What Good are Counterexamples?

has just come out in Philosophical Studies. It’s not a great paper. I wrote it all when still in grad school, so it’s hardly my final opinion on anything, and some of the arguments are sophistical even by my standards. But it’s a fun idea to kick around, and one of my few attempts to actually carve out a new position in philosophical move space rather than just adding epicycles to existing theories.

Now that it’s appeared, I’m in the unusual position of having more journal articles in print than forthcoming (8 out, 6 forthcoming, if you’re keeping score). I don’t think I’ve ever been in this state before, though I could be wrong. There’s no distinctive qualia associated with it, in case you were wondering.

One detail about this paper’s publication surprised me. It ended up being the first article in its number of Philosophical Studies. Does anyone know if there’s any method to the order articles appear in a journal? I always assumed it was something arbitrary like alphabetical ordering (that horribly biased system) or date the article was received, or the order the articles are drawn out of a (metaphorical) hat, but I really have no idea. I know Analysis sometimes will put related articles alongside one another, but beyond that it seems fairly random to me.