This piece for The Stone argues that we as a society are already well underway in redefining marriage. Conservatives often use the terminology "redefining marriage" as political code. The piece argues for a sociological view of the institution of marriage. The courts do not have...
Ontological individualism is the thesis that facts about individuals exhaustively determine social facts. Ontological individualism has more recently been understood as a global supervenience claim, and is almost universally accepted. In this paper I argue that ontological individualism is false. I explore why it is...
Argues against a "mentalistic" picture of the social world. It is often seen as a truism that social objects and facts are the product of human intentions. I argue that the role of intentions in social ontology is commonly overestimated. I propose a more worldly...
This is a review of a collection of papers on artifacts, edited by Eric Margolis and Stephen Laurence. Although I’ve thought a lot about artifacts — objects like screwdrivers, chairs, and dollar bills — I haven’t written much about them directly. This review was a...
This interesting (and massive!) handbook is edited by Ian Jarvie, who also serves as editor of the journal Philosophy of the Social Sciences, and Jesús Zamora-Bonilla, philosopher of science at the National Open University of Spain. It has papers on the history of the philosophy...
