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8Variation, Derivability and NecessityGrazer Philosophische Studien 53 (1): 117-137. 1997.In Bolzano's view, a proposition is necessarily true iff it is derivable from true propositions that include no intuition (Anschauung). This analysis is historically important because it displays close similarities to Quine's and Kripke's ideas. Its systematic significance, however, is reduced by the fact that derivability is defined with recourse to the method of variation, which we are allowed to apply even to propositions containing none of the respective variables. This liberality leads to t…Read more
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24Red Watermelons and Large ElephantsTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 15 (2): 263-280. 2000.The standard argument against the compositionality of adjective-noun compounds containing "red" says that "red" does not make the same semantic contribution because a red car has to be red outside whereas a red watermelon has to be red inside. Fodor's reply to that argument is that the inside/outside feature is semantically irrelevant because "red F" just means F which is red for Fs. That account agrees with our intuitions concerning analyticity; but it seems to be in conflict with a central tes…Read more
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15Free Content A Puzzle About Concept PossessionGrazer Philosophische Studien 68 (1): 1-22. 2005.To have a propositional attitude, a thinker must possess the concepts included in its content. Surprisingly, this rather trivial principle refl ects badly on many theories of concept possession because, in its light, they seem to require too much. To solve this problem, I point out an ambiguity in attributions of the form 'S possesses the concept of Fs'. There is an undemanding sense which is involved in the given principle, whereas the theoretical claims concern a stronger sense which can be br…Read more
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11Bolzanos Ableitbarkeit und Tarskis logische FolgerungIn Julian Nida-Rümelin & Georg Meggle (eds.), Analyomen 2, Volume I: Logic, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, De Gruyter. pp. 148-156. 1997.
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William P. ALSTON: Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press 2000Grazer Philosophische Studien. forthcoming.
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107The ontology of meanings (review)Philosophical Studies 137 (3). 2008.In part 4 of Meaning, Expression, and Thought, Davis rejects what he calls Fregean ideational theories, according to which the meaning of an expression is an idea; and then presents his own account, which states that, e.g., the meaning of ‘Primzahl’ in German is the property of meaning prime number. Before casting doubt on the latter ontology of meanings, I come to Frege’s defence by pointing out that he was not an advocate of the position Davis named after him because Fregean senses are not lex…Read more
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41Does TEC explain the emergence of distal representations?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (4): 588-589. 2004.Hommel et al. (2001) try to explain the emergence of distal representations by an evolutionary account which includes their theory of event coding. A closer look at the way the terms “distal representations” and “representations of events” are defined reveals, however, that their hypothesis of a common code for perceived and to-be-produced events is in fact superfluous. Moreover, it shows that they mix up empirical facts with conceptual/definitional facts in the second assumption of their explan…Read more
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1Searle's Representing Account of Illocutionary Acts and Its Weak SpotsActa Philosophica Fennica 69 97-112. 2001.
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162Illocutionary acts and attitude expressionLinguistics and Philosophy 26 (3): 351-366. 2003.In the classic Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts,Kent Bach and Robert M. Harnish advocated the idea that to perform an illocutionary actoften just means to express certain attitudes. The underlying definition of attitudeexpression, however, gives rise to serious problems because it requires intentions of a peculiarkind. Recently, Wayne Davis has proposed a different analysis of attitude expression whichis not subject to these difficulties and thus promises a more plausible account of illo…Read more
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15Bolzano’s Concept of ConsequenceThe Monist 85 (4): 580-599. 2002.In the second volume of his Wissenschaftslehre from 1837, the Bohemian philosopher, theologian, and mathematician Bernard Bolzano introduced his concept of consequence, named derivability, together with a variety of theorems and further considerations. Derivability is an implication relation between sentences in themselves, which are not meant to be linguistic symbols but the contents of declarative sentences as well as of certain mental episodes. When Schmidt utters the sentence ‘Schnee ist wei…Read more
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32Variation, Derivability and NecessityGrazer Philosophische Studien 53 (1): 117-137. 1997.In Bolzano's view, a proposition is necessarily true iff it is derivable from true propositions that include no intuition (Anschauung). This analysis is historically important because it displays close similarities to Quine's and Kripke's ideas. Its systematic significance, however, is reduced by the fact that derivability is defined with recourse to the method of variation, which we are allowed to apply even to propositions containing none of the respective variables. This liberality leads to t…Read more
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Erkenntnistheorie. Positionen zwischen Tradition und Gegenwart (review)Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 57 (3). 2003.
Oldenburg, Lower Saxony, Germany