Joe Petraroli
petraroli@utexas.edu
I am a graduate student of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. My research focuses on metaphysics, in particular ontology. Lately I have been concerned with questions about the most general features of reality. Examples: Does everything exist?, Can everything be quantified over?, Can everything make some statement true?, Is everything morally good if the world was created by God?
Works in Progress
Russellian Objections to Modal Meinongianism
(metaphysics, logic, non-existence, modality, Russell, Meinong)
Russell claimed and Meinong denied that everything exists. After looking at Russell’s objections to Meinong from LEM and LNC, I reformulate them against Priest's modal Meinongianism.
What Are the Per Se Attributes of Being Qua Being?
(Aristotle, being, ontology, properties, generality, necessity, essence)
Appealing to APo, Shields formulates a condition satisfied by the attributes that every being has qua being. I use the condition to revise an inventory of such attributes identified by Aristotle in Met.
Ordinary Objects Do Not Have Modal Parts
(metaphysics, mereology, modality, identity, semantics, causation, fission, persons)
Lewis (1986) raises several objections to the view that ordinary objects have parts in multiple worlds. Wallace (2019) argues that Lewis’ objections fail. I defend Lewis.
(philosophy of religion, metaphysics, mereology, identity, modality, time)
Divine simplicity supports God’s aseity, but leads to contradiction. Fowler offers an alternative—divine priority—based on Schaffer’s (2010) priority monism. I further develop divine priority.
(metaphysics, philosophy of physics, bundle-substratum debate, general relativity)
Locke claims a substratum bears properties but is unknowable. Armstrong proposes that substrata be identified with spacetime points. I modify his proposal based on general relativity.