Zachary Goodsell Philosophy

Publications [expand]

Forth.
Unknowable Truths (with Juhani Yli-Vakkuri and John Hawthorne)
Forthcoming in the Journal of Philosophy

Reviews the history of the Church-Fitch argument against verificationism (the view that every truth is possibly known), and finds reason to doubt the effectiveness of those arguments. Then refutes verificationism with a new argument.
[PhilPapers]
2026

Symmetries of Value
Noûs 60: 16–37

Proposes the invariance of the ranking of prospects under positive affine transformations of utility, and the reversal of the ranking under negative affine transformations.
[PhilPapers]
2025
A Categorical Theory of Truth (with Juhani Yli-Vakkuri)
Language, Truth, and Reality pp. 49–58

Proposes a theory of truth that entails the Tarskian definition of truth is correct.
[PhilPapers]
Symmetry, Invariance, and Imprecise Probability (with Jake Nebel)
Mind 134 (535): 758–773

Evaluates alleged consequences of the paradoxes of measure in the philosophy of probability.
[PhilPapers]
Morality Does Not Encroach (with John Hawthorne)
Knowledge and Rationality: Essays in Honor of Stewart Cohen

Argues that the recently popular hypothesis of moral encroachment is in tension with important ideas in epistemology.
[PhilPapers]
2024

Arithmetic is Necessary
Journal of Philosophical Logic 53: 1145–1159

Establishes the noncontingency of arithmetical sentences from weaker assumptions than Arithmetic is Determinate.
[PhilPapers]
Decision Theory Unbound
Noûs 58: 669–695

A general axiomatic framework for decision theory in the presence of unbounded value is developed by investigating various consequences and consistency results.
[PhilPapers]
2022
Tossing Morgenbesser's Coin
Analysis 82 (2): 214–221

Morgenbesser's Coin is a thought experiment that exemplifies a pervasive tendency to infer counterfactual independence from causal independence. I argue that this tendency is mistaken by way of a closely related thought experiment.
[PhilPapers]
2021

Arithmetic is Determinate
Journal of Philosophical Logic 51: 127–150

Arithmetical truths are shown to be determinately true in a minimal plural modal logic for determinacy.
[PhilPapers]
A St Petersburg Paradox for Risky Welfare Aggregation
Analysis 81 (3): 420–426

The principle of Anteriority says that prospects are equally good if they are equally good for every possible person. I show that Anteriority is inconsistent with some very plausible principles of axiology and decision theory.
[PhilPapers]
2020
What is an Extended Simple Region? (with Michael Duncan and Kristie Miller)
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (3): 649–659

We propose a novel view about what could make a spatial region extended (that is, bigger than a point), and investigate some consequences of this view.
[PhilPapers]

Other Works [expand]

In prog.
Unbounded Utility and Background Risk

Proves the consistency of the principle that adding the same independent background risk to your options preserves their ranking.
Mathematical Contingency (with Neil Barton)

We prove the consistency of the contingency of claims such as the continuum hypothesis in an intensionalist higher-order logic.
A Rational Society Has No Knowledge Norm of Assertion

I argue there is no norm of asserting only what you know, on the basis that our society would be foolish if we expected that of each other.
Possibility in Intuitionistic Higher-Order Logic

Intuitionisticism is a non-extensionalist intuitionistic higher-order logic augmented with intensionality rules which identify provable equivalents. This paper investigates the modal logic of possibility in Intuitionisticism.
Logical Foundations (with Juhani Yli-Vakkuri)

We argue the system LF is the correct logical basis for mathematics, modality, and semantics.
2024
LF: a Foundational Higher-Order Logic (with Juhani Yli-Vakkuri)

We present and motivate the language and rules of the formal system LF as well as some basic facts about the system.
2023
Unbounded Utility

Dissertation at the University of Southern California. Addresses technical problems for the thesis of unbounded utility in decision theory.

Other Projects

Coming soon...

Events [expand]

2026
Society for Social Choice and Welfare, University of Tokyo (June)

“Unbounded Utility and Background Risk”
2025
New York University Technical Support Group (November)

“Intuitionism and Possibility”
Higher-Order Metaphysics Workshop, New York University (November)

“Mathematical Contingency”
Third Hong Kong Metaphysics Conference, Lingnan University (August)

“Intuitionism and Possibility”
Problems for Bayesianism Workshop, NUS (August)

“Knowledge and Assertion”
Peking University (July)

Lectures on Higher-Order Logic (guest lectures)
Beijing International Summer Workshop on Formal Philosophy (July)

“Intuitionism and Possibility”
Formal Epistemology Workshop 2025, University of Iceland (May)

“Symmetries of Value”
Princeton University (February)

“Intensionality in the Formalization of Science”
2024
New York University (December)

“Semantic Signals”
Second Hong Kong Metaphysics Conference, Lingnan University (November)

“Mathematical Logicism”
Formal Epistemology Workshop 2024, Australian National University

Comment on “Local Deference and Multiple Experts” by Zhen Ma
Workshop on Completeness and Incompleteness of Preference and Value, UT Austin (January)

“Symmetry, Probability, and Imprecise Credence” (with Jake Nebel)
2023
University of Pittsburgh, MIT, New York University, and NUS (February–March)

“Metaphysics and the Reduction of Semantics to Syntax”
Foundations of Probability Seminar, New York University (February)

“Symmetries of Value”
2022
Workshop on Fanaticism, Unboundedness, and Population Ethics, UT Austin (November)

“Symmetries of Value”
2021
APA Pacific

“Decision Theory Unlimited”

Zachary William Lee Goodsell [Bio]

Publications [expand]

Other Works [expand]

Other Projects

Events [expand]