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313Ontology in the theory of meaningInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 14 (3). 2006.This paper advances a general argument, inspired by some remarks of Davidson, to show that appeal to meanings as entities in the theory of meaning is neither necessary nor sufficient for carrying out the tasks of the theory of meaning. The crucial point is that appeal to meaning as entities fails to provide us with an understanding of any expression of a language except insofar as we pick it out with an expression we understand which we tacitly recognize to be a translation of the term whose mea…Read more
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302Triangulating on Thought and NormsDialogue 59 (2): 175-206. 2020.This article raises two questions about Robert Myers and Claudine Verheggen's terrific book, Donald Davidson's Triangulation Argument: A Philosophical Inquiry. The first question, concerning the first part of the book, is whether, starting from the assumption that a solitary individual cannot have thought contents, we can show that adding another individual to the picture cannot resolve the problem. The second question, concerning the second part, is whether a more sophisticated, decision-theore…Read more
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279Davidson’s Objection to Horwich’s Minimalism about TruthJournal of Philosophy 101 (8): 429-437. 2004.This paper shows how one can respond within truth-theoretic semantics, without appeal to parataxis, to Donald Davidson's objection to the intelligibility of Paul Horwich's statement of the minimalist position on truth.
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257Plural Action Sentences and Logical Form: Reply to HimmelreichAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (4): 800-806. 2017.This paper replies to Himmelreich's ‘The Paraphrase Argument Against Collective Actions’ [2017], which presents three putative counterexamples to the multiple agents analysis of plural action sentences. The paper shows that the argument from the first example, the discursive dilemma, fails because it relies crucially on a simplification of the target analysis, and that the others don't bear on the question because they turn out on examination to be about individual rather than group action sente…Read more
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249The Sources of RelativismEthics 126 (1): 175-195. 2015.This is a review essay on Carol Rovane's book The Metaphysics and Ethics of Relativism. I outline the main line of argument, clarify the central claim, raise some questions about some of the arguments, and suggest some limits on the extent to which one could see another's views as right but not accept them.
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243Reply to FerreroMethode: Analytic Perspectives 4 (6): 75-87. 2015.I respond to Ferrero’s comments on “What are Conditional Intentions?” in three parts. In the first, I address three arguments Ferrero gives for his account and against mine, the argument from requirement of a formal distinction, the argument from continuity, and the argument from the rational pressures of intention. In the second, I raise some problems for Ferrero’s views on the basis drawing out its consequences and testing those against cases. In the third, I consider in a more theoretical vei…Read more
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241Dretske on explaining behaviorActa Analytica 11 111-124. 1996.Fred Dretske has recently argued, in a highly original book and a series of articles, that action explanations are a very special species of historical explanation, in opposition to the traditional view that action explanations cite causes of actions, which are identical with bodily movements. His account aims to explain how it is possible for there to be a genuine explanatory role for reasons in a world of causes, and, in particular, in a world in which we have available in principle an explan…Read more
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228The Truth about MoodsProtoSociology 10 19-66. 1997.Assertoric sentences are sentences which admit of truth or falsity. Non-assertoric sentences, imperatives and interrogatives, have long been a source of difficulty for the view that a theory of truth for a natural language can serve as the core of a theory of meaning. The trouble for truth-theoretic semantics posed by non-assertoric sentences is that, prima facie, it does not make sense to say that imperatives, such as 'Cut your hair', or interrogatives such as 'What time is it?', are truth o…Read more
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228Explaining why things look the way they doIn Kathleen Akins (ed.), Perception, Oxford University Press. pp. 18-60. 1996.How are we able to perceive the world veridically? If we ask this question as a part of the scientific investigation of perception, then we are not asking for a transcendental guarantee that our perceptions are by and large veridical; we presuppose that they are. Unless we assumed that we perceived the world for the most part veridically, we would not be in a position to investigate our perceptual abilities empirically. We are interested, then, not in how it is possible in general for us to perc…Read more
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222Let me go and tryPhilosophical Explorations 24 (3): 340-358. 2021.This paper argues for a deflationary account of trying on which ‘x tried to ϕ’ abbreviates ‘x did something with the intention of ϕ-ing’, where ‘did something’ is treated as a schematic verb. On this account, tryings are not a distinctive sort of episode present in some or all cases of acting. ‘x tried to ϕ’ simply relates some doing of x’s to a further aim x had, which may or may not have been achieved. Consequently, the analysis of ‘x tried to ϕ’ adds nothing to our basic understanding of the …Read more
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219Donald Davidson: meaning, truth, language, and realityOxford University Press. 2005.Ernest Lepore and Kirk Ludwig present the definitive critical exposition of the philosophical system of Donald Davidson. Davidson 's ideas had a deep and broad influence in the central areas of philosophy; he presented them in brilliant essays over four decades, but never set out explicitly the overarching scheme in which they all have their place. Lepore's and Ludwig's book will therefore be the key work, besides Davidson 's own, for understanding one of the greatest philosophers of the twentie…Read more
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196Causing actions (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (2). 2003.Critical Notice of Causing Actions by Paul Pietroski,
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183Radical skepticism about the external world is founded on two assumptions: one is that the mind and the external world are logically independent; the other is that all our evidence for the nature of that world consists of facts about our minds. In this paper, I explore the option of denying the epistemic, rather than the logical assumption. I argue that one can do so only by embracing externalism about justification, or, after all, by rejecting the logical independence assumption. Since (I ar…Read more
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175Is content holism incoherent?Grazer Philosophische Studien 46 (1): 173-195. 1993.There is a great deal of terminological confusion in discussions of holism. While some well-known authors, such as Davidson and Quine, have used “holism” in various of their writings,2 it is not clear that they have held views attributed to them under that label, views that are said to have wildly counterintuitive results.3 In Davidson’s case, it is not clear that he is describing the same doctrine in each of his uses of “holism” or “holistic.” Critics of holism show a similar license. My aim in…Read more
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175A dilemma for Searle's argument for the connection principleBehavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (1): 194-5. 1993.Objections to Searle's argument for the Connection Principle and its consequences (Searle 1990a) fall roughly into three categories: (1) those that focus on problems with the _argument_ for the Connection Principle; (2) those that focus on problems in understanding the _conclusion_ of this argument; (3) those that focus on whether the conclusion has the _consequences_ Searle claims for it. I think the Connection Principle is both true and important, but I do not think that Searle's argument esta…Read more
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172Duplicating thoughtsMind and Language 11 (1): 92-102. 1996.Suppose that a physical duplicate of me, right down to the arrangements of subatomic particles, comes into existence at the time at which I finish this sentence. Suppose that it comes into existence by chance, or at least by a causal process entirely unconnected with me. It might be so situated that it, too, is seated in front of a computer, and finishes this paragraph and paper, or a corresponding one, just as I do. (i) Would it have the same thoughts I do? (ii) Would it speak my language? (iii…Read more
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163Donald Davidson's truth-theoretic semanticsClarendon Press. 2007.The work of Donald Davidson (1917-2003) transformed the study of meaning. Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, two of the world's leading authorities on Davidson's work, present the definitive study of his widely admired and influential program of truth-theoretic semantics for natural languages, giving an exposition and critical examination of its foundations and applications.
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162Donald DavidsonIn Christopher Belshaw & Gary Kemp (eds.), 12 Modern Philosophers, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 199-224. 2009.This chapter reviews the work and influence of Donald Davidson across all the areas to which he contributed.
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158Direct reference in thought and speechCommunication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 26 (1): 49-76. 1993.I begin by distinguishing between what I will call a pure Fregean theory of reference and a theory of direct reference. A pure Fregean theory of reference holds that all reference to objects is determined by a sense or content. The kind of theory I have in mind is obviously inspired by Frege, but I will not be concerned with whether it is the theory that Frege himself held.1 A theory of direct reference, as I will understand it, denies that all reference to objects is determined by sense or con…Read more
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157First-person knowledge and authorityIn Gerhard Preyer (ed.), Language Mind and Epistemology: On Donald Davidson's Philosophy, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1994.Let us call a thought or belief whose content would be expressed by a sentence of subject-predicate form (by the thinker or someone attributing the thought to the thinker) an ‘ascription’. Thus, the thought that Madonna is middle-aged is an ascription of the property of being middle-aged to Madonna. To call a thought of this form an ascription is to emphasize the predicate in the sentence that gives its content. Let us call an ‘x-ascription’ an ascription whose subject is x, that is, an ascripti…Read more
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157Triangulation TriangulatedIn Maria Cristina Amoretti & Gerhard Preyer (eds.), Triangulation: From an Epistemological Point of View, De Gruyter. pp. 69-96. 2011.Appeal to triangulation occurs in two different contexts in Davidson’s work. In the first, triangulation—in the trigonometric sense—is used as an analogy to help explain the central idea of a transcendental argument designed to show that we can have the concept of objective truth only in the context of communication with another speaker. In the second, the triangulation of two speakers responding to each other and to a common cause of similar responses is invoked as a solution to the problem of …Read more
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153Critical Notice: Ron McClamrock, Existential Cognition (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (2). 1999.Review of Ron McClamrock's book Existential Cognition.
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138Why the difference between quantum and classical mechanics is irrelevant to the mind-body problemPSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 2. 1995.I argue that the logical difference between classical and quantum mechanics that Stapp (1995) claims shows quantum mechanics is more amenable to an account of consciousness than is classical mechanics is irrelevant to the problem.
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137Social externalism is the view that the contents of a person's propositional attitudes are logically determined at least in part by her linguistic community's standards for the use of her words. If social externalism is correct, its importance can hardly be overemphasized. The traditional Cartesian view of psychological states as essentially first personal and non-relational in character, which has shaped much theorizing about the nature of psychological explanation, would be shown to be deeply …Read more
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121What is Logical Form?In Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Logical Form and Language, Clarendon Press. 2002.This paper articulates and defends a conception of logical form as semantic form revealed by a compositional meaning theory. On this conception, the logical form of a sentence is determined by the semantic types of its primitive terms and their mode of combination as it relates to determining under what conditions it is true. We develop this idea in the framework of truth-theoretic semantics. We argue that the semantic form of a declarative sentence in a language L is revealed by a (canonical) p…Read more
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118Critical Notice: Existential Cognition: Computational Minds in the World (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (2): 537-540. 1999.Existential Cognition, divided into four parts of three chapters each, argues that the mind “is an essentially embedded entity; one such that analyzing it in isolation from the environmental context in which it functions will be fundamentally misleading”. Disputing internalists who accept, and who reject, information processing accounts of the mind, as well as anti-cognitivists who reject internalism, McClamrock argues for an externalist information processing account of mental states and proces…Read more
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116Adverbs of Action and Logical FormIn Timothy O'Connor & Constantine Sandis (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.This reviews, motivates, and extends the event analysis of action sentences and shows how it explains the compositionally of adverbial modification of action verbs and event verbs more generally. It includes a treatment of intensional adverbs like 'intentionally' and how it can be extended to the collective reading of plural action sentences.
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106Are there more than minimal a priori limits on irrationality?Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (1): 89-102. 1994.Our concern in this paper is with the question of how irrational an intentional agent can be, and, in particular, with an argument Stephen Stich has given for the claim that there are only very minimal a priori requirements on the rationality of intentional agents. The argument appears in chapter 2 of The Fragmentation of Reason.1 Stich is concerned there with the prospects for the ‘reform-minded epistemologist’. If there are a priori limits on how irrational we can be, there are limits to how m…Read more
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103Phenomenal consciousness and intentionality: Comments on The Significance of ConsciousnessPSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 8. 2002.Commentary on Charles Siewert's The Significance of Consciousness (Princeton, 1998). I discuss three issues about the relation of phenomenal consciousness, in the sense Siewert isolates, to intentionality. The first is whether, contrary to Siewert, phenomenal consciousness requires higher-order representation. The second is whether intentional features of conscious states are identical with phenomenal features, as Siewert argues, or merely conceptually supervene on them, with special attention t…Read more
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100Review Essay: Scott Soames, Philosophy of Language: Princeton University Press, 2010, Pp. ix, 189 (review)Philosophia 41 (3): 905-916. 2013.This is a review of Scott Soames's Philosophy of Language, Princeton, 2010.
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