Articles (click title for abstract):

• ‘The Gamification of Games and Inhibited Play’. Open Philosophy (2025). link (OA)

  Gamification has been touted as a revolutionary technique for promoting education, fitness, work, and more, but has also been argued to harm the very areas it claims to improve. Thus, the importance of reflection on gamification in different contexts is clear; in this article, I examine gamification within games themselves. While it may be thought that gamifying a game is either impossible or trivial, articulating its possibility allows us to uncover its impacts. I first explore some definitions of gamification within the literature (Section 1). After introducing the prospect that a game might be gamified despite this being either impossible or trivial on existing definitions, I then redefine gamification such that gamifying games is meaningfully possible (Section 2). I next distinguish kinds of gameplay, building on Thi Nguyen’s achievement play and striving play to defend two additional kinds: roleplay and authorial play (Section 3). Finally, I combine the preceding strands to identify a potential harm of the gamification of games: a gamified game encourages certain kinds of gameplay over others, producing play under constraints, whereas gamification as a trend across gaming culture creates an impoverished play environment by establishing game design norms that prevent players from deciding how they play, producing inhibited play (Section 4).

• ‘Susan Stebbing’s Critique of Popular Science: Guiding or Gatekeeping?’ (2025). link

  Susan Stebbing’s work in early 20th-century philosophy is notable for ranging over both academically-focused and public-facing work. While it may be tempting to see this “public philosophy” work as interesting purely as outreach, Stebbing seemingly saw this part of her work as more consequential, and with good reason. This applies in particular to her critique of what she saw as careless work on the implications of science for philosophical issues, pursued in detail in her 1937 book Philosophy and the Physicists. However in light of broad commitments to philosophical naturalism today, one may wonder whether Stebbing’s approach is defensible, or if it is unfairly dismissive of scientists’ perspectives. In this paper I re-examine Stebbing’s critique of popular science to trace the themes running through it, use this to defend her project against the charge of gatekeeping, and briefly consider possible lessons for contemporary discussion of philosophy and popular science. We proceed as follows: in §1 I briefly outline the context of Stebbing’s contribution to the debate, and sketch the problem this suggests: that in light of the widely accepted naturalistic stance in analytic philosophy today, Stebbing’s effort risks being a problematic instance of gatekeeping. In §2 I delve in detail into Stebbing’s critique, drawing out and assessing some repeating argumentative themes. In §3 I locate Stebbing’s views on popular science within her broader philosophical perspective, appealing to her work on the utility of logic. This helps confirm that Stebbing’s approach holds both scientists and philosophers to account for getting seduced into embracing deeply flawed positions by their passion for scientific developments, and thus should be considered guiding, not gatekeeping. Finally in §4 I consider whether Stebbing’s approach is relevant to the communication of philosophical and scientific ideas today.

• ‘Transformative Experience and the Principle of Informed Consent’ (with Helen Capitelli-McMahon). Synthese (2023). link (OA)

  This paper explores how transformative experience generates decision-making problems of particular seriousness in medical settings. Potentially transformative experiences are especially likely to be encountered in medicine, and the associated decisions are confronted jointly by patients and clinicians in the context of an imbalance of power and expertise. However in such scenarios the principle of informed consent, which plays a central role in guiding clinicians, is unequal to the task. We detail how the principle’s assumptions about autonomy, rationality and information handle transformative experiences poorly, appealing to several difficult cases for medical decision-making to illustrate the resulting problem, and we consider how the existing literature on complications with consent fails to offer a resolution. We argue that recognition of the problem has a role to play in achieving a more effective response to transformative decisions. In Sect. 1 we introduce several representative cases of challenging patient decision-making that clinicians might face. In Sect. 2 we detail how transformative experience has been analysed in the recent literature, before outlining in Sect. 3 the theoretical basis of the principle of informed consent, which plays a central role in how clinicians are expected to support decision-making. In Sect. 4, having laid the groundwork for a clear description, we return to the cases given in Sect. 1 to confirm how their transformative nature presents a problem: either clinicians treat the decisions faced by these patients as ‘normal’, encouraging them to focus on information provision that patients may be unable to act on, or they treat them as transformative, in which case they lack the resources to recognise whether they are helping patients make (subjectively) good decisions. In Sect. 5 we argue that the existing literature does not offer any escape from this problem. We close in Sect. 6 by noting the significant impact that appreciating the problem of transformative experience could have on supporting transformative decisions in medicine and briefly suggesting how we might aim to develop new approaches to dealing with these.

