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29Logical QuantifiersIn D. Graff Fara & G. Russell (eds.), Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language, Routledge. pp. 579-595. 2012.This chapter offers a logical, linguistic, and philosophical account of modern quantification theory. Contrasting the standard approach to quantifiers (according to which logical quantifiers are defined by enumeration) with the generalized approach (according to which quantifiers are defined systematically), the chapter begins with a brief history of standard quantifier theory and identifies some of its logical, linguistic, and philosophical strengths and weaknesses. It then proceeds to a brief …Read more
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212On the possibility of a substantive theory of truthSynthese 117 (1): 133-172. 1998.The paper offers a new analysis of the difficulties involved in the construction of a general and substantive correspondence theory of truth and delineates a solution to these difficulties in the form of a new methodology. The central argument is inspired by Kant, and the proposed methodology is explained and justified both in general philosophical terms and by reference to a particular variant of Tarski's theory. The paper begins with general considerations on truth and correspondence and concl…Read more
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110Between logic and intuition: essays in honor of Charles Parsons (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2000.This collection of new essays offers a 'state-of-the-art' conspectus of major trends in the philosophy of logic and philosophy of mathematics. A distinguished group of philosophers addresses issues at the centre of contemporary debate: semantic and set-theoretic paradoxes, the set/class distinction, foundations of set theory, mathematical intuition and many others. The volume includes Hilary Putnam's 1995 Alfred Tarski lectures, published here for the first time.
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44Truth and Knowledge in Logic and MathematicsThe Logica Yearbook 2011 289-304. 2012.Logic and mathematics are abstract disciplines par excellence. What is the nature of truth and knowledge in these disciplines? In this paper I investigate the possibility of a new approach to this question. The underlying idea is that knowledge qua knowledge, including logical and mathematical knowledge, has a dual grounding in mind and reality, and the standard of truth applicable to all knowledge is a correspondence standard. This applies to logic and mathematics as much as to other discipline…Read more
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781The Formal-Structural View of Logical ConsequencePhilosophical Review 110 (2): 241-261. 2001.This paper offers a response to William’s Hanson’s criticism of Sher’s formal-structural conception of logical consequence and logical constants.
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35Review of Robert Hanna, Rationality and Logic (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (4): 1-6. 2007.
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77Is There a Place for Philosophy in Quine’s Theory?Journal of Philosophy 96 (10): 491-524. 1999.In the early part of the 20th century the logical positivists launched a powerful attack on traditional philosophy, rejecting the very idea of philosophy as a substantive discipline and replacing it with a practical, conventionalist, meta-theoretical view of philosophy. The positivist critique was based on a series of dichotomies: the analytic vs. the synthetic, the external vs. the internal, the apriori vs. the empirical, the meta-theoretical vs. the object- theoretical, the conventional vs. th…Read more
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131Epistemic Friction: Reflections on Knowledge, Truth, and LogicErkenntnis 72 (2): 151-176. 2010.Knowledge requires both freedom and friction . Freedom to set up our epistemic goals, choose the subject matter of our investigations, espouse cognitive norms, design research programs, etc., and friction (constraint) coming from two directions: the object or target of our investigation, i.e., the world in a broad sense, and our mind as the sum total of constraints involving the knower. My goal is to investigate the problem of epistemic friction, the relation between epistemic friction and freed…Read more
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73Functional pluralismPhilosophical Books 46 (4): 311-330. 2005.This is a critique of Michael P. Lynch’s functional pluralism with respect to truth. The paper is sympathetic to Lynch’s overall approach to truth, but is critical of (i) his platitudinous characterization of the general principles of truth, (ii) his excessive pluralism with respect to the “realizers” of truth, (iii) his treatment of atomic truth, and (iv) his analysis of “mixed” logical inferences. The paper concludes with a proposal for a functional pluralism that puts greater emphasis on the …Read more
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644The Bounds of Logic: A Generalized ViewpointMIT Press. 1991.The Bounds of Logic presents a new philosophical theory of the scope and nature of logic based on critical analysis of the principles underlying modern Tarskian logic and inspired by mathematical and linguistic development. Extracting central philosophical ideas from Tarski’s early work in semantics, Sher questions whether these are fully realized by the standard first-order system. The answer lays the foundation for a new, broader conception of logic. By generally characterizing logical terms, …Read more
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Logical TermsIn D. M. Borchert (ed.), Supplement to the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan. pp. 317-319. 1996.
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93Partially-ordered (branching) generalized quantifiers: A general definitionJournal of Philosophical Logic 26 (1): 1-43. 1997.Following Henkin's discovery of partially-ordered (branching) quantification (POQ) with standard quantifiers in 1959, philosophers of language have attempted to extend his definition to POQ with generalized quantifiers. In this paper I propose a general definition of POQ with 1-place generalized quantifiers of the simplest kind: namely, predicative, or "cardinality" quantifiers, e.g., "most", "few", "finitely many", "exactly α", where α is any cardinal, etc. The definition is obtained in a serie…Read more
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353Is logic in the mind or in the world?Synthese 181 (2). 2011.The paper presents an outline of a unified answer to five questions concerning logic: (1) Is logic in the mind or in the world? (2) Does logic need a foundation? What is the main obstacle to a foundation for logic? Can it be overcome? (3) How does logic work? What does logical form represent? Are logical constants referential? (4) Is there a criterion of logicality? (5) What is the relation between logic and mathematics?
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40Book Review: Jody Azzouni. Tracking Reason: Proof, Consequence, and Truth (review)Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 50 (1): 97-117. 2009.
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The Logical Roots of IndeterminacyIn G. Sher & R. Tieszen (eds.), Between Logic and Intuition: Essays in Honor of Charles Parsons, . pp. 491-524. 1999.
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121Truth, Logical Structure, and CompositionalitySynthese 126 (1-2): 195-219. 2001.In this paper I examine a cluster of concepts relevant to the methodology of truth theories: 'informative definition', 'recursive method', 'semantic structure', 'logical form', 'compositionality', etc. The interrelations between these concepts, I will try to show, are more intricate and multi-dimensional than commonly assumed.
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134Review of Stanley Peters and Dag Westerståhl: Quantifiers in Language and Logic (review)Journal of Philosophy 107 (2): 103-112. 2010.
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202Introduction and Commentary on Jennifer Hornsby's "Truth: The Identity Theory"Aristotelian Society 1 204-213. 2013.Jennifer Hornsby’s 1997 paper, ‘Truth: The Identity Theory’, has been highly influential in making the identity theory of truth a viable option in contemporary philosophy. In this introduction and commentary I focus on what distinguishes her theory and its methodology from the correspondence theory and the ‘substantivist’ methodology, and on other issues that have not been widely discussed in earlier commentaries yet are central to the current debate on truth.
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