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84How to delimit semantics is an ongoing problem in linguistics and philosophy of language. Like syntax, semantics is concerned only with information that competent speakers can glean from linguistic items apart from particular contexts of utterance. Anything a hearer infers from collateral information about the context of a particular utterance thus counts as nonsemantic information. Even so, it is a semantic fact about certain linguistic items, notably indexicals (such as 'she', 'here', and 'the…Read more
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153Default Reasoning: Jumping to Conclusions and Knowing When to Think TwicePacific Philosophical Quarterly 65 (1): 37. 1984.Look before you leap. - Proverb. He who hesitates is lost. - Another proverb
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273You Don't Say?Synthese 128 (1-2): 15-44. 2001.This paper defends a purely semantic notionof what is said against various recent objections. Theobjections each cite some sort of linguistic,psychological, or epistemological fact that issupposed to show that on any viable notion of what aspeaker says in uttering a sentence, there ispragmatic intrusion into what is said. Relying on amodified version of Grice's notion, on which what issaid must be a projection of the syntax of the utteredsentence, I argue that a purely semantic notion isneeded t…Read more
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129Minding the gapIn Claudia Bianchi (ed.), The Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction, Csli Publications. pp. 27--43. 2004.
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308The theory of speech acts is partly taxonomic and partly explanatory. It must systematically classify types of speech acts and the ways in which they can succeed or fail. It must reckon with the fact that the relationship between the words being used and the force of their utterance is often oblique. For example, the sentence 'This is a pig sty' might be used nonliterally to state that a certain room is messy and filthy and, further, to demand indirectly that it be straightened out and cleaned u…Read more
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51Critical noticeIn Brian P. McLaughlin & Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (eds.), Perspectives on Self-Deception, University of California Press. 1988.As philosophical topics go, self-deception has something for everyone. It raises basic questions about the nature of belief and the relation of belief to thought, desire, and the will. It provokes further questions on such topics as reasoning, attention, self-knowledge, the unity of the self, intentional action, motivation, self-esteem, psychic defenses, the unconscious, personal character, and interpersonal relations. There are two basic questions about self-deception itself, which each take a …Read more
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20"The Structure of Emotions" by Robert M. Gordon (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (2): 362. 1988.
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211Loaded Words: On the Semantics and Pragmatics of SlursIn David Sosa (ed.), Bad Words: Philosophical Perspectives on Slurs, Oxford University Press. pp. 60-76. 2018.There are many mean and nasty things to say about mean and nasty talk, but I don't plan on saying any of them. There's a specific problem about slurring words that I want to address. This is a semantic problem. It's not very important compared to the real-world problems presented by bigotry, racism, discrimination, and worse. It's important only to linguistics and the philosophy of language.
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Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
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Epistemology |
Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Meta-Ethics |