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121An Actualist's Guide to Quantifying InCritica 44 (132): 3-34. 2012.I develop a device for simulating quantification over merely possible objects from the perspective of a modal actualist ---someone who thinks that everything that exists actually exists
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145The seminar is intended as an introduction to vagueness. We'll survey some prominent accounts of vagueness, so that people get a sense of what `accounting for vagueness' is all about, and why it's hard.
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76Frege's unofficial arithmeticJournal of Symbolic Logic 67 (4): 1623-1638. 2002.I show that any sentence of nth-order (pure or applied) arithmetic can be expressed with no loss of compositionality as a second-order sentence containing no arithmetical vocabulary, and use this result to prove a completeness theorem for applied arithmetic. More specifically, I set forth an enriched second-order language L, a sentence A of L (which is true on the intended interpretation of L), and a compositionally recursive transformation Tr defined on formulas of L, and show that they have th…Read more
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120A Puzzle About Ineffable PropositionsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (2). 2011.I will argue for localism about credal assignments: the view that credal assignments are well-defined only relative to suitably constrained sets of possibilities. I will motivate the position by suggesting that it is the best way of addressing a puzzle devised by Roger White
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415Hierarchies Ontological and IdeologicalMind 121 (482). 2012.Gödel claimed that Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory is 'what becomes of the theory of types if certain superfluous restrictions are removed'. The aim of this paper is to develop a clearer understanding of Gödel's remark, and of the surrounding philosophical terrain. In connection with this, we discuss some technical issues concerning infinitary type theories and the programme of developing the semantics for higher-order languages in other higher-order languages
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66Replies to Greco and TurnerPhilosophical Studies 172 (10): 2617-2620. 2015.Dan Greco and Jason Turner wrote two fantastic critiques of my book, The Construction of Logical Space. Greco’s critique suggests that the book can be given a Kuhnian interpretation, with a Carnapian twist. Here I embrace that interpretation. Turner criticizes one of the views I develop in the book. Here I identify an avenue of resistance
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32Ontological Commitment1Philosophy Compass 2 (3): 428-444. 2007.I propose a way of thinking about content, and a related way of thinking about ontological commitment.
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142Essence Without FundamentalityTheoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science 30 (3): 349-363. 2015.I argue for a conception of essence that does not rely on distinctions of metaphysical fundamentality.
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136I develop an account of the sorts of considerations that should go into determining where the limits of possibility lie. (This is part of a series of four closely related papers. The other three are ‘On Specifying Truth-Conditions’, ‘Ontological Commitment’ and ‘An Actualist’s Guide to Quantifying-In’.).
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Plural PredicationDissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2000.My thesis consists of three self-contained but interconnected papers. In the first one, 'Word and Objects', I assume that it is possible to quantify over absolutely everything, and show that certain English sentences containing collective predicates resist paraphrase in first-order languages and even in first-order languages enriched with plural quantifiers. To capture such sentences I develop a language containing plural predicates . ;The introduction of plural predicates leads to an extension …Read more
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25Nota Crítica Sobre La Paradoja de Orayen (review)Critica 37 (109). 2005.La Paradoja de Orayen es dos cosas en una. Primeramente, es un homenaje al filósofo argentino Raúl Orayen (1942–2003). Pocos filósofos hispanoamericanos han gozado de la solidez intelectual y agudeza filosófica de Orayen, y pocos han sido tan queridos. Se trata, pues, de un homenaje bien merecido y que mucho agradecemos los que tuvimos la fortuna de interactuar con Raúl y aprender de él. En segundo lugar, el libro es una contribución a la filosofía hispanoamericana. Alberto Moretti y Guillermo Hurtad…Read more
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375A Plea for Semantic LocalismNoûs 47 (4): 647-679. 2011.The purpose of this paper is to defend a conception of language that does not rely on linguistic meanings, and use it to address the Sorites and Liar paradoxes
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200Reply to Florio and ShapiroMind 123 (489): 175-181. 2014.Florio and Shapiro take issue with an argument in ‘Hierarchies Ontological and Ideological’ for the conclusion that the set-theoretic hierarchy is open-ended. Here we clarify and reinforce the argument in light of their concerns.
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191Word and objectsNoûs 36 (3). 2002.The aim of this essay is to show that the subject-matter of ontology is richer than one might have thought. Our route will be indirect. We will argue that there are circumstances under which standard first-order regimentation is unacceptable, and that more appropriate varieties of regimentation lead to unexpected kinds of ontological commitment.
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133On Specifying Truth-ConditionsPhilosophical Review 117 (3): 385-443. 2008.This essay is a study of ontological commitment, focused on the special case of arithmetical discourse. It tries to get clear about what would be involved in a defense of the claim that arithmetical assertions are ontologically innocent and about why ontological innocence matters. The essay proceeds by questioning traditional assumptions about the connection between the objects that are used to specify the truth-conditions of a sentence, on the one hand, and the objects whose existence is requir…Read more
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Language |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |