My dissertation focuses on various kinds of distinctions used in medieval philosophy, with a focus on Duns Scotus's formal distinct and what comes to called the virtual distinction in Thomas Aquinas. I argue that these distinctions are employed to solve various Frege puzzles, and the solutions offered by Scotus, Aquinas, and various medieval Nominalists (such as William of Ockham and Gregory of Rimini) have many similarities with various analytic responses to Frege puzzles today.

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Publications

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1. "Identity and Real Distinction according to Duns Scotus," British Journal for the History of Philosophy. Forthcoming.

Abstract: Scotus’s theory of identity and distinction is a unique and central aspect of his thought, as he applies it throughout his metaphysics. On Scotus’s account of identity, the indiscernability of identicals fails—i.e., A and B can be identical but not share all the same properties. As Ockham objected, Scotus is now in the difficult position of needing to provide alternative necessary and sufficient conditions for being identical, rather than simply invoking indiscernability. The secondary literature has argued that the lack of actual or potential separation is both necessary and sufficient for identity. I argue that is incorrect and provide alternative necessary and sufficient conditions for identity and real distinction, along with an analysis of Scotus’s theory of identity and distinction more broadly. Scotus thinks instead that the lack of actual, potential, and proportional separation are necessary and sufficient conditions for identity. The deeper root of this view is that identity corresponds to a certain degree of unity, and is accompanied by a sharing of esse.

 

 

Papers in Progress (Please do not cite. Feedback appreciated!)

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1. "20th Century Free Will Debates in the De Auxiliis Controversy"

Abstract: The consequence argument for incompatibilism is one of the most famous arguments in analytic philosophy. In this paper, I argue that there are close analogues of key parts of the debate concerning the consequence argument in scholasticism. I present a version of the consequence argument raised by 17th-century scholastic Molinists against the Thomistic Báñezians, who were theological determinists. Charles René Billuart offered the best Báñezian response to this earlier consequence argument, which essentially mirrors David Lewis’s: even though I cannot cause God’s predetermination to be otherwise than it is, I can do something such that, if I did it, God would have predetermined me to act otherwise than God in fact did. These Molinists think they have a response to this objection which involves a crucial distinction between counterfactual and explanatory dependence, a move also employed in the contemporary literature. I conclude by briefly showing how the Molinists invoke a version of Meinongianism to address some worries to their solution.

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2. "The Scotistic Achilles & The Virtual Distinction," co-authored with Johnny Waldrop

Abstract: This paper investigates a neglected episode in scholastic debates over identity and distinction. The formal distinction--a mind-independent distinction between identical entities–may be the most important tool in Duns Scotus’s toolbox; much of his metaphysical program stands or falls with it. For this reason, Scotus developed many powerful arguments in its favor. What is perhaps his favorite argument  came to be known as the Scotistic Achilles. Thomistic opponents, rejecting the formal distinction, resisted the Achilles in diverse and sometimes radical ways, appealing to an alternative piece of machinery–the virtual distinction. Thomistic responses fall into four kinds: denying a key premise about the incommunicability of paternity, appealing to reduplication, accepting true contradictions outright, and appealing to mystery. An examination of these responses highlights difficulties facing Thomistic opponents of the formal distinction and suggests considerable disunity among Thomistic theories of the virtual distinction. Moreover, this debate not only sheds light on Thomistic metaphysics and the history of scholastic debates concerning identity and distinction, but also reveals historical precedents for some recent, ambitious proposals in analytic philosophy of religion.

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