• Paradox and the A Priori
    In Tamar Szabo Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology Volume 1, Oxford University Press Uk. 2005.
  • Paradox and the A Priori
    Oxford Studies in Epistemology 1. 2006.
  •  79
    Amie Thomasson's Easy Approach to Ontology
    Philosophy 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
  •  478
    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
  •  50
    Gricean Semantics and Vague Speaker-Meaning
    Croatian 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.
  •  323
    XIII*—Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism
    Proceedings 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://
  •  3
    III*—Intentionality and the Language of Thought
    Proceedings 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
  • Meaning
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 35 (3): 669-671. 1973.
  • The Things We Mean
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 66 (2): 395-395. 2003.
  •  1
    Remnants of Meaning
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (2): 409-423. 1989.
  •  31
    Précis of The Things We Mean
    Philosophy 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
  • Meaning
    Philosophy 51 (195): 102-109. 1972.
  •  79
    Horwich on Meaning
    Philosophical Quarterly 50 (201): 527-536. 2000.
  • The Things We Mean
    Philosophical Quarterly 56 (223): 301-303. 2006.
  •  16
    Précis of The Things We Mean
    Philosophy 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
  •  10
    Facing Facts’ Consequences
    ProtoSociology 23 50-66. 2006.
  •  197
  •  48
    A little help from your friends?
    Legal Theory 7 (4): 421-431. 2001.
    When I was invited to participate in this symposium, I welcomed what I thought would be the opportunity to apply my views about the semantics and logic of vague language to the real-life problems of vagueness legal theorists worry about. I confess to having formed my ambition without a very clear sense of what jurisprudential problems might be illuminated by general theories of vagueness. To be sure, I was able to guess that a symposium on Vagueness and Law must have something to do with the dil…Read more
  •  213
    David’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
  •  187
    Evidence= Knowledge: Williamson's Solution to Skepticism?
    In Patrick Greenough, Duncan Pritchard & Timothy Williamson (eds.), Williamson on Knowledge, Oxford University Press. pp. 183--202. 2009.
    A single argument template---the EPH template---can be used to generate versions of the best known and most challenging skeptical problems. In his brilliantly groundbreaking book Knowledge and Its Limits, Timothy Williamson presents a theory of knowledge and evidence which he clearly intends to provide a response to skepticism in its most important forms. After laying out EPH skepticism and reviewing possible ways of responding to it, I show how elements of Williamson’s theory motivate a hithert…Read more
  •  155
  •  119
    Remnants of Meaning
    MIT Press. 1987.
    In this foundational work on the theory of linguistic and mental representation, Stephen Schiffer surveys all the leading theories of meaning and content in the philosophy of language and finds them lacking. He concludes that there can be no correct, positive philosophical theory or linguistic or mental representation and, accordingly advocates the deflationary "no-theory theory of meaning and content." Along the way he takes up functionalism, the nature of propositions and their suitability as …Read more
  •  233
    The things we mean
    Oxford University Press. 2003.
    Stephen Schiffer presents a groundbreaking account of meaning and belief, and shows how it can illuminate a range of crucial problems regarding language, mind, knowledge, and ontology. He introduces the new doctrine of 'pleonastic propositions' to explain what the things we mean and believe are. He discusses the relation between semantic and psychological facts, on the one hand, and physical facts, on the other; vagueness and indeterminacy; moral truth; conditionals; and the role of propositiona…Read more
  •  164
    S produces the sounds “It’s snowing” in the presence of A, and A instantaneously comes to know that it’s snowing. S has communicated to, or told, A that it’s snowing, and, as a result of S’s speech act, A came to know that it was snowing. Philosophical interest in communication turns on four inter-related questions. The first is about the logical structure of communication, or, more specifically, about whether communication is a relation that holds among three things just in case the first commu…Read more
  •  228
    Physicalism
    Philosophical Perspectives 4 153-185. 1990.