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115Context-sensitive truth-theoretic accounts of semantic competenceMind and Language 20 (1). 2005.According to cognitivist truth-theoretic accounts of semantic competence, aspects of our linguistic behavior can be explained by ascribing to speakers cognition of truth theories. It's generally assumed on this approach that, however much context sensitivity speakers' languages contain, the cognized truththeories themselves can be adequately characterized context insensitively—that is, without using in the metalanguage expressions whose semantic value can vary across occasions of utterance. In t…Read more
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1453Are linguists better subjects?British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (4): 721-736. 2009.Who are the best subjects for judgment tasks intended to test grammatical hypotheses? Michael Devitt ( [2006a] , [2006b] ) argues, on the basis of a hypothesis concerning the psychology of such judgments, that linguists themselves are. We present empirical evidence suggesting that the relevant divide is not between linguists and non-linguists, but between subjects with and without minimally sufficient task-specific knowledge. In particular, we show that subjects with at least some minimal exposu…Read more
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955Does Perceptual Consciousness Overflow Cognitive Access? The Challenge from Probabilistic, Hierarchical ProcessesMind and Language 32 (3): 358-391. 2017.Does perceptual consciousness require cognitive access? Ned Block argues that it does not. Central to his case are visual memory experiments that employ post-stimulus cueing—in particular, Sperling's classic partial report studies, change-detection work by Lamme and colleagues, and a recent paper by Bronfman and colleagues that exploits our perception of ‘gist’ properties. We argue contra Block that these experiments do not support his claim. Our reinterpretations differ from previous critics' i…Read more
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111The Metaphysics of Meaning: Hopkins on WittgensteinInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 23 (4): 518-538. 2015.Jim Hopkins defends a ‘straight’ response to Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations, a response he ascribes to Wittgenstein himself. According to this response, what makes it the case that A means that P is that it is possible for another to interpret A as meaning that P. Hopkins thus advances a form of interpretivist judgment-dependence about meaning. I argue that this response, as well as a variant, does not succeed
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50The claims are grounded in a wealth of fascinating data, particularly on primate and young child communication and social cognition, much produced by Tomasello’s own lab. But there is certainly no dearth of stimulating speculation. Tomasello’s story is rich and complex. In what follows, I focus on aspects of the three hypotheses listed above, offering some commentary as I go.
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10There is a long tradition of drawing metaphysical conclusions from investigations into language. This paper concerns one contemporary variation on this theme: the alleged ontological significance of cognitivist truth-theoretic accounts of semantic competence
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145Book review. Concepts: Where cognitive science went wrong Jerry Fodor (review)Mind 110 (438): 469-475. 1998.
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953Problems for the Purported Cognitive Penetration of Perceptual Color Experience and Macpherson’s Proposed MechanismBaltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication. 2014.Fiona Macpherson (2012) argues that various experimental results provide strong evidence in favor of the cognitive penetration of perceptual color experience. Moreover, she proposes a mechanism for how such cognitive penetration occurs. We argue, first, that the results on which Macpherson relies do not provide strong grounds for her claim of cognitive penetrability; and, second, that, if the results do reflect cognitive penetrability, then time-course considerations raise worries for her propos…Read more
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82What’s Within? Nativism Reconsidered (review)Philosophical Review 110 (1): 94-97. 2001.Fiona Cowie’s _What’s Within_ consists of three parts. In the first, she examines the early modern rationalist- empiricist debate over nativism, isolating what she considers the two substantive “strands” (67)1 that truly separated them: whether there exist domain-specific learning mechanisms, and whether concept acquisition is amenable to naturalistic explanation. She then turns, in the book’s succeeding parts, to where things stand today with these issues. The second part argues that Jerry Fodo…Read more
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49Should a theory of meaning state what sentences mean, and can a Davidsonian theory of meaning in particular do so? Max Ko¨lbel answers both questions affirmatively. I argue, however, that the phenomena of non-homophony, non-truth-conditional aspects of meaning, semantic mood, and context-sensitivity provide prima facie obstacles for extending Davidsonian truth-theories to yield meaning-stating theorems. Assessing some natural moves in reply requires a more fully developed conception of the task …Read more
