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72Could Competent Speakers Really Be Ignorant of Their Language?Croatian Journal of Philosophy 6 (3): 457-467. 2006.This paper defends the commonsense conception of linguistic competence according to which linguistic competence involves propositional knowledge of language. More specifically, the paper defends three propositions challenged by Devitt in his Ignorance af Language. First, Chomskian linguists were right to embrace this commonsense conception of linguistic cornpetence. Second, the grammars that these linguists propose make a substantive claim about the computational processes that are presumed to c…Read more
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26On the hypothesis that grammars are mentally representedBehavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3): 405-406. 1983.
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61Measurement and Computational SkepticismNoûs 51 (4): 832-854. 2017.Putnam and Searle famously argue against computational theories of mind on the skeptical ground that there is no fact of the matter as to what mathematical function a physical system is computing: both conclude (albeit for somewhat different reasons) that virtually any physical object computes every computable function, implements every program or automaton. There has been considerable discussion of Putnam's and Searle's arguments, though as yet there is little consensus as to what, if anything,…Read more
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Does linguistic competence require knowledge of language?In Alex Barber (ed.), Epistemology of language, Oxford University Press. 2003.
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2The case for linguistic nativismIn Robert J. Stainton (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science, Wiley-blackwell. 2006.
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Perceptual Individualism: Reply to Burge [1988]In Robert H. Grimm & Daniel Davy Merrill (eds.), Contents of Thought, Tucson. 1988.
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49Are the grammatical sentences of a language a recursive set?Synthese 40 (2). 1979.Many believe that the grammatical sentences of a natural language are a recursive set. In this paper I argue that the commonly adduced grounds for this belief are inconclusive, if not simply unsound. Neither the native speaker's ability to classify sentences nor his ability to comprehend them requires it. Nor is there at present any reason to think that decidability has any bearing on first-language acquisition. I conclude that there are at present no compelling theoretical grounds for requiring…Read more
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148The measure of mind: propositional attitudes and their attributionOxford University Press. 2007.A prospective introduction -- The received view -- Troubles with the received view -- Are propositional attitudes relations? -- Foundations of a measurement-theoretic account of the attitudes -- The basic measurement-theoretic account -- Elaboration and explication of the proposed measurement-theoretic account.
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112Can connectionists explain systematicity?Mind and Language 12 (2): 154-77. 1997.Classicists and connectionists alike claim to be able to explain systematicity. The proposed classicist explanation, I argue, is little more than a promissory note, one that classicists have no idea how to redeem. Smolensky's (1995) proposed connectionist explanation fares little better: it is not vulnerable to recent classicist objections, but it nonetheless fails, particularly if one requires, as some classicists do, that explanations of systematicity take the form of a‘functional analysis’. N…Read more
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21Troubles with representationalismSocial Research: An International Quarterly 51 (4): 1065-97. 1984.
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41The Elusive Case for Relationalism about the Attitudes: Reply to RattanPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (2): 453-462. 2017.The question I address here is whether there is anything about what Rattan describes as the normative and perspectival aspects of propositional attitudes that demands a relational account of the attitudes, specifically anything that cannot equally well be explained on measurement-theoretic accounts of the sort that I (and others) have defended which do not incorporate or presume a cognitive relation to a proposition. I argue that there is not.
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Logical form and the relational conception of beliefIn Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Logical Form and Language, Oxford University Press. pp. 421--43. 2002.
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62Describing and interpreting a work of artJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 36 (1): 5-14. 1977.
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28Epistemic Heresies: Reply to John Collins’ ReduxCroatian Journal of Philosophy 8 (1): 45-55. 2008.Elaborating on views I have expressed elsewhere, I argue that the common-sense notion of linguistic competence as a kind of knowledge is both required by common-sense explanatory and justificatory practice and furthermore fully compatible with the non-intentional characterization of linguistic competence provided by current linguistic theory, which is itself non-intentional.
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32Can Connectionists Explain Systematicity?Mind and Language 12 (2): 154-177. 1997.Classicists and connectionists alike claim to be able to explain systematicity. The proposed classicist explanation, I argue, is little more than a promissory note, one that classicists have no idea how to redeem. Smolensky's (1995) proposed connectionist explanation fares little better: it is not vulnerable to recent classicist objections, but it nonetheless fails, particularly if one requires, as some classicists do, that explanations of systematicity take the form of a‘functional analysis’. N…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |