Research Interests
I am working mostly in metaphysics, but have interests in the philosophies of logic, language and the mind, in epistemology, the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of perception and the philosophy of law.
In case you are interested in my CV, here it is.
Books
- Introduction à la logique (375 pages), a comprehensive introductory logic course in French, to be used for a one-year first-year logic course - comments very welcome!
- Ein Dritter Blick auf Descartes' Erste Philosophie (518 pages), an interpretation and defense of the first three Meditations - comments very welcome!
Published Papers
- A World of Truthmakers, on Armstrong's new and old theories of truthmaking (presented at the truthmaker conference in Aix-en-Provence), in: Jean-Maurice Monnoyer (editor), Metaphysics and Truthmakers, Frankfurt a.M.: Ontos, pp. 105-156 (with a reply by David Armstrong). [click here for the book version]
- David Armstrong, Truth and Truthmakers, a review of Armstrong's latest book, arguing that he's mistaken about totality states of affairs, in Mind 118(472).
- Universals, a short presentation of the topic of universals, as it has been developped in Australasian philosophy, in in: A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand, eds. Graham Oppy, Nick Trakakis, Melbourne: Monash ePress.
- The Philosophy of Vectors (with Stephan Leuenberger), the introduction to the special issue of dialectica, discussing why vectorial properties are difficult to account for, in dialectica 63(4).
Draft papers
Comments very welcome.
- Perspectival Facts, explorating how perspectivality, fundamental to mind and language, may be an aspect of the world.
- Contingent Essence, an argument that we should allow for essential properties that are exemplified contingently.
- Supervenience is nothing modal, an argument that we should give up trying to analyse determination in terms of modal covariance and rather characterise supervenience ties in terms of the constitution of properties.
- Truthmaking: explanation by things, an argument that ennemies and false friends of truthmaking have misconstrued how truthmaker theory is intended to be an explanatory theory of truth(s).
- Every Thing is Positive, an argument that negativity pertains only to thought and language; what accounts for the truth of our negative judgments and thoughts is the contingency of the positive things there are. There are nothing, nor could there be anything negative in the world.
- Truthmaking is Not Necessitation criticises truthmaking necessitarianism, the view that "the determining of a truth by a truthmaker is an absolute necessitation" (Armstrong 2004: 5).
- An adverbialist solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics sketches a new semantics of adverbial locutions as modifiers of cases of the exemplification relation and applies it to the problem of temporary intrinsics.
- Intrinsicness and Parthood criticises the influential Lewis/Langton account of intrinsicness on the ground that it does not capture the important connection between intrinsicness and parthood and proposes a new definition that does.
- Fundamentally, there are no relations, an argument that, in some important sense, relations reduce to monadic properties, but that relationality is still an irreducible feature of reality.
Research projects
These are my current and future research projects - comments very welcome.
- Adverbialism, on the riddle of exemplification and the prospects of generalised adverbialism.
- Fundamentality, attempting to reconcile science and common sense through a better understanding of the "... is more fundamental than ..." relation.
- Perspectival Facts, trying to shed light on the perspectivality of thought and language by locating it in the outside world.
Other drafts
Comments very welcome.
- The Tao of Metaphysics (with Elena Casetta), on the metaphysics of words.
- How to tell particulars from universals, on Ramsey's argument against the distinction between particulars and universals.
- Disbelieving the skeptic without proving him wrong, on Moore's paradox and skepticism.
Academic works
- my thesis (2007)
- my "mémoire de prédoctorat" (2003)
- my master thesis in mathematics / theoretical computer science (2003)
- my master thesis in philosophy (2000)
Law
From 1998 to 2000, I have been studying law and working in the departement of penal law and criminology with Karl-Ludwig Kunz. Here is what I wrote at that time:
- A report on behalf of the Swiss Ministry of Justice on the jurisdiction on the Swiss law on help to victioms of crimes (with Karl-Ludwig Kunz): "Die Rechtsprechung zum Opferhilfegesetz in den Jahren 1993-1998".
- A report on behalf of the OECD on private bribery in Switzerland (with Nadja Capus and Karl-Ludwig Kunz): "Private Bribery in Switzerland".
Talks
- 2009
- Fundamentally, there are no relations, International Colloquium "The Metaphysics of Relations", Aix en Provence, 11th of December. [invited]
- Worldy Perspectivality, 14th eidos meeting, Geneva, 7rd of December. [invited]
- Non-Catastrophic Presupposition Failure, UNAM, Mexico, 23rd of November. [invited]
- Perspectival Facts, SOPHA 2009, Geneva, 2nd of September.
- An Adverbialist Solution to the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics, The Metaphysics of Time and Change, Turku, 5th of June. [invited]
- Every Thing Is Positive, 15th eidos workshop, Geneva, 30th of May.
- Descartes: l'illusion, le rêve, le fou et le malin génie, Découvrir la Philosophie, Geneva, 25th of April.
