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Co-authored item on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in edited collection

I focus on Nietzsche's architectural metaphor of self-construction in arguing for the claim that postmodern readings of Nietzsche misunderstand his various attacks on dogmatic philosophy as paving the way for acceptance of a self characterized by fundamental disunity. Nietzsche's attack on essentialist dogmatic metaphysics is a call to engage in a purposive self-creation under a unifying will, a will that possesses the strength to reinterpret history as a pathway to "the problem that we are". Nietzsche agrees with the postmodernists that unity is not a pre-given, however he would disavow their rejection of unity as a goal. Where the postmodernists celebrate "the death of the subject" Nietzsche rejects this valorization of disunity as a form of Nihilism and prescribes the creation of a genuine unified subjectivity to those few capable of such a goal. Postmodernists are nearer Nietzsche's idea of the Last Man than his idea of the Overman.Article

This paper investigates the possibility of completing a Positivist style account of empirical significance. This is central to the positivists’ core project of demarcating science from metaphysics/the non-cognitively significant/ nonsense. After reviewing various reasons why the quest for a demarcation criterion has long been abandoned, it is argued that none of the traditional objections are compelling. In particular, it is shown that holism, the most widely cited ground for dismissing the possibility of a demarcation criterion, is perfectly compatible with a criterion of empirical significance. What is needed is an account that explains how a claim can be empirically significant within a given theory. It is shown that new research in logic; in particular the account of content developed in Gemes (1994) and (1996) provides machinery that solves the longstanding technical problems faced by Positivists’ attempts to formulate a holistic account of empirical significance.Article

Attempts to utilize the probability calculus to prove or disprove various inductive or inductive skeptical theses are, I believe, highly problematic. Inductivism and inductive skepticism are substantive (logically consistent) philosophical positions that do not allow of merely formal proofs or disproofs. Often the problems with particular alleged formal proofs of inductive or inductive sceptical theses turn on subtle technical considerations. In the following I highlight such considerations in pointing out the flaws of two proofs, one an alleged proof of an inductive sceptical conclusion due to Karl Popper, the other an alleged proof of an inductivist thesis originally due to Harold Jeffreys and later advocated by John Earman. Surprisingly, in examining Popper's argument it is shown that certain apparently weak premises, often embraced by both inductivists and deductivists, lend themselves to inductive conclusions. However, it is argued, those premises are still philosophically substantive and not amenable to a purely formal demonstration. The lesson to be learnt here is twofold. First, we need to be very careful in determining which formal theses entail, and which are entailed by, inductive skepticism and inductivism. Second, we need to take great care in laying out and examining the assumptions presumed in formal arguments directed for and against such formal theses.Article