creative focus

is a high-concept research institute engaged in a wide range of intellectual and creative activities, including:

        Ω academic research and teaching
        Ω computer consultation
        Ω software design
        Ω pure and applied photography
        Ω moral/ethical investigation
        Ω music composition, performance
        Ω game analysis and design


Photo Gallery:

The Little Gray Mouser

My Nearly-Christmas Not-Quite-Miracle

Legacy Homepage:

Dr. Hull's Lair

Selected Academic Research:

"Bipolar Disorder: Horgan on Vagueness and Incoherence", Synthese, 143 (2005), 351-369. I am no longer so critical of Horgan's concept of the forced march. That is, I would now want to distinguish between the standard sorites

      B0
      If Bn then Bn+1
      Therefore, B10000

and what could be called the tau sorites (t-sorites); i.e., where t ranges over truth-states,

      'B0' is true
      (t)(if 'Bn' is t then 'Bn+1' is t)
      Therefore, 'B10000' is true

Despite differences in formulation, I believe the latter is essentially equivalent to Horgan's forced march. Its importance is that, unlike the standard sorites, it is impervious to the ministrations of indefiniteness.

"The Eliminability of Higher Order Vagueness".

"How to Derive Morality from Hume's Maxim". Published online in Ethical Updates Forum
and The Examined Life.

"Vagueness and 'Vague': A Reply to Varzi", Mind, 114 (2005), 689-693.

"Vagueness, Truth and Varzi" . An early draft of a response to Achille Varzi's "The Vagueness of 'Vague': Rejoinder to Hull", Mind, 114 (2005), 695-207. Comments welcome.

"Vagueness Without Indefiniteness". Many discussions of vagueness conflate imprecision and indefiniteness. These forms of vagueness are intimately related, of course: the former entails the possibility of the latter. But why should one ever intentionally say something neither definitely true nor definitely false? An indefinite statement is no more communicative than a contradictory statement, viz. not at all, and it's not clear we are ever really forced into uttering them. This paper explores the radical notion that the supposed ubiquity of indefiniteness in common discourse is an illusion: that imprecision in ordinary language neither requires nor involves the actual utterance of indefinite statements.