• ‘A Case Study of Teaching Complex Skills in Philosophy Through Games. Are You Flourishing?’. Gamevironments (2023). link (OA)

  This paper explores the potential for and challenges of teaching sophisticated and flexible skills in philosophy using games. The setting is philosophy at a UK university, and the example is a game-based learning activity designed by the author for teaching the topic transformative experience within a skills-based third-year undergraduate module, Communicating Philosophy. This module’s learning outcomes include for students to be confident applying philosophical skills in novel settings, and this provides an incentive to teach in ways that challenge students’ conceptions of how ideas can be communicated. The multiplayer card game Are You Flourishing? (2022) was therefore designed by the author as an engaging game that raises questions about rationality, subjective value, and the challenge posed by transformative experiences as discussed by Paul (2014, 2015). In this case study I describe the game and its rationale, its application in a particular classroom, and the impact of the game’s inclusion on the student experience. This allows reflection on the potential for games to help students develop more flexible skills and build toward “professional artistry” (Schön 1987, 14). The results indicate a game-based learning activity that was seen as moderately enjoyable and encouraged reflection about transformative experience, games and gamification, and ways of communicating philosophy, in a substantial majority of participants, as well as being viewed as contributing to learning by a smaller majority. Problems with the activity generally centred around the complexity of the rules and other features of effective facilitation, indicating that similar projects to exploit the freedom and creativity afforded to learners by games should focus on identifying ways to simplify without compromising the game’s aims and on making facilitation as effective as possible by streamlining the explanation of rules.

• ‘A Framework for Player Engagement with Games: Formal Reliefs and Representation Checks’. Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism (2022). link (OA)

  Alongside the direct parallels and contrasts between traditional narrative fiction and games, there lie certain partial analogies that provide their own insights. This article begins by examining a direct parallel between narrative fiction and games—the role of fictional reliefs and reality checks in shaping aesthetic engagement—before arguing that from this a partial analogy can be developed stemming from a feature that distinguishes most games from most traditional fictions: the presence of rules. The relation between rules and fiction in games has heretofore been acknowledged but not examined in detail, giving an impression of a tension that is constant. However, the paired concepts of formal reliefs and representation checks, once introduced, allow us to explain how rules and fiction interact to alter the ways in which players engage with games in a dynamic but limited way.

• ‘Susan Stebbing and the Truthmaker Approach to Metaphysics’. Logique & Analyse (2021). link 

  Susan Stebbing’s reflections on method in metaphysics are deserving of sustained attention by historians of analytic philosophy, not least because her work was for some time unduly sidelined. In this paper I build on recent reassessments of Stebbing’s work to argue that she can fruitfully be seen as attempting in the mid-1930s to articulate a precursor to the Truthmaker Approach in metaphysics – doing so departs from Janssen-Lauret’s account of Stebbing as a stepping-stone to later Quinean holism while still recognising that she was not simply a proponent of a Moorean–Russellian position. This different perspective reveals (i) the emergence of a difference in metametaphysical approaches at an earlier stage than is typically thought and (ii) a difference between ways of critiquing the logical positivist project which would otherwise be difficult to see.

• ‘Quine’s Metametaphysics’. Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics (2020). link pre-print

  W. V. Quine stands out as one of the foremost figures of 20th century analytic philosophy. This chapter aims to show that a significant part of his work’s enduring value lies in its contribution to metametaphysics, which will include showing how some more contentious aspects of Quine’s thought can be seen as indispensable to it; we will problematise the widespread belief that one can isolate basic elements of Quine’s metametaphysics without eroding their warrant. §1 introduces the broad context. §2 examines Quine’s most clearly metametaphysical work (and the desired backdrop for many analytic philosophers): ‘On what there is’. Finding the story incomplete here, we explore other elements of Quine’s corpus in turn. §3 analyses the nascent naturalism evident in ‘Two dogmas of empiricism’, §4 explores how the principle of charity becomes significant in Word & Object, and §5 shows how the eponymous principle of ‘Ontological relativity’ aims to defuse the puzzles of indeterminacy. In the process we will see how Quine’s concerns stemming from naturalism in general, and from the problems of indeterminacy in particular, make it hard to separate the basic picture from his more controversial full-blown approach – hard, that is, to avoid ontological relativity. This is bad news for those wishing to use Quine as a neutral backdrop to analytic metaphysical debate, but good news for those who value the distinctive philosophical tradition within which Quine’s work is a key development.