- Ontological explanation: by things, contingent, and never partial, Metametaphysical workshop, Ghent, 23th of April [invited].
- comments on Dennis Perrin, "Lindexicalité égologique à travers le temps: la notion de perspective temporelle", Journées de Référence, Grenoble, 6th of April. [invited]
- Le paradoxe de Newcomb et le dilemme des prisonniers, Découvrir la Philosophie, Geneva, 28th of March.
- The Metaphysics of Vectors, Geneva, 4th of March.
- L'intelligence, est-elle héritable?, Geneva, 21st of February.
- interview with "dare-dare" of the French Swiss Radio, Lausanne, 19th of February.
- 2008
- How properties and relations are had, Fribourg, 15th of December.
- Why Bradley's regress is harmless, conference on Bradley's regress, Geneva, 7th of December.
- Structural Realism Ð the worst of both worlds? (with Stephan Leuenberger), Fribourg, 1st of December.
- An A-Theory of the Self (with Olivier Massin), Fribourg, 10th of November.
- Dependance, operators and functions, Palmyr, Paris, 7th of October. [invited]
- Les théories de conspiration Ð incroyable, même si el les sont vraies?, Festival de Philosophie, Geneva, 28th of September. [invited]
- Ontic Structuralism - the worst of both worlds, SIFA, Bergamo, 26th of September.
- Armstrong on Truthmaking, 8th eidos meeting, Geneva, 3rd of September.
- Truthmakers and Explanation, ECAP6, Krak«ow, 21th of August.
- DeÞning Time in Terms of Change, 7th eidos meeting, Geneva, 20th of August.
- Fundamentality, 7th eidos meeting, Geneva, 18th of August.
- Supervenience is nothing modal, eidos metaphysics conference, Geneva, 15th of July.
- Comments on Sanna Hirvonnen, "Unger's hypothesis of semantic relativity", 5th eidos/logos meeting, Barcelona, 4th of June. [invited]
- Towards a Metaphysics of Knowledge, Keith Hossack symposium, Berne, 31th of May.
- Reducing Relations Again, 13th sequitur conference, Berne, 29th of May.
- Contingent Essence, Leeds CMM research seminar, 25th of April. [invited]
- Semantic Relationism and the Metaphysics of Words, Geneva, 14th of February.
- 2007
- Self-explanatory explanations, Geneva, 21th of December.
- Vers une métaphysique de la connaissance, Geneva, 13th of December.
- Contingent Essence, Frankfurt, 6th of November. [invited]
- Essence and Modality (again), thesis defense, 19th of October.
- Racial Epiteths, David Kaplan conference Berne, 24th of September.
- In Defense of Metaphysical Vagueness, SEFA Barcelona, 7th of September.
- Resisting Counterevaluatives, ESPP Geneva, 12th of July.
- Comments on Mark Heller, "The Donkey Problem", Ovronnaz, 3rd of July.
- Metaphysical Vagueness, Ovronnaz, 3rd of July.
- The Reducibility of Relations, SPS Geneva, 30th of March.
- Getting a Grip: Ontological Commitment and Truthmaking, IHPST Paris, 23rd of March. [invited]
- Intrinsicness and Spacetime, Scienze e Ontologia research group, Rome Tre, 12th of March. [invited]
- 2006
- Contingent Essence, metaphysics summerschool Geneva, 31st of October.
- What Universals Essentially Are, metaphysics summerschool Geneva, 1st of November.
- How to Tell Universals From Particulars, "meaning"-workshop, Berne, 12th of October.
- Might I have had another Life?, VII International Ontology Congress, San Sebastian, 6th of October.
- Contingent Essence, GAP, Berlin, 12th of September.
- La croyance n'est pas une relation, SOPHA, Aix-en-Provence, 2nd of September.
- Belief is Not a Relation, ESPP, Belfast, 25th of August.
- Not Quite Like Clouds -- Defending Metaphysical Vagueness, vagueness workshop, Ovronnaz, 24th of June.
- What Philosophy Is, bi-annual meeting of the Swiss Society for Philosophy, Neuchâtel, 19th of May.
- Contingent Truthmaking, metaphysics summerschool Geneva, 20th of April.
- Contingent Essence, metaphysics summerschool Geneva, 18th of April.
- Disbelieving the Skeptics Without Proving Them Wrong, metaphysics summerschool Geneva, 12th of April.
- Détémination essentielle, PhilEAs research seminar, Geneva, 6th of April.
- Is Belief a Propositional Attitude?, 8th national sequitur meeting, 1st of April.
- Is Belief a Relation?, PhilEAs research seminar, Geneva, 30th of March.
- Contingent Essence, graduate seminar, Fribourg, 23rd of January.
- 2005
- Vagueness and Temporal Partsth (invited), 2nd GVA-BCN meeting, Geneva, 4th of November.
