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129Generalizing Detached Self-Reference and the Semantics of Generic OneMind and Language 25 (4): 440-473. 2010.In this paper I will give an analysis of what I call ‘generalizing detached self-reference’ within a general account of reference to the first person. With generalizing detached self-reference an agent attributes properties to a range of individuals by putting himself into their shoes, or simulating them. I will show that generalizing detached self-reference plays an important role in the semantics of natural language, in particular in the English generic one and in what syntacticians call arbit…Read more
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324Attitude Reports, Cognitive Products, and Attitudinal Objects: A Response to G. Felappi On Product‐Based Accounts of AttitudesThought: A Journal of Philosophy 6 (1): 3-12. 2017.In a range of recent and not so recent work, I have developed a novel semantics of attitude reports on which the notion of an attitudinal object or cognitive product takes center stage, that is, entities such as thoughts claims and decisions. The purpose of this note is to give a brief summary of this account against the background of the standard semantics of attitude reports and to show that the various sorts of criticism that Felappi recently advanced against it are mistaken.
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557Variable Objects and TruthmakingIn Mircea Dumitru (ed.), Metaphysics, Meaning, and Modality. Themes from Kit Fine, Oxford University Press. 2020.This paper will focus on a philosophically significant construction whose semantics brings together two important notions in Kit Fine’s philosophy, the notion of truthmaking and the notion of a variable embodiment, or its extension, namely what I call a ‘variable object’. This is the construction of definite NPs like 'the number of people that can fit into the bus', 'the book John needs to write', and 'the gifted mathematician John claims to be'. Such NPs are analysed as standing for variable ob…Read more
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707Quantification with Intentional and with Intensional VerbsIn Alessandro Torza (ed.), Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers, Springer. 2015.The question whether natural language permits quantification over intentional objects as the ‘nonexistent’ objects of thought is the topic of a major philosophical controversy, as is the status of intentional objects as such. This paper will argue that natural language does reflect a particular notion of intentional object and in particular that certain types of natural language constructions (generally disregarded in the philosophical literature) cannot be analysed without positing intentional …Read more
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660Two kinds of universals and two kinds of collectionsLinguistics and Philosophy 27 (6). 2004.This paper argues for an ontological distinction between two kinds of universals, 'kinds of tropes' such as 'wisdom' and properties such as 'the property of being wise'. It argues that the distinction is parallel to that between two kinds of collections, pluralities such as 'the students' and collective objects such as 'the class'. The paper argues for the priortity of distributive readings with pluralities on the basis of predicates of extent or shape, such 'large' or 'long'.
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1237Nominalizations: The Case of Nominalizations of Modal PredicatesIn Lisa Matthewson, Cécile Meier, Hotze Rullman & Thomas Ede Zimmermann (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Semantics, Wiley. 2020.Nominalizations of modal predicates have received little, if any, attention in the semantic or philosophical literature. This paper will argue that nominalizations of modal predicates require recognizing a novel ontological category of modal objects and it will outline a new semantics of modals based on modal objects.
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359Propositional attitudes without propositionsSynthese 135 (1). 2003.The most common account of attitude reports is the relational analysis according towhich an attitude verb taking that-clause complements expresses a two-placerelation between agents and propositions and the that-clause acts as an expressionwhose function is to provide the propositional argument. I will argue that a closerexamination of a broader range of linguistic facts raises serious problems for thisanalysis and instead favours a Russellian `multiple relations analysis' (which hasgenerally be…Read more
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PhD, 1992
La Terrasse, Rhone-Alpes, France
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |