Will Dempsey
I'm a graduate student in Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. I received my M.A. from Brandeis University in 2022 and my B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2021.
My research interests primarily concern metaphysics, both of the first- and second-order varieties. I am interested in questions of existence in spacetime, the nature of properties and the instantiation relation, grounding and ontological priority, possible worlds, the notion of being, the (semantic) notion of meaning, and the notion of reference. I also have a strong secondary interest in the history of philosophy.
I'm also one of the founding editors of Propagule, an online journal of experimental fiction.
You can reach me at will_dempsey@berkeley.edu.
I'm a graduate student in Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. I received my M.A. from Brandeis University in 2022 and my B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2021.
My research interests primarily concern metaphysics, both of the first- and second-order varieties. I am interested in questions of existence in spacetime, the nature of properties and the instantiation relation, grounding and ontological priority, possible worlds, the notion of being, the (semantic) notion of meaning, and the notion of reference. I also have a strong secondary interest in the history of philosophy.
I'm also one of the founding editors of Propagule, an online journal of experimental fiction.
You can reach me at will_dempsey@berkeley.edu.
Rationalism and the Metaphysics of Modality (2024) [Draft: comments welcome]
Metaphysical rationalists endorse the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). It's a dominant view that the PSR implies necessitarianism, the claim that there is only one possible world: the actual world, but I think a number of views in modal metaphysics are compatible with rationalism. I argue that Lewisian modal realism is the optimal account of worlds by rationalist lights, which amounts to saying that if you're a rationalist, you ought to be a modal realist.
Process Monism (2022) [Brandeis Master's Project & Phd Application Writing Sample]
Priority monists say that there is one basic actual concrete entity—the cosmos. Priority pluralists deny this, saying that there is more the one basic actual concrete entity. I argue that the existence of processes—functionally-individuated, essentially durational entities that can persist through time—constitutes evidence in favor of priority monism.
Zdzisław Beksiński - AA72 (1972)
Rationalism and the Metaphysics of Modality (2024) [Draft: comments welcome]
Metaphysical rationalists endorse the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). It's a dominant view that the PSR implies necessitarianism, the claim that there is only one possible world: the actual world, but I think a number of views in modal metaphysics are compatible with rationalism. I argue that Lewisian modal realism is the optimal account of worlds by rationalist lights, which amounts to saying that if you're a rationalist, you ought to be a modal realist.
Process Monism (2022) [Brandeis Master's Project & Phd Application Writing Sample]
Priority monists say that there is one basic actual concrete entity—the cosmos. Priority pluralists deny this, saying that there is more the one basic actual concrete entity. I argue that the existence of processes—functionally-individuated, essentially durational entities that can persist through time—constitutes evidence in favor of priority monism.
Dretske's 'Counting to Infinity' Argument (2022)
Hope and Paralysis (2022)
Dretske (1956) claims that "if George never stops counting, then he will count to infinity" and asserts on this basis that the only sense in which one cannot count to infinity is the same sense in which one cannot count to any arbitrary very high number. I consider two possible accounts of the truthmaker of 'George is counting to infinity', one that is fact-based and one that is intention-based. I argue that the possibility of endorsing the latter of these gives the skeptic about actual infinities a way of denying that Dretske's argument commits her to anything more than a potential infinity.
I argue that Horgan's (1981, 1985, 2015) claims that one- and two-boxers occupy a position of dialectical paralysis with respect to Newcomb's Problem are false, and that two-boxers maintain a position of dialectical superiority.
