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226The pragmatic circleSynthese 165 (3). 2008.Classical Gricean pragmatics is usually conceived as dealing with far-side pragmatics, aimed at computing implicatures. It involves reasoning about why what was said, was said. Near-side pragmatics, on the other hand, is pragmatics in the service of determining, together with the semantical properties of the words used, what was said. But this raises the specter of ‘the pragmatic circle.’ If Gricean pragmatics seeks explanations for why someone said what they did, how can there be Gricean pragma…Read more
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154Truth Without Reference: The Use of Fictional NamesTopoi 39 (2): 389-399. 2020.Singular terms without referents are called empty or vacuous terms. But not all of them are equally empty. In particular, not all proper names that fail to name an existing object fail in the same way: although they are all empty, they are not all equally vacuous. “Vulcan,” “Jacob Horn,” “Odysseus,” and “Sherlock Holmes,” for instance, are all empty. They have no referents. But they are not entirely vacuous or useless. Sometimes they are used in statements that are true or false. We are basicall…Read more
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Føllesdal and Quine's slingshotIn Studies in language and information, Center For the Study of Language and Information. 2019.
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21The problem of personal identityIn Personal Identity, University of California Press. pp. 3--30. 1975.
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39There are many good introductions to philosophy, and many important philosophy books, but only a handful that are both; the book you have in your hands, The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, is one of these, and one of the best.
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37Selves and self-conceptsIn Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke & Harry S. Silverstein (eds.), Time and Identity, Bradford. pp. 229. 2010.This chapter explores the notion of some philosophers that the self is a mysterious thing. It has been associated with a number of concepts, such as the souls of Christian theology, the essential natures that are passed along in reincarnation, or as noumenal objects that exist beyond normal space and time, outside of the causal realm, and join, in some Kantian way, with the primordial structure of reality to create the world as we know it. Hume, on the other hand, believes that a bundle of perce…Read more
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47Reference and ReflexivityCenter for the Study of Language and Inf. 2001.Following his recently expanded _The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays,_ John Perry develops a reflexive-referential' account of indexicals, demonstratives and proper names. On these issues the philosophy of language in the twentieth century was shaped by two competing traditions, descriptivist and referentialist. Oddly, the classic referentialist texts of the 1970s by Kripke, Donnellan, Kaplan and others were seemingly refuted almost a century earlier by co-reference and no-re…Read more
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31Intentions to ReferIn Erich Rast & Luiz Carlos Baptista (eds.), Meaning and Context, Peter Lang. pp. 2--161. 2010.
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15Information and ArchitectureIn Jon Barwise, Jean Mark Gawron, Gordon Plotkin & Syun Tutiya (eds.), Situation Theory and Its Applications Vol. 2., Csli Publications. pp. 147-160. 1991.
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66The selfIn Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Genealogy to Iqbal, Routledge. 1996.The English expression “self” is a modest one; in its normal use, it is not even quite a word, but something that makes an ordinary object pronoun into a reflexive one: “her” into “herself,” “him” into “himself” and “it” into “itself”. The reflexive pronoun is used when the object of an action or attitude is the same as the subject of that action or attitude. If I say Mark Twain shot _himself _in the foot, I describe Mark Twain not only as the shooter but as the person shot; if I say Mark Twain ad…Read more
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105Relative Identity and NumberCanadian Journal of Philosophy 8 (1): 1-14. 1978.I argue for the consistency of frege's treatments of identity and number. Specifically, I argue that geach is wrong in suggesting that frege's insights about number should have led him to the doctrine of relative identity.
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52Persons and SelvesRevue de Métaphysique et de Morale 72 (4): 455-473. 2011.Résumé La théorie simple des soi ( “ selves ” ) consiste à dire que les soi sont tout simplement des personnes; “ soi ” est un mot qui définit un rôle, le rôle dans le cas présent est celui d ’ être identique à, et le soi de chacun est tout simplement la personne qui joue ce rôle dans la vie de chacun, c ’ est-à-dire soi-même. Mais nous faisons souvent usage du terme “ soi ” d ’ une manière qui implique qu ’ il peut y avoir plus d ’ un soi par personne, c ’ est-à-dire différents soi qui sont en …Read more
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23John Locke's AmericaJournal of the Society of Christian Ethics 27 (2): 227-252. 2007.RECENT STUDIES OF CHRISTIANITY'S RELATION TO LIBERAL POLITICS HAVE recognized the importance of specifying clearly what type of liberalism is being considered. Jeffrey Stout's critique is one such example. Unfortunately, Stout fails to engage the one thinker who arguably is the most influential in how Americans relate Christianity and politics: John Locke. Political arguments of today's Christians are premised, often unconsciously, on rival interpretations of Locke's political theology.
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2Diminished and fractured selvesIn Debra J. H. Mathews, Hilary Bok & Peter V. Rabins (eds.), Personal identity and fractured selves: perspectives from philosophy, ethics, and neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University Press. 2009.
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8Daniel Cohnitz Personal Identity and the Methodology of Imaginary Cases1In Klaus Petrus (ed.), On Human Persons, Heusenstamm Nr Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. pp. 1--145. 2003.
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93Consciousness and the Self: New Essays (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2011.'I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.' These famous words of David Hume, on his inability to perceive the self, set the stage for JeeLoo Liu and John Perry's collection of essays on self-awareness and self-knowledge. This volume connects recent scientific studies on consciousness with the traditional issues about the self explored by Descartes, Locke and Hume. Experts in the field offer contrasting perspectives on matters …Read more
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2Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (edited book)Center for the Study of Language and Inf. 2013.Deeply original, inspiring to some, abhorrent to others, George Berkeley’s philosophy of immaterialism is still influential three hundred years after the publication of his most widely read book, _Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. _Berkeley published the _Dialogues _because of the unenthusiastic reception of his _Principles of Human Knowledge _in 1710._ _He hoped the use of the_ _dialogue format would win a more favorable hearing, but unfortunately for Berkeley, the response was every…Read more
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25Frege's Detour: An Essay on Meaning, Reference, and TruthOxford University Press. 2019.John Perry offers a rethinking of Frege's seminal contributions to philosophy of language, which had a dominant influence on the subject in the twentieth century. He argues that Frege's famous doctrine of indirect reference led philosophers on a detour, and he advocates a move to a new framework for understanding reference.
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57Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers, 1956-1972 (review)Journal of Philosophy 73 (13): 416-428. 1976.This is a volume of philosophical studies, centred on problems of personal identity and extending to related topics in the philosophy of mind and moral philosophy.
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62Identity, Personal Identity, and the SelfHackett Publishing. 2002.This volume collects a number of Perry's classic works on personal identity as well as four new pieces, 'The Two Faces of Identity', 'Persons and Information', 'Self-Notions and The Self' and 'The Sense of Identity'. Perry's Introduction puts his own work and that of others on the issues of identity and personal identity in the context of philosophical studies of mind and language over the past thirty years.
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Roundtable discussionIn Philip P. Hanson (ed.), Information, Language and Cognition, University of British Columbia Press. pp. 198--216. 1990.
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715Identity and Self-KnowledgePhilosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 9 (5). 2017.Self, person, and identity are among the concepts most central to the way humans think about themselves and others. It is often natural in biology to use such concepts; it seems sensible to say, for example, that the job of the immune system is to attack the non-self, but sometimes it attacks the self. But does it make sense to borrow these concepts? Don’t they only pertain to persons, beings with sophisticated minds, and perhaps even souls? I argue that if we focus on the every-day concepts of …Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |