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26From Individual to Plural Agency: Collective Action IOxford University Press UK. 2016.Kirk Ludwig develops a novel reductive account of plural discourse about collective action and shared intention. Part I develops the event analysis of action sentences, provides an account of the content of individual intentions, and on that basis an analysis of individual intentional action. Part II shows how to extend the account to collective action, intentional and unintentional, and shared intention, expressed in sentences with plural subjects. On the account developed, collective action is…Read more
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159Direct 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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1192The mind-body problem: An overviewIn Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. pp. 1-46. 2002.My primary aim in this chapter is to explain in what the traditional mind–body problem consists, what its possible solutions are, and what obstacles lie in the way of a resolution. The discussion will develop in two phases. The first phase, sections 1.2–1.4, will be concerned to get clearer about the import of our initial question as a precondition of developing an account of possible responses to it. The second phase, sections 1.5–1.6, explains how a problem arises in our attempts to answer the…Read more
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47Critical Notice: Reference and Consciousness by John Campbell (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2): 490-494. 2006.Argues that Campbell's case for the externalist view that reference is grounded in perceptual demonstratives whose objects partially constitute the experience of consciously attending to it is unsuccessful and that explanatorily the view that conditions of reference are set by way of internal conditions in thought is no worse off.
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439Shape Properties and PerceptionPhilosophical Issues 7 325-350. 1996.We can perceive shapes visually and tactilely, and the information we gain about shapes through both sensory modalities is integrated smoothly into and functions in the same way in our behavior independently of whether we gain it by sight or touch. There seems to be no reason in principle we couldn't perceive shapes through other sensory modalities as well, although as a matter of fact we do not. While we can identify shapes through other sensory modalities—e.g., I may know by smell (the scent o…Read more
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314Ontology 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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51Critical Notices (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2): 490-494. 2007.This is a review essay on John Campbell's Reference and Consciousness. I concentrate on three basic interconnected questions about Campbell's main themes. (1) Why think ‘perceptual demonstratives’ are connected to a psychologically fundamental form of contact with the world? (2) How does attention to information processing help explain knowledge of reference? (3) How is the relational view supposed to provide the explanatory power its rival is said to lack?
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80Triangulation TriangulatedIn Cristina Amoretti & Gerhard Preyer (eds.), Triangulation: from an epistemological point of view, . pp. 69-95. 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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327Impossible doingsPhilosophical Studies 65 (3). 1992.This paper attacks an old dogma in the philosophy of action: the idea that in order to intend to do something one must believe that there is at least some chance that one will succeed at what one intends. I think that this is a mistake, and that recognizing this will force us to rethink standard accounts of what it is to intend to do something and to do it intentionally.
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936Logical FormIn Gillian Russell & Delia Graff (eds.), Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language, Routledge. pp. 29-41. 2012.This chapter reviews some of the history of discussions of logical form and offers a truth-theoretic account that traces back to Donald Davidson
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235Explaining 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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719Trying the Impossible: Reply to AdamsJournal of Philosophical Research 20 563-570. 1995.This paper defends the autonomy thesis, which holds that one can intend to do something even though one believes it to be impossible, against attacks by Fred Adams. Adams denies the autonomy thesis on the grounds that it cannot, but must, explain what makes a particular trying, a trying for the aim it has in view. If the autonomy thesis were true, it seems that I could try to fly across the Atlantic ocean merely by typing out this abstract, a palpable absurdity. If we deny the autonomy thesis, w…Read more
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444Do corporations have minds of their own?Philosophical Psychology 30 (3): 265-297. 2017.Corporations have often been taken to be the paradigm of an organization whose agency is autonomous from that of the successive waves of people who occupy the pattern of roles that define its structure, which licenses saying that the corporation has attitudes, interests, goals, and beliefs which are not those of the role occupants. In this essay, I sketch a deflationary account of agency-discourse about corporations. I identify institutional roles with a special type of status function, a status…Read more
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The Arrangement Of The Soul: Philosophy And The Professional Philosopher Presidential Address To The 47th Annual Meeting Of The Florida Philosophical AssociationFlorida Philosophical Review 2 (1): 5-10. 2002.
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636Brains in a Vat, Subjectivity, and the Causal Theory of ReferenceJournal of Philosophical Research 17 313-345. 1992.This paper evaluates Putnam’s argument in the first chapter of Reason, Truth and History, for the claim that we can know that we are not brains in a vat (of a certain sort). A widespread response to Putnam’s argument has been that if it were successful not only the world but the meanings of our words (and consequently our thoughts) would be beyond the pale of knowledge, because a causal theory of reference is not compatible with our having knowledge of the meanings of our words. I argue that thi…Read more
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487Semantics for Non-DeclarativesIn Ernest Lepore & Barry C. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, Oxford University Press. 2006.This article begins by distinguishing force and mood. Then it lays out desiderata on a successful account. It sketches as background the program of truth-theoretic semantics. Next, it surveys assimilation approaches and argues that they are inadequate. Then it shows how the fulfillment-conditional approach can be applied to imperatives, interrogatives, molecular sentences containing them, and quantification into mood markers. Next, it considers briefly the recent set of propositions approach to …Read more
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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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51We owe to Donald Davidson the suggestion that a truth theory used as an interpretation theory for a speaker can do duty as a meaning theory for his language. This is a brilliant suggestion, but there are some oddities in the development of this idea in Davidson’s work which need to be brought to light, and the project, in the form it takes in Davidson’s hands, in the end is too ambitious to succeed. I begin by distinguishing three questions: 1.What is it for a word or expression to be meaningf…Read more
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731Shared Agency in Modest SocialityJournal of Social Ontology 1 (1): 7-15. 2014.This is contribution to a symposium on Michael Bratman's book Shared Agency : A Planning Theory of Acting Together
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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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420Corporate Speech in Citizens United vs. Federal Election CommissionSpazioFilosofico 16 47-79. 2016.In its January 20th, 2010 decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, the United States Supreme Court ruled that certain restrictions on independent expenditures by corporations for political advocacy violate the First Amendment of the Constitution, which provides that “Congress shall make no law […] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Justice Kennedy, wri…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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65The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality (edited book)Routledge. 2018.The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality is the first of its kind, synthesizing research from several disciplines for all students and professionals interested in better understanding the nature and structure of social reality. The contents of the volume are divided into eight sections, each of which begins with a short introduction: Collective Action and Intention Shared and Joint Attitudes Epistemology and Rationality in the Social Context Social Ontology Collectives and Responsibil…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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399Singular thought and the cartesian theory of mindNoûs 30 (4): 434-460. 1996.(1) Content properties are nonrelational, that is, having a content property does not entail the existence of any contingent object not identical with the thinker or a part of the thinker.2 (2) We have noninferential knowledge of our conscious thoughts, that is, for any of our..
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712The semantics and pragmatics of complex demonstrativesMind 109 (434): 199-240. 2000.Complex demonstratives, expressions of the form 'That F', 'These Fs', etc., have traditionally been taken to be referring terms. Yet they exhibit many of the features of quantified noun phrases. This has led some philosophers to suggest that demonstrative determiners are a special kind of quantifier, which can be paraphrased using a context sensitive definite description. Both these views contain elements of the truth, though each is mistaken. We advance a novel account of the semantic form of c…Read more
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101Review 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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