ontology.

3. The metaphysics of repeatable artworks. I defend the view that repeatable artworks are created types propagated through causal chains. See Repeatable Artworks as Created Types.

4. The logic and semantics of conditionals. I argue that the truth of irrelevant semifactuals show that counterfactuals with true components are automatically true, and that Hypothetical Syllogism is invalid.

Outside of these areas, I've also published on truth in fiction, material objects, perception, and modal logic.

I am very happy to supervise graduate students in any of my current research areas broadly construed.