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Paradox and the A PrioriIn Tamar Szabo Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology Volume 1, Oxford University Press Uk. 2005.
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80Amie Thomasson's Easy Approach to OntologyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (1): 244-250. 2019.Philosophers have long debated whether abstract objects such as numbers and properties exist, but in recent years philosophical debate about what things exist has been ratcheted up more than a notch to question whether even ordinary objects such as pineapples and tables exist. One view has it that all existence questions are difficult questions whose answers hang on achieving an ontological theory that succeeds in carving nature at its joints. Some proponents of this view further claim to have s…Read more
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499Expression-Meaning and VaguenessIn Arthur Sullivan (ed.), Sensations, Thoughts, and Language: Essays in Honor of Brian Loar, Routledge. 2019.Brian Loar attempted to provide the Gricean program of intention-based semantics with an account of expression-meaning. But the theory he presented, like virtually every other foundational semantic or meta-semantical theory, was an idealization that ignored vagueness. What would happen if we tried to devise theories that accommodated the vagueness of vague expressions? I offer arguments based on well-known features of vagueness that, if sound, show that neither Brian’s nor any other extant theor…Read more
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19Review Essay: How to Build a Person: A Prolegomenon by John PollockHow to Build a Person: A ProlegomenonPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (3): 713. 1992.
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50Gricean Semantics and Vague Speaker-MeaningCroatian Journal of Philosophy 17 (3): 293-317. 2017.Presentations of Gricean semantics, including Stephen Neale’s in “Silent Reference,” totally ignore vagueness, even though virtually every utterance is vague. I ask how Gricean semantics might be adjusted to accommodate vague speaker-meaning. My answer is that it can’t accommodate it: the Gricean program collapses in the face of vague speaker-meaning. The Gricean might, however, find some solace in knowing that every other extant meta-semantic and semantic program is in the same boat.
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85XIII*—Contextualist Solutions to ScepticismProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96 (1): 317-334. 1996.Stephen Schiffer; XIII*—Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 96, Issue 1, 1 June 1996, Pages 317–334, https://
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3III*—Intentionality and the Language of ThoughtProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 87 (1): 35-56. 1987.Stephen Schiffer; III*—Intentionality and the Language of Thought, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 87, Issue 1, 1 June 1987, Pages 35–56, https
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31Précis of The Things We MeanPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (1): 208-210. 2006.In The Things We Mean I argue that there exist such things as the things we mean and believe, and that they are what I call pleonastic propositions. The first two chapters offer an initial motivation and articulation of the theory of pleonastic propositions, and of pleonastic entities generally. The remaining six chapters bring that theory to bear on issues in the theory of content: the existence and nature of meanings; knowledge of meaning; the meaning relation and compositional semantics; the …Read more
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16Précis of The Things We MeanPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (1): 208-210. 2007.In The Things We Mean I argue that there exist such things as the things we mean and believe, and that they are what I call pleonastic propositions. The first two chapters offer an initial motivation and articulation of the theory of pleonastic propositions, and of pleonastic entities generally. The remaining six chapters bring that theory to bear on issues in the theory of content: the existence and nature of meanings; knowledge of meaning; the meaning relation and compositional semantics; the …Read more
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2Truth and the theory of contentIn Herman Parret & Jacques Bouveresse (eds.), Meaning and understanding, W. De Gruyter. 1981.
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1Extensionalist Semantics and Sententialist Theories of BeliefIn Ernest LePore (ed.), New directions in semantics, Academic Press. 1987.
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20Replies to García-Carpintero, Horwich, Valdivia, Marqueze, BarnettPhilosophical Issues 10 (1). 2000.
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12Correspondence & Disquotation (review)International Studies in Philosophy 28 (4): 112-113. 1996.
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33Replies (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (1). 2006.There are important differences among those philosophers who would call themselves nominalists and thus claim to disbelieve in the existence of numbers, properties, propositions, and their ilk. Some are non-concessive, and would deny that sentences such as following can be true
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157Vague propertiesIn Richard Dietz & Sebastiano Moruzzi (eds.), Cuts and clouds: vagueness, its nature, and its logic, Oxford University Press. pp. 109--130. 2010.I. Vague Properties and the Problem of Vagueness The philosophical problem of vagueness is to say what vagueness is in a way that helps to resolve the sorites paradox. Saying what vagueness is requires saying what kinds of things can be vague and in what the vagueness of each kind consists. Philosophers dispute whether things of this, that, or the other kind can be vague, but no one disputes that there are vague linguistic expressions. Among vague expressions, predicates hold a special place in …Read more
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85Pleonastic FregeanismThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 6 1-15. 2000.Fregeans hold that propositional attitudes are relations to structured propositions whose basic constituents are concepts, or modes of presentation, of the objects and properties our beliefs are about. It is widely thought that there are compelling objections to the Fregean theory of mental and linguistic content. However, as I try to show, these objections are met by the version of Frege’s theory which I call Pleonastic Fregeanism.
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213David’s epistemic understanding of two-dimensional semantics has these two features. First, although he considers at least two construals of epistemically possible worlds, on one of them they are centered metaphysically possible worlds. Second, David intends epistemic two-dimensional semantics to yield a theory of propositional-attitude content, as well as having application to the semantics of natural language expressions. These two features come together in David’s “The Components of Conten…Read more