Alexander Pruss's Blog

Thursday, November 5, 2026

Simplifying the laws

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This morning I realized the following Nomic Simplification thesis is very likely true: NS: Any physical theory can be replaced by a practi...
14 comments:

Doing, refraining, and double effect

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Some people are skeptical of distinctions between doing and refraining. It seems that anybody who accepts classical double effect reasoning ...
Wednesday, November 4, 2026

Inseparability and real identity

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On a standard (but disputed ) interpretation of Scotus, x and y are inseparable (neither can consistently exist without the other) if and ...
Saturday, October 31, 2026

Anthropocentrism

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Theists are sometimes accused of being anthropocentric in their worldview. Yet in a typical naturalistic worldview, rational animals are at...
5 comments:

It's wrong to disconnect from the violinist

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Take Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous violinist case . Here is a quick and simple argument for why it’s wrong to disconnect from the violinist...
7 comments:
Friday, October 30, 2026

Brower's Aristotelian account of intrinsic change

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Jeff Brower has a very original Aristotelian account of how three-dimensional substances endure and change accidentally, while being wholly...
4 comments:
Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Explanatory parsimony versus theoretical parsimony

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Like the previous Ptolemaic model, Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar system required epicycles to predict the astronomical observa...
3 comments:
Monday, October 26, 2026

Platonism, nominalism and parsimony

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Platonist : Platonism is ideologically way more parsimonious than nominalism. For Platonism has one fundamental predicate applying to object...
Saturday, October 24, 2026

Personhood and supreme beauty

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Start with the Socratic intuition that the most beautiful thing on earth is a human being living well. Extrapolating: Persons living well ...
6 comments:

Substances as proper parts and constituent ontology

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Here’s an argument against the claim that a human is sometimes (or always) a proper part of a larger whole such as a committee or an ecosyst...
Friday, October 23, 2026

Distinguishing eternalism and growing block at the end of time

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Imagine that Alice lives in a classic growing block world, while Twin Alice lives in an eternalist world. Otherwise, the two worlds are exac...
1 comment:
Wednesday, October 21, 2026

Is it wrong to assert falsehoods?

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Years ago, when I was thinking hard about lying, I conjectured that perhaps we simply have a moral duty not to assert falsehoods. This way, ...
4 comments:

More on minimal diachronic fusions and temporal parts

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This is yet another attempt to answer the question of the conditions under which in an atomic world with classical mereology we have unrestr...

Psychological continuity and my first psychological state

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Assume that human psychological states depend on brain states. On psychological continuity theories of personal identity, if a time t is s...

Parts and priority

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Schaffer says that pluralists think that parts are ontologically prior to their wholes. But this seems wrong, even as restricted to bottom-...
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About Me

Alexander R Pruss
I am a philosopher at Baylor University. This blog, however, does not purport to express in any way the opinions of Baylor University. Amateur science and technology work should not be taken to be approved by Baylor University. Use all information at your own risk.
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