Genealogical debunking arguments are a family of powerful skeptical arguments thataim to undermine our justification for believing in certain sorts of entities--ex. God, objective moral facts, composite material objects, Platonic mathematical entities, etc.—by showing that those beliefs have unreliable, off-track, or otherwise disreputable genealogies. My recent work in this topic involves trying to get clearer on when and why awareness of a beleif's genealogy renders it irrational to continue holding that belief. I am especially interested in the question of which of one's beliefs it is rationally permissible to rely upon in response to a genealogical debunking challenge. Here are a few of my published and in-progress papers on this topic:
"Genealogical Defeat and Ontological Sparsity" (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2023) argues that a recent explanationist account of genealogical defeat due to Korman and Locke cannot accommodate reasonable belief in a sparse ontology of worldly facts or states of affairs, and then develops an alternative account capable of meeting this challenge.
“Debunking Arguments and Metaphysical Laws" (Philosophical Studies, 2020), argues that believers in composite material objects can protect their object beliefs from debunking by using their beliefs about the general identity, nature, and grounds composite material objects as defeater-deflectors.
"Reductionist Replies to Debunking Arguments" (draft completed) argues that what I call "reductionist" replies to debunking arguments in various philosophical domains can succeed only if our identity beliefs-- our beliefs about what is identical with what-- are epistemically independent of our existential beliefs. I use the moral naturalist's reply to evolutionary debunking arguments in metaethics as a case study.
A paper defending a new truthmaker account of genealogical defeat (in progress)
A paper defending an essentialist reply to debunking arguments against theistic belief (in progress)
A paper surveying debunking arguments in metaphysics and ontology (in progress)
A paper arguing for a distinction between two different kinds of defeater-deflectors (in progress)
Calling for Metaphysical Explanation
My second project focuses on when and why certain facts "call out for" or "demand" metaphyscial explanation or grounding. According to a popular methodological principle, other things being equal, it is always better to offer a metaphysical explanation for a given fact(s) than it is to take that fact as inexplicable or brute. This principle is plausible only if all facts call out for metaphysical explanation. However, in my in-progress work, I argue that not all facts call out for metaphysical explanation. Such facts, so I argue, ought not to be given a ground or metaphysical explanation. Here are some published and in-progress works on this topic:
"Grounding and the Myth of Ontological Innocence" (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2021) argues that grounded entities not ontologically innocent relative to-- i.e. are not "nothing over and above", "an ontological free lunch" with respect to, etc.-- their full grounds.
"Against Purity"(Ergo, 2023) argues that, contra the so-called "purity" principle, there can be brute or metaphysically inexplicable facts about grounded or derivative entities. My argument against the purity of fundamental facts also gives us a powerful reason to deny that every "grounding fact"-- or fact about what grounds what-- is grounded.
In "Calling for Metaphysical Explanation" (in progress), I defend a reductive account of what it is for a fact to "call out for", "require", or otherwise "demand" metaphysical explanation in more basic terms. I then put my answer to work by showing that it can shed much-needed light on some otherwise elusive topics in metaphysics including the scope of the PSR, the nature of ontological emergence, the notion of metaphysical arbitrariness, and the question of why some stopping-points for metaphysical explanation are better than others.
A paper arguing that not all phenomena demand metaphysical explanation.
A paper on explanatory demandingness and the grounding problem for coincident material objects.