• ‘It Takes More Than Moore to Answer Existence Questions’. Erkenntnis (2019), advance access. link pre-print<\summary>

  Several recent discussions of metaphysics disavow existence-questions, claiming that they are metaphysically uninteresting because trivially settled in the affirmative by Moorean facts. This is often given as a reason to focus metaphysical debate instead on questions of grounding. I argue that the strategy employed to undermine existence-questions fails against its usual target: Quineanism. The Quinean can protest that the formulation given of their position is a straw man: properly understood, as a project of explication, Quinean metaphysics does not counsel us to choose between obvious ordinary-language claims and absurd revisionist claims, even if appeal to Moorean facts is permitted.

• ‘Found Guilty By Association: In Defence of the Quinean Criterion’. Ratio 31:1 (2018), 37-56. link pre-print

  Much recent work in metaontology challenges the so-called ‘Quinean tradition’ in metaphysics. Especially prominently, Amie Thomasson argues for a highly permissive ontology over ontologies which eliminate many entities. I am concerned with disputing not her ontological claim, but the methodology behind her rejection of eliminativism – I focus on ordinary objects. Thomasson thinks that by endorsing the Quinean criterion of ontological commitment eliminativism goes wrong; a theory eschewing quantification over a kind may nonetheless be committed to its existence. I argue that, contrary to Thomasson’s claims, we should retain the Quinean criterion. Her arguments show that many eliminativist positions are flawed, but their flaws lie elsewhere: the Quinean criterion is innocent. Showing why reveals the importance of pragmatism in ontology. In §1 I compare Thomasson’s account and the eliminativist views to which it stands in opposition. In §2 I re-construct Thomasson’s reasons for rejecting the Quinean criterion. In §3 I defend the Quinean criterion, showing that the eliminativists’ flaws are not consequences of applying the Quinean criterion, before explaining the criterion’s importance when properly understood. I conclude that Thomasson, though right to criticise the methodology of ordinary-object eliminativists, is wrong to identify the Quinean criterion as the source of their mistake.

• ‘Getting Off the Inwagen: A Critique of Quinean Metaontology’. Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 4:6 (2016). link (OA)

  Much contemporary ontological inquiry takes place within the so-called ‘Quinean tradition’ but, given that some aspects of Quine’s project have been widely abandoned even by those who consider themselves Quineans, it is unclear what this amounts to. Fortunately recent work in metaontology has produced two relevant results here: a clearer characterisation of the metaontology uniting the aforementioned Quineans, most notably undertaken by Peter van Inwagen, and a raft of criticisms of that metaontology. In this paper I critique van Inwagen’s Quinean metaontology, finding that certain challenges, supplemented by pressure to reflect more closely Quine’s work, should drive Quineans to adopt a stronger metaontology incorporating more of Quine’s radical views. I conclude that while van Inwagen’s Quineanism is problematic there are prospects for a viable, more wholeheartedly Quinean, metaontology.

• ‘Carnap, Conventions, and Circularity’. Discipline Filosofiche 23:1 (2013), 79–98. link

  Theses about the nature of logic and science form the core of the various positions attributable to the logical positivists, and logical conventionalism is a particularly interesting case. In this paper I show that Carnap’s brand of logical positivism is committed to a circular logical conventionalism, and offer an explanation of why this is unproblematic. I first explain the motivations for and basic form of Carnapian conventionalism (§1) before introducing Quine’s ‘Tortoise Problem’ (§2), widely considered to refute Carnap’s position. Some have supposed that one can avoid the problem by jettisoning commitment to truth-by-convention: I discuss putative ways to avoid the apparent circularity (§§3-5), showing that one cannot do so without undermining the basic doctrine. Finally I show why commitment to circularity is acceptable (§6): on a more sophisticated account of conventions, circularity does not destroy Carnapian conventionalism.

Book reviews:

• ‘Review of Blatti and Lapointe (eds.), Ontology After Carnap‘. Philosophy 92:1 (2017), 135-42. link
• ‘Review of Peter van Inwagen, Existence: Essays in Ontology‘. Philosophy 90:353 (2015), 519–524. link

Other:

• ‘The Death of Moritz Schlick, and What It Might Teach Us Today’. The Philosophers’ Magazine 74 (2016). link

PhD thesis:

• ‘Quine’s Legacy in Metaontology’. abstract