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128The Same NameErkenntnis 80 (2): 195-214. 2015.When are two tokens of a name tokens of the same name? According to this paper, the answer is a matter of the historical connections between the tokens. For each name, there is a unique originating event, and subsequent tokens are tokens of that name only if they derive in an appropriate way from that originating event. The conditions for a token being a token of a given name are distinct from the conditions for preservation of the reference of a name. Hence a name may change its reference. Defe…Read more
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38Semantic Theory and Grammatical StructureAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 54 (1). 1980.
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756Reference Without ReferentsClarendon Press. 2005.Reference is a central topic in philosophy of language, and has been the main focus of discussion about how language relates to the world. R. M. Sainsbury sets out a new approach to the concept, which promises to bring to an end some long-standing debates in semantic theory. Lucid and accessible, and written with a minimum of technicality, Sainsbury's book also includes a useful historical survey. It will be of interest to those working in logic, mind, and metaphysics as well as essential readin…Read more
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981Intentionality without exoticaIn Robin Jeshion (ed.), New Essays on Singular Thought, Oxford University Press. 2010.The paper argues that intensional phenomena can be explained without appealing to "exotic" entities: one that don't exist, are merely possible, or are essentially abstract.
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1Referring DescriptionsIn Marga Reimer & Anne Bezuidenhout (eds.), Descriptions and beyond, Oxford University Press. 2004.
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132Book review. Think. A compelling introduction to philosophy Simon Blackburn (review)Mind 110 (438): 430-432. 2001.
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92Projections and RelationsThe Monist 81 (1): 133-160. 1998.The paper evaluates Hume's alleged projectivism about causation and moral values.
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5Meeting the Hare in her doubles : Causal belief and general beliefIn Marina Frasca-Spada & P. J. E. Kail (eds.), Impressions of Hume, Oxford University Press. 2005.Article
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90Vagueness and Semantic MethodologyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (2): 475-482. 2015.
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30Intensional Transitives and PresuppositionsCritica 40 (120): 129-139. 2008.My commentators point to respects in which the picture provided in Reference without Referents is incomplete. The picture provided no account of how sentences constructed from intensional verbs can be true when one of the referring expressions fails to refer. And it gave an incomplete, and possibly misleading, account of how to understand certain serious uses of fictional names, as in "Anna Karenina is more intelligent than Emma Bovary" and "Anna Karenina does not exist". In the present response…Read more
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626Scott Soames, philosophical analysis in the twentieth century: Volume 1: The dawn of analysis (review)Philosophical Studies 129 (3). 2006.The review praises the philosophical quality, but is less enthusiastic about the scholarship and historical accuracy.
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207Fiction and FictionalismRoutledge. 2009.Are fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes real? What can fiction tell us about the nature of truth and reality? In this excellent introduction to the problem of fictionalism R. M. Sainsbury covers the following key topics: what is fiction? realism about fictional objects, including the arguments that fictional objects are real but non-existent; real but non-factual; real but non-concrete the relationship between fictional characters and non-actual worlds fictional entities as abstract art…Read more
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2067Concepts without boundariesIn Rosanna Keefe & Peter Smith (eds.), Vagueness: A Reader, Mit Press. pp. 186-205. 1996.
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RussellIn Ted Honderich (ed.), The philosophers: introducing great western thinkers, Oxford University Press. 1995.
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90Benevolence and evilAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (2). 1980.This Article does not have an abstract
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9Option negation and dialetheiasIn Graham Priest, Jc Beall & Bradley P. Armour-Garb (eds.), The law of non-contradiction : new philosophical essays, Oxford University Press. pp. 85--92. 2004.
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43Tolerating VaguenessProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 89. 1989.R. M. Sainsbury; III*—Tolerating Vagueness, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 89, Issue 1, 1 June 1989, Pages 33–48, https://doi.org/10.1093/arist.
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12Semantic Theory and Grammatical StructureAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 54 (1): 133-172. 1980.
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13Indexicals and Reported SpeechIn T. J. Smiley & Thomas Baldwin (eds.), Studies in the philosophy of logic and knowledge, Published For the British Academy By Oxford University Press. pp. 209. 2004.
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506'Of course there are fictional characters'Revue Internationale de Philosophie 262 (4): 615-40. 2012.There is no straightforward inference from there being fictional characters to any interesting form of realism. One reason is that “fictional” may be an intensional operator with wide scope, depriving the quantifier of its usual force. Another is that not all uses of “there are” are ontologically committing. A realist needs to show that neither of these phenomena are present in “There are fictional characters”. Other roads to realism run into difficulties when negotiating the role that presuppos…Read more
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English speakers should use "I" to refer to themselvesIn Anthony Hatzimoysis (ed.), Self-Knowledge, Oxford University Press. 2011.
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Areas of Interest
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Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
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