- What, if anything, is Swiss philosophy?, Lauener Price Ceremony, Berne, 28th of October. [invited]
- Emotions and their formal objects, `Emotion, rationality and moral philosophy', Neuchâtel, 27th of October.
- Truthmaking is not necessitation, ECAP5, Lisbon, 30th of August.
- Truthmaking is not necessitation, AAP, Sydney , 4th of July.
- The Tao of Metaphysics (with Elena Casetta), international colloquium `On Identity: Ontological Perspectives', Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 26th of May.
- Truthmakers enough, RSSS/Philsoc seminar ANU, 5th of May.
- Descriptivism Reloaded? (comments on Sam Cumming), Harvard/MIT graduate conference, 20th of March.
- The Epidemiology of Names, "Friends and Eminees" seminar at MIT/Harvard, 5th of February.
- 2004
- A World of Truthmakers?, "Twenty Years After" -- colloquium on truthmakers in Aix-en-Provence, 11th of December. [invited]
- Le Tao de la Métaphysique (with Elena Casetta), graduate research seminar Geneva, 4th of November.
- Analyticity Ontologised?, Fifth Swiss Philosophy Graduate Conference, 23rd of October.
- Tropes, in- and outside of time, Geneva graduate school on abstract entities, 5th of July.
- How to tell particulars from universals, Geneva graduate school on abstract entities, 3rd of July.
- What natural numbers might be, Geneva graduate school on abstract entities, 8th of June.
- Qua qua qua, Geneva graduate school on abstract entities, 6th of June.
- Towards a metaphysics of relations, Geneva graduate school on abstract entities, 4th of June.
- No relations, first Geneva-Barcelona meeting of graduate students in philosophy, 29th of May.
- A la recherche d'une métaphysique des relations, graduate research seminar Neuchâtel, 18th of May.
- The Thickness of A-intensions, Geneva graduate school on abstract entities, 7th of May.
- Supervenience and Dependence, Geneva graduate school on abstract entities, 6th of May.
- The Metaphysics of Adverbs, Geneva graduate school on abstract entities, 29th of April.
- Against the Necessity of Necessity, Geneva graduate school on abstract entities, 26th of March.
- Is "0" a Singular Term?, national logic colloquium Neuchâtel, 20th of March.
- Quelques rŽflexions sur la logique des adverbes, logic colloquium Neuchâtel,, 21th of January.
- 2003
- How to tell Universals from Particulars, Arché graduate conference, 4th of September.
- Moore's paradox, pragmatic indefensibility and skepticism, 26th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg, 4th of August.
- Moore and Skepticism, graduate student seminar Oxford, 15th of May.
- Logical Consequence: A Two-Dimensional Account, graduate student colloquium Fribourg, 20th of January.
- Ramsey's paradox, graduate student colloquium Neuchâtel, 7th of January.
- 2002
- Comments on Miscevic, "The Explainability of Intuitions", Workshop "Intuition and Epistemology" Fribourg, 30th of November.
- Si p alors q -- Une introduction ˆ la philosophie du sexe, graduate student colloquium Geneva, 6th of December.
- Qua qua qua, Fourth European Congress for Analytic Philosophy, ECAP-4 Lund, 16th of June.
- What is a logic of information, "Inference and Deduction", Münchenwiler, 5th of July.
- Can two-dimensionalists acquire concepts?th (poster presentation), Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, ASSC-6, 1st of June.
- Descartes on contingent modal truths and how much you can doubt, graduate student colloquium Neuchâtel, 7th of May.
- Est-ce qu'il y a une paix juste?, public conference of the departement of philosophy at the university of Geneva, 23th of April.
- How to think yourself into existence, graduate student colloquium Zurich, 16th of January.
- 2001
- Qua qua qua, graduate student colloquium Geneva, 16th of November.
- What are formal concepts?, 24th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg, 17th of August.
- n-Dimensionalism, II Barcelona Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Reference, Barcelona, 30th of June.
- Might water not be watery?, graduate student colloquium Fribourg, 18th of June.
- What Singletons Could Be, Russell Centennial Conference, Munich, 5th of June.
- Membership, graduate student colloquium Fribourg, 21th of May.
- Disbelieving the Sceptic without Proving Him Wrong, graduate student colloquium Geneva, 12th of April.
- 2000
- Exemplification, graduate student colloquium Geneva, 27th of October.
- Information Flow -- The Logic of Distributed Systems, colloquium on deductive aspects of proof theory and computer science, Munich, 21th of December.
- Die transzendentale Deduktion der Kategorien -- Versuch einer Darstellung, talk at the IX. international Kant congress, Berlin, 27th of March.
© 2010 Philipp Keller
Université de Genève
Département de Philosophie
2, rue de Candolle
CH-1211 Genève
Switzerland
mobile +41786092579
office +41223797056
fax +41223791131
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