Adam Labecki
M.A. Classics, Dalhousie University (2006)
B.A. (Honors) Philosophy and Contemporary Studies (2001)
I was born and raised in Halifax, NS, where I completed my BA and MA. Earlier in my studies I was primarily interested in ancient metaphysics, especially in the Platonic tradition, and in contemporary continental philosophy. This eventually let me to write an MA thesis on the metaphysics of Plotinus. Over time, however, my interests drifted in the direction of contemporary analytic metaphysics. This was in part due to an appreciation for the use of formal methods and in part due to learning that analytic metaphysics is a far more lively sub-field than I had first been led to believe.
My areas of specialization is in contemporary analytic metaphysics, especially in the metaphysics of modality, dispositions, and grounding. My dissertation argues in favor of necessitism, being the doctrine that every object that exists necessarily exists and that no object can ever come into or out of being. It is also argued that the fundamental dispositions or powers of these objects must be unchanging and that all contingency results from the ways in which these objects manifest themselves in virtue of the natural relations that obtain between them. In this way, possibility is grounded in potency and what we usually take to be contingent objects are really contingent occurents or processes whereas the "things themselves" underlie such processes.
“The One and the Many: Part II: The Many.” Dionysius 25: 129-152 (2007)
“The One and the Many: Part I: The One.” Dionysius 24: 75-98 (2006)