Online Papers
A list of online papers without annotation. For more information, try the links or start with the main research page.
Articles
- Why High-Level Explanations Exist. To appear in Levels of Explanation, OUP, edited by Katie Robertson and Alastair Wilson
- Science Is Irrational—and a Good Thing, Too. To appear in Extreme Philosophy, Routledge, edited by Stephen Hetherington
- Commentary on Philip Kitcher's What's the Use of Philosophy?, to appear in a book symposium in Philosophia
- Grasp and Scientific Understanding, Philosophical Studies, 181:741–762, 2024
- Dynamic Probability and the Problem of Initial Conditions, Synthese, 199:14617–14639, 2021
- Permissible Idealizations for the Purpose of Prediction, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 85:92–100. 2021
- Explanation, Abstraction, and Difference-Making. Comment on Marc Lange's Because Without Cause. Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, 99:726–731. 2019.
- Philosophy Unbound. Comment on Edouard Machery's Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds. Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, 98, 239-245. 2019.
- The Mathematical Route to Causal Understanding. In Reutlinger and Saatsi (eds.), Explanation Beyond Causation. Oxford University Press. 2018.
- The Whole Story: Explanatory Autonomy and Convergent Evolution. In David M. Kaplan (ed.), Explanation and Integration in Mind and Brain Science, Oxford University Press. 2018.
- The Structure of Asymptotic Idealization. Synthese, 196:1713–1732, 2017
- Scientific Sharing: Communism and the Social Contract. Scientific Collaboration and Collective Knowledge, edited by Thomas Boyer-Kassem, Conor Mayo-Wilson and Michael Weisberg. Oxford University Press. 2017.
- How Idealizations Provide Understanding, in Explaining Understanding: New Essays in Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science, edited by S. R. Grimm, C. Baumberger, and S. Ammon, Routledge, New York. 2017.
- Dappled Science in a Unified World, in H.-K. Chao, J. Reiss, and S.-T. Chen (eds.), Philosophy of Science in Practice: Nancy Cartwright and the Nature of Scientific Reasoning, Springer. 2017.
- Ontology, Complexity, and Compositionality, in Essays on Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science, edited by Matthew Slater and Zanja Yudell, Oxford University Press. 2017.
- Special-Science Autonomy and the Division of Labor, in The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher, edited by M. Couch and J. Pfeifer, Oxford University Press. 2016.
- The Reference Class Problem in Evolutionary Biology: Distinguishing Selection from Drift, in Chance in Evolution, edited by Charles Pence and Grant Ramsey, Chicago University Press. 2016.
- Complexity Theory, in The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, edited by Paul Humphreys. 2016.
- Stochastic Independence and Causal Connection. Erkenntnis. 2015.
- High-Level Exceptions Explained. Erkenntnis. 2014.
- Counterfactual Support: Why Care?. Unpublished.
- Bayesianism versus Confirmation. 2014.
- Causality Reunified. Erkenntnis. 2013.
- Herding and the Quest for Credit. Journal of Economic Methodology. 2013
- A precis and my replies to commentators in a PPR Symposium on Depth
- Theoretical Terms without Analytic Truths. Philosophical Studies.
- No Understanding without Explanation Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. 2013.
- Ceteris Paribus Hedges: Causal Voodoo That Works. Journal of Philosophy. 2012.
- The Explanatory Role of Irreducible Properties. Nous. 2012.
- Varieties of Understanding (text of APA talk)
- Economic Approaches to Understanding Scientific Norms. Episteme. 2011.
- Probability Out Of Determinism. In Probabilities in Physics, edited by Claus Beisbart and Stephan Hartmann, Oxford University Press, 2011.
- Reconsidering Authority: Scientific Expertise, Bounded Rationality, and Epistemic Backtracking. Oxford Studies in Epistemology, vol. 3.
- Objective Evidence and Absence. Philosophical Studies, 144, 2009.
- Comments on Woodward, Making Things Happen. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 77:171–192, 2008.
- What Is Empirical Testing?.
- The Other Kind of Confirmation.
- Physically Contingent Laws and Counterfactual Support. Philosophers' Imprint
- Why Represent Causal Relations? A. Gopnik and L. Schulz (eds.), Causal Learning: Psychology, Philosophy, Computation, Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Essay review of Woodward, Making Things Happen. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 74:233–249, 2007.
- Mackie Remixed. In J. Keim Campbell, M. O’Rourke, and H. S. Silverstein (eds.), Causation and Explanation, Topics in Contemporary Philosophy, vol. 4, MIT Press, 2007.
- The Role of the Matthew Effect in Science. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 37, 159–170, 2006.
- How Are the Sciences of Complex Systems Possible? Philosophy of Science, 72:531–556, 2005.
- Reply to Fitelson and Waterman, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 56:913–918, 2005.
- The Causal and Unification Accounts of Explanation Unified – Causally. Noûs 38, 154–179, 2004.
- Why Explanations Lie: Idealization in Explanation
- Bayesian Confirmation Theory: Inductive Logic or Mere Inductive Framework? Synthese, 141:365–379. 2004.
- Against Lewis's New Theory of Causation. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 84, 398–412, 2003.
- The Role of the Priority Rule in Science. Journal of Philosophy 100:2, 55–79, 2003.
- Further Properties of the Priority Rule
- The Myth of the Final Criterion
- The Bayesian Treatment of Auxiliary Hypotheses. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52, 515–537, 2001.
- Do Large Probabilities Explain Better? Philosophy of Science, 67, 366–90, 2000.
- The Explanatory Role of the Notion of Representation
- The Essentialist Aspect of Naive Theories. Cognition 74, 149–175, 2000.
- Inferring Probabilities From Symmetries. Noûs 32, 231–46, 1998.
- Objective Probability as a Guide to the World. Philosophical Studies 95, 243–75, 1999.
- A Closer Look at the 'New' Principle. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46, 545–561, 1995. (Proper form of the probability coordination principle.)