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216Putnam, Context, and OntologyCanadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (4). 2004.When a debate seems intractable, with little agreement as to how one might proceed towards a resolution, it is understandable that philosophers should consider whether something might be amiss with the debate itself. Famously in the last century, philosophers of various stripes explored in various ways the possibility that at least certain philosophical debates are in some manner deficient in sense. Such moves are no longer so much in vogue. For one thing, the particular ways they have been made…Read more
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725Davidson, first-person authority, and the evidence for semanticsIn Gerhard Preyer (ed.), Donald Davidson on truth, meaning, and the mental, Oxford University Press. pp. 228-48. 2012.Donald Davidson aims to illuminate the concept of meaning by asking: What knowledge would suffice to put one in a position to understand the speech of another, and what evidence sufficiently distant from the concepts to be illuminated could in principle ground such knowledge? Davidson answers: knowledge of an appropriate truth-theory for the speaker’s language, grounded in what sentences the speaker holds true, or prefers true, in what circumstances. In support of this answer, he both outlines s…Read more
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1616Revisited Linguistic IntuitionsBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (3). 2011.Michael Devitt ([2006a], [2006b]) argues that, insofar as linguists possess better theories about language than non-linguists, their linguistic intuitions are more reliable. (Culbertson and Gross [2009]) presented empirical evidence contrary to this claim. Devitt ([2010]) replies that, in part because we overemphasize the distinction between acceptability and grammaticality, we misunderstand linguists' claims, fall into inconsistency, and fail to see how our empirical results can be squared with…Read more
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534Descriptive Semantic ExternalismIn Nick Riemer (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Semantics, Routledge. pp. 13-29. 2015.This chapter examines the “externalist” claim that semantics should include theorizing about representational relations among linguistic expressions and (purported) aspects of the world. After disentangling our main topic from other strands in the larger set of externalist-internalist debates, arguments both for and against this claim are discussed. It is argued, among other things, that the fortunes of this externalist claim are bound up with contentious issues concerning the semantics-pragmati…Read more
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98The nature of semantics: On Jackendoff's argumentsLinguistic Review 22 249-270. 2005.Jackendoff defends a mentalist approach to semantics that investigates conceptual structures in the mind/brain and their interfaces with other structures, including specifically linguistic structures responsible for syntactic and phonological competence. He contrasts this approach with one that seeks to characterize the intentional relations between expressions and objects in the world. The latter, he argues, cannot be reconciled with mentalism. He objects in particular that intentionality canno…Read more
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866Review of Ray Jackendoff, Language, Consciousness, Culture (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 20095. 2009.
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1002Knowledge of Meaning, Conscious and UnconsciousThe Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication. 2010.This paper motivates two bases for ascribing propositional semantic knowledge (or something knowledgelike): first, because it’s necessary to rationalize linguistic action; and, second, because it’s part of an empirical theory that would explain various aspects of linguistic behavior. The semantic knowledge ascribed on these two bases seems to differ in content, epistemic status, and cognitive role. This raises the question: how are they related, if at all? The bulk of the paper addresses this qu…Read more
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150There is a long tradition of drawing metaphysical conclusions from investigations into language. This paper concerns one contemporary variation on this theme: the alleged ontological significance of cognitivist truth-theoretic accounts of semantic competence. According to such accounts, human speakers’ linguistic behavior is in part empirically explained by their cognizing a truth-theory. Such a theory consists of a finite number of axioms assigning semantic values to lexical items, a finite num…Read more
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333Review of The Cognitive Penetrability of Perception (Zeimbekis and Raftopoulos, eds.) (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2016 1-7. 2016.
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92Sincerely saying what you don't believe againDialectica 62 (3): 349-354. 2008.Cappelen and Lepore (2005) argue that "[s]peakers need not believe everything they sincerely say." I argue that their latest (2006a) defence of this claim proposes a problematic principle that does not yield their surprising conclusion.
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