Stephen Yablo

Leading figure in metaphysics and the philosophical logic over the past generation with papers and books on the foundations of mathematics, paradoxes in logic, the relation between mind and body, causation, the nature of modality, the role of presupposition in reasoning. Specific contributions are guided by his concern as both a metaphysician and a reflective critic of the enterprise of metaphysical inquiry with foundational issues. Work has helped to bring critical reflection to the study of ontology, in particular to the questions about the existence of abstract objects such as numbers, properties, and sets. Developed and defended a subtle version of a fictionalist approach to these ontological questions, one that illuminates issues about the relation between the resources for talking literally and metaphorically about the world and the claims about the world that we make with the help of those resources. Prepared agenda-setting work on the relation between conceivability and metaphysical possibility. Recent work, developed in his Hempel lectures, concerns the elusive notion of aboutness. All of his work combines the creative construction of conceptual tools to address substantive questions with critical reflection on the questions being addressed.