16 found
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  1. A powers theory of modality: or, how I learned to stop worrying and reject possible worlds.Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 151 (2):227-248.
    Possible worlds, concrete or abstract as you like, are irrelevant to the truthmakers for modality—or so I shall argue in this paper. First, I present the neo-Humean picture of modality, and explain why those who accept it deny a common sense view of modality. Second, I present what I take to be the most pressing objection to the neo-Humean account, one that, I argue, applies equally well to any theory that grounds modality in possible worlds. Third, I present an alternative, (...)
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  2. Powerful Qualities, Not Pure Powers.Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2011 - The Monist 94 (1):81-102.
    I explore two accounts of properties within a dispositional essentialist (or causal powers) framework, the pure powers view and the powerful qualities view. I first attempt to clarify precisely what the pure powers view is, and then raise objections to it. I then present the powerful qualities view and, in order to avoid a common misconception, offer a restatement of it that I shall call the truthmaker view. I end by briefly defending the truthmaker view against objections.
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  3.  47
    Causal Powers.Jonathan D. Jacobs (ed.) - 2017 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    We use concepts of causal powers and their relatives-dispositions, capacities, and abilities-to describe the world around us, both in everyday life and in scientific practice. This volume presents new work on the nature of causal powers, and their connections with other phenomena within metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind.
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  4. The Ineffable, Inconceivable, and Incomprehensible God: Fundamentality and Apophatic Theology.Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2015 - Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 6:158-176.
     
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  5. Emergent individuals.Timothy O'Connor & Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (213):540-555.
    We explain the thesis that human mental states are ontologically emergent aspects of a fundamentally biological organism. We then explore the consequences of this thesis for the identity of a human person over time. As these consequences are not obviously independent of one's general ontology of objects and their properties, we consider four such accounts: transcendent universals, kind-Aristotelianism, immanent universals, and tropes. We suggest there are reasons for emergentists to favor the latter two accounts. We then argue that within such (...)
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  6. Agent causation in a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics.Jonathan D. Jacobs & Timothy O'Connor - 2013 - In Sophie Gibb, E. J. Lowe & Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson (eds.), Mental Causation and Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Freedom and moral responsibility have one foot in the practical realm of human affairs and the other in the esoteric realm of fundamental metaphysics—or so we believe. This has been denied, especially in the metaphysics-bashing era occupying the first two-thirds or so of the twentieth century, traces of which linger in the present day. But the reasons for this denial seem to us quite implausible. Certainly, the argument for the general bankruptcy of metaphysics has been soundly discredited. Arguments from Strawson (...)
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  7. Armstrong on Probabilistic Laws of Nature.Jonathan D. Jacobs & Robert J. Hartman - 2017 - Philosophical Papers 46 (3):373-387.
    D. M. Armstrong famously claims that deterministic laws of nature are contingent relations between universals and that his account can also be straightforwardly extended to irreducibly probabilistic laws of nature. For the most part, philosophers have neglected to scrutinize Armstrong’s account of probabilistic laws. This is surprising precisely because his own claims about probabilistic laws make it unclear just what he takes them to be. We offer three interpretations of what Armstrong-style probabilistic laws are, and argue that all three interpretations (...)
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  8. Emergent individuals and the resurrection.Jonathan D. Jacobs & Timothy O'Connor - 2010 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 2 (2):69 - 88.
    We present an original emergent individuals view of human persons, on which persons are substantial biological unities that exemplify metaphysically emergent mental states. We argue that this view allows for a coherent model of identity-preserving resurrection from the dead consistent with orthodox Christian doctrine, one that improves upon alternatives accounts recently proposed by a number of authors. Our model is a variant of the “falling elevator” model advanced by Dean Zimmerman that, unlike Zimmerman’s, does not require a closest continuer account (...)
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  9.  17
    Free Will and Naturalism.Kevin Timpe & Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2015 - In Kelly James Clark (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 319–335.
    Free will is, allegedly, incompatible with naturalism. We aim to show that it is not. More specifically, we aim to show that a libertarian, agent‐causal account of free will is consistent with a naturalistic metaphysics. After some initial terminological and methodological clarifications, we examine recent arguments by naturalists for the nonexistence of free will and argue that they fail. We then develop an account of free will that ought to be acceptable to the naturalist.
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  10. An Eastern Orthodox Conception of Theosis and Human Nature.Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2009 - Faith and Philosophy 26 (5):615-627.
    Though foreign—and perhaps shocking—to many in the west, the doctrine of theosis is central in the theology and practice of Eastern Orthodoxy. Theosis is “the ultimate goal of human existence”1 and indeed is “a way of summing up the purpose of creation”:2 That God will unite himself to all of creation with humanity at the focal point. What are human persons, that they might be united to God? That is the question I explore in this paper. In particular, I explore (...)
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  11. Causal powers: A neo-aristotelian metaphysic.Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2007 - Dissertation, Indiana University
    Causal powers, say, an electron’s power to repel other electrons, are had in virtue of having properties. Electrons repel other electrons because they are negatively charged. One’s views about causal powers are shaped by—and shape—one’s views concerning properties, causation, laws of nature and modality. It is no surprise, then, that views about the nature of causal powers are generally embedded into larger, more systematic, metaphysical pictures of the world. This dissertation is an exploration of three systematic metaphysics, Neo-Humeanism, Nomicism and (...)
     
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  12. Free Will and Naturalism: How to be a Libertarian and a Naturalist Too.Kevin Timpe & Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2015 - In Kelly James Clark (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 319-335.
    As pop naturalists tell it, free will is incompatible with naturalism. And apparently many scientists agree. Philosopher Daniel Dennett reports, for example, that he has “learned from discussions with a variety of scientists…[that] free will, in their view, is obviously incompatible with naturalism, with determinism, and very likely incoherent against any background, so they cheerfully insist that of course they don’t have free will” (2013, 47). Many philosophers, however, disagree (e.g., Mele 2014; Nahmias 2014; Vargas 2014), since compatibilist forms of (...)
     
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  13.  23
    Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics.Jonathan D. Jacobs & Timothy O'Connor - 2013 - In Sophie Gibb, E. J. Lowe & Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson (eds.), Mental Causation and Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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  14. A Powers Theory of Causation.Jonathan D. Jacobs - unknown
    In this paper, my central aim is to defend the Powers Theory of causation, according to which causation is the exercise of a power (or manifestation of a disposition). I will do so by, first, presenting a recent version of the Powers Theory, that of Mumford (Forthcoming). Second, I will raise an objection to Mumford’s account. Third, I will offer a revised version that avoids the objection. And, fourth, I will end by briefly comparing the proposed Powers Theory with the (...)
     
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  15.  41
    (4 other versions)A Note From the Editor.Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2012 - Modern Schoolman 89 (1):1-1.
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  16.  81
    Actuality, Possibility, and Worlds. By Alexander R. Pruss. [REVIEW]Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2013 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 87 (4):799-802.