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63Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume 1: The Dawn of Analysis (review)Philosophical Studies 129 (3): 645-665. 2005.I discuss Soames's proposal that Moore could have avoided a central problem in his moral philosophy if he had utilized a method he himself pioneered in epistemology. The problem in Moore's moral philossophy concerns what it is for a moral claim to be self-evident. The method in Moore's epistemology concerns not denying the obvious. In view of the distance between something's being self-evident and its being obvious, it is suggested that Soames's proposal is mistaken
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338Russell on AcquaintanceRoyal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series 20 219-244. 1986.In Russell's Problems of Philosophy (PP), acquaintance is the basis of thought and also the basis of empirical knowledge. Thought is based on acquaintance, in that a thinker has to be acquainted with the basic constituents of his thoughts. Empirical knowledge is based on acquaintance, in that acquaintance is involved in perception, and perception is the ultimate source of all empirical knowledge.
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115Thinking About ