-
26Lionspeak: communication, expression, and meaningIn James R. O'Shea & Eric Rubenstein (eds.), Self, Language, and World: Problems From Kant, Sellars, and Rosenberg, Ridgeview Publishing Co.. pp. 89--106. 2010.
-
112Quantity, volubility, and some varieties of discourseLinguistics and Philosophy 18 (1). 1995.Grice's Quantity maxims have been widely misinterpreted as enjoining a speaker to make the strongest claim that she can, while respecting the other conversational maxims. Although many writers on the topic of conversational implicature interpret the Quantity maxims as enjoining such volubility, so construed the Quantity maxims are unreasonable norms for conversation. Appreciating this calls for attending more closely to the notion of what a conversation requires. When we do so, we see that esche…Read more
-
46Moorean absurdity and showing what's withinIn Mitchell S. Green & John N. Williams (eds.), Moore's Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First Person, Oxford University Press. 2007.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the University of Virginia and at Texas A&M University. I thank audiences at both institutions for their insightful comments. Special thanks to John Williams for his illuminating comments on an earlier draft. Research for this paper was supported in part by a Summer Grant from the Vice Provost for Research and Public Service at the University of Virginia. That support is here gratefully acknowledged.
-
278Illocutionary force and semantic contentLinguistics and Philosophy 23 (5): 435-473. 2000.Illocutionary force and semantic content are widely held to occupy utterly different categories in at least two ways: Any expression serving as an indicator of illocutionary force must be without semantic content, and no such expression can embed. A refined account of the force/content distinction is offered here that does the explanatory work that the standard distinction does, while, in accounting for the behavior of a range of parenthetical expressions, shows neither nor to be compulsory. The…Read more
-
133Expression, indication and showing what’s withinPhilosophical Studies 137 (3): 389-398. 2008.This essay offers a constructive criticism of Part I of Davis’ Meaning, Expression and Thought. After a brief exposition, in Sect. 2, of the main points of the theory that will concern us, I raise a challenge in Sect. 3 for the characterization of expression that is so central to his program. I argue first of all that a sincere expression of a thought, feeling, or mood shows it. Yet attention to this fact reveals that it does not go without saying how it is possible to show such things as though…Read more
-
348Moore’s Paradox, Truth and Accuracy: A Reply to Lawlor and PerryActa Analytica 26 (3): 243-255. 2011.G. E. Moore famously observed that to assert ‘I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I do not believe that I did’ would be ‘absurd’. Moore calls it a ‘paradox’ that this absurdity persists despite the fact that what I say about myself might be true. Krista Lawlor and John Perry have proposed an explanation of the absurdity that confines itself to semantic notions while eschewing pragmatic ones. We argue that this explanation faces four objections. We give a better explanation of the absurdity b…Read more
-
195Direct reference empty names and implicatureCanadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (3): 419-37. 2007.Angle Grinder Man removes wheel locks from cars in London.1 He is something of a folk hero, saving drivers from enormous parking and towing fi nes, and has succeeded thus far in eluding the authorities. In spite of his cape and lamé tights, he is no fi ction; he’s a real person. By contrast, Pegasus, Zeus and the like are fi ctions. None of them is real. In fact, not only is each of them different from the others, all differ from Angle Grinder Man. After all, Zeus throws thunderbolts but doesn’t re…Read more
-
225Self-expressionOxford University Press. 2007.Mitchell S. Green presents a systematic philosophical study of self-expression - a pervasive phenomenon of the everyday life of humans and other species, which has received scant attention in its own right. He explores the ways in which self-expression reveals our states of thought, feeling, and experience, and he defends striking new theses concerning a wide range of fascinating topics: our ability to perceive emotion in others, artistic expression, empathy, expressive language, meaning, facial…Read more
Storrs Mansfield, Connecticut, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Aesthetics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Aesthetics |
Philosophy of Biology |