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53Expression, 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
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101Moore’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
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199Direct 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
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232Self-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
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190On the autonomy of linguistic meaningMind 106 (422): 217-243. 1997.Frege and many following him, such as Dummett, Geach, Stenius and Hare, have envisaged a role for illocutionary force indicators in a logically perpspicuous notation. Davidson has denied that such expressions are even possible on the ground that any putative force indicator would be used by actors and jokers to heighten the drama of their performances. Davidson infers from this objection a Thesis of the Autonomy of Linguistic Meaning: symbolic representation necessarily breaks any close tie with…Read more
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69Implicature (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (1): 241-244. 2002.I recall reading a critical notice of Grices’ Studies in the Way of Words, in which the author remarked that while Grice’s analysis of speaker meaning is the subject of considerable controversy, Grice’s account of conversational implicature is, “…money in the philosophical bank.” This assessment was optimistic at best: Grice’s remarks on implicature offer a program not a theory, and in relation to the amount of discussion it has received in philosophy and allied disciplines such as linguistics a…Read more
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IntroductionIn Mitchell S. Green & John N. Williams (eds.), Moore’s Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First Person, Oxford University Press. 2007.
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120Direct reference and implicaturePhilosophical Studies 91 (1): 61-90. 1998.On some formulations of Direct Reference the semantic value, relative to a context of utterance, of a rigid singular term is just its referent. In response to the apparent possibility of a difference in truth value of two sentences just alike save for containing distinct but coreferential rigid singular terms, some proponents of Direct Reference have held that any two such sentences differ only pragmatically. Some have also held, more specifically, that two such sentences differ by conveying dis…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 |