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David Builes

I'm currently a Bersoff Faculty Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at NYU. Beginning in Fall 2021, I will be an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Princeton. I received my PhD in philosophy from MIT. You can reach me at dab669 [at] nyu.edu. Here's my CV. 

My main research interests are in metaphysics and epistemology, with overlapping interests in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mathematics.

Publications

The Ineffability of Induction - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (forthcoming) - I argue that induction cannot be justified given orthodox metaphysical assumptions, and I sketch an alternative metaphysical view that avoids this argument.

The World Just Is The Way It Is - The Monist (forthcoming) - I develop a Monist view that avoids many of the main problems with the substratum theory and the bundle theory.

Dilating and Contracting Arbitrarily - Noûs (forthcoming) - We argue that there are accuracy-based reasons that forbid moving from a precise credence to an imprecise credence arbitrarily, but there are no accuracy-based reasons that forbid moving from an imprecise credence to a precise credence arbitrarily (with Miriam Schoenfield and Sophie Horowitz).

Derivatives and Consciousness - Journal of Consciousness Studies (2020) - I argue that a popular view in the philosophy of physics regarding rates of change is incompatible with a popular view in the philosophy of mind regarding phenomenal properties. I then sketch a panpsychist view which accounts for this tension in a unified way. 

A Puzzle About Rates of Change - Philosophical Studies (2020) - We develop a problem for reductionist theories of rates of change and evaluate various possible replies (with Trevor Teitel).
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​Time-Slice Rationality and Self-Locating Belief - Philosophical Studies (2020) - I argue that those who accept Time-Slice Rationality should also accept the 'Relevance-Limiting Thesis', according to which essentially indexical facts are always evidentially irrelevant to non-indexical facts.

A Paradox of Evidential Equivalence - Mind (2020) - I present a pair of cases which seem to suggest that we should treat evidence as a hyperintensional notion. I then explore some of the costs and benefits of such a view.

Pluralism and the Problem of Purity - Analysis (2019) - I first argue that a recent argument by Trenton Merricks against Ontological Pluralism is unsound. I then go on to present a new dilemma against Ontological Pluralism which builds on Merricks' original dilemma. 

Self-Locating Evidence and the Metaphysics of Time - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2019) - I argue that Presentism and Eternalism, in both classical and relativistic settings, make different observational predictions using self-locating evidence.

Work in Progress

[A Paper on Chance] - We present a unified theory of chance and draw out some of its consequences (with Jack Spencer).

[A Paper on the A-theory] - We develop a reductive account of the objective present, and we use it to respond to two prominent objections towards the A-theory of time (with 
Jack Spencer).

[A Paper on Temporal Ontology] - I argue that we can get evidence for the temporal ontology of the universe by looking at the time.


[A Paper on Arbitrariness Arguments in Ontology] - I argue for a minimal ontology over a maximal ontology on the basis of arbitrariness arguments.
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[A Paper on the De Se] - I argue that there are no de se facts.
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