About

I'm a philosopher at the University of Maryland, College Park. I work on modal language, causal reasoning, expressivism, intentionality, variables, future-oriented talk, scalar implicature, and a few more things.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Mathematics
• Mathematical economics
• Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Machine Learning
• Programming language
• Pure mathematics
• Linguistics
• Economics

Selected publications

• Ability as dependence modality

  Noûs · 2025-03-07

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Some modal expressions in language—for example, “can” and “able”—describe what is possible in light of someone's abilities. Ability modals are obviously related to other modalities in language, such as epistemic or deontic modality, but also give rise to anomalies that make them unique. This paper develops a general theory of ability modals that is broadly compatible with standard modal semantics, while predicting their peculiar behavior. The central idea is that ability modals include reference to a notion of dependence. At the level of truth conditions, “ is able to ” simply says that there is a circumstantially accessible world where . On top of this, a not‐at‐issue element requires that whether A s depends, in part, on intrinsic features of . Differently from most analyses, this account divorces ability modals from a notion of agency.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Probabilities of Counterfactuals Are Counterfactual Probabilities

  The Journal of Philosophy · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Suppose that, yesterday at noon, Maria considered flipping a fair coin but didn’t. What probability do you assign to “If Maria had flipped the coin, the coin would have landed heads"? Now suppose that, contrary to fact, Maria did indeed flip the coin. In that counterfactual scenario, what is the probability of “The coin will land tails"? The two questions sound strikingly similar. I argue that they sound similar because they are equivalent. The chance of a counterfactual “If A, would C" equals the chance of C, in the counterfactual scenario that A (and a similar principle holds for credence). This principle does better than similar principles that have been defended (like Skyrms’s Thesis), avoids triviality, and gives us important clues for a semantics for counterfactuals.

  PublisherDOI

• Future-less-vivid conditionals and the modal past

  Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory · 2025-02-12

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Future-Less-Vivid conditionals (FLVs) are conditionals that display the typical morphological marking of counterfactuals, but whose antecedent has future reference time. An example is in (i):(i) If Ada took semantics next term, she would take logic next year. The literature has coalesced on a near-consensus that FLVs cannot be contrary-to-fact. In this paper, I argue that the near-consensus is wrong. FLVs can be genuinely counterfactual: in particular, FLVs are counterfactuals about the future, i.e. can involve suppositions that contradict settled future facts. This has an interesting theoretical upshot. The behavior of FLVs is challenging for all theories on which tenses affect root modals by backshifting the time index of the modal base. These theories include all so-called Past-as-Past theories of X-marking. Conversely, the behavior of FLVs can be accommodated by Past-as-Modal theories.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Counterfactuals and quantificational force: Experimental evidence for selectional semantics

  Semantics and Pragmatics · 2025-06-09

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Theories of counterfactuals agree on the use of a comparative similarity relation, but disagree about the quantificational force of counterfactual modals. This study reports findings from two experiments designed to evaluate the predictions of three prominent approaches: universal theories, homogeneity theories, and single-world selection theories (supplemented with supervaluations over selection functions). To differentiate the predictions of these theories, we examined counterfactual sentences embedded under various quantifiers and elicited graded truth-value judgments from speakers. The results provide empirical support for selection-based theories, while posing challenges to universal and homogeneity approaches. Additionally, we argue that a more recent implicature-based theory also fails to align with our findings. We discuss the broader implications of these results, including the similarities and differences between counterfactuals and plural definites. EARLY ACCESS

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Semantics and Logic of Counterfactuals

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2025-01-23 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Counterfactuals have received substantial attention in philosophy over the past fifty years. This chapter is an opinionated guide to standard theories of counterfactuals, to some of their open problems, and to connections between counterfactuals and other topics in philosophy, such as chance and causation. It starts by distinguishing two problems. The logical sub-problem of counterfactuals is the problem of specifying a formal template for the meaning of counterfactuals. The similarity sub-problem is the problem of linking the formal notions that are used to solve the first problem—such as the notion of comparative similarity—to notions that have intuitive content. After reviewing classical accounts, it covers several open issues, including Sobel sequences, counterfactuals about the future (future-less-vivid conditionals), the role of tense and aspect morphology, and causal dependencies. The chapter closes by discussing the relationship between counterfactuals and chance and between the semantics for counterfactuals and the causal models framework.

  PublisherDOI

• Confidence reports

  Semantics and Pragmatics · 2024-11-12

  articleOpen access

  We develop a states-based semantics for nominal and adjectival confidence reports like Ann is confident/has confidence that it’s raining, and their comparative forms. Our account leverages a Neodavidsonian analysis of adjectival comparatives in which adjectives denote properties of states and measure functions are introduced compositionally. We hereby provide the first systematic semantics for confidence reports, in addition to providing a needed modal extension to the states-based semantics of comparatives. As we show, the flexibility accorded by the Neodavidsonian implementation supports analysis of grammatical constructions with confident/confidence that might otherwise be puzzling, and it lends itself to certain natural ideas about the semantics of cross-categorial probabilistic language using, e.g., likely and probability. In the end, we sketch some immediate connections between confidence-reporting discourse (e.g., I am confident that…) and belief reports about probabilistic discourse (e.g., I think it’s likely that…). EARLY ACCESS

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nonboolean Conditionals

  Experiments in Linguistic Meaning · 2023-01-27 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  On standard analyses, indicative conditionals behave in a Boolean fashion when interacting with and and or. We test this prediction by investigating probability judgments about sentences of the form "If A, then B {and, or} if C, then D". Our findings are incompatible with a Boolean picture. This is challenging for standard analyses of ICs, as well as for several nonclassical analyses. Some trivalent theories, conversely, may account for the data.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Meaning without Information: Comments on Paul Pietroski's<i>Conjoining Meanings</i>

  Philosophy and Phenomenological Research · 2022-11-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Indeterminacy and Triviality

  Australasian Journal of Philosophy · 2022-03-17 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Suppose you’re certain that a claim—say, ‘Frida is tall’—does not have a determinate truth value. What attitude should you take towards it? This is the question of the cognitive role of indeterminacy. This paper presents a puzzle for theories of cognitive role. Many of these theories vindicate a seemingly plausible principle: if you are fully certain that A, you are rationally required to be fully certain that A is determinate. Call this principle ‘Certainty’. We show that Certainty, in combination with some minimal side premises, entails a very implausible claim: whenever you’re certain that it’s indeterminate whether A, it is rationally required that you reject A. This is a surprising result, which requires abandoning at least some intuitive views about indeterminacy and cognitive role.

  PublisherDOI

• Trivializing Informational Consequence

  Philosophy and Phenomenological Research · 2021 · 26 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Epistemology
  • Mathematical economics

  Abstract This paper investigates the link between informational consequence and credence. I first suggest a natural constraint, namely that informational consequence should preserve certainty: on any rational credence distribution, when the premises of an informational inferences have credence 1, the conclusion also has credence 1. Then I show that the certainty‐preserving constraint leads to triviality. In particular, the following three claims are incompatible: (i) informational consequence is extensionally distinct from classical consequence; (ii) informational inferences preserve certainty; (iii) credences obey (a subset of) classical Bayesian constraints. The proof is straightforward, but the theoretical implications are substantial. Informational theorists need to either give up the idea that credence applies to epistemic discourse, or develop a nonclassical theory of credence and credal update. Moreover, the result also suggests that there is a connection between informational consequence and triviality results, including classical triviality results like Lewis's.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Paul Marty

  University of Malta

  9 shared

• Jacopo Romoli

  8 shared

• Alexis Wellwood

  University of Southern California

  4 shared

• Fabrizio Cariani

  University of Maryland, College Park

  3 shared

• Nicole Gotzner

  Osnabrück University

  2 shared

• John Williams

  University of Leeds

  1 shared

• Eva Wittenberg

  1 shared

• Alejandro Pérez Carballo

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  1 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

• Other

  Australian National University

• Other

  University of Leeds

• Other

  UC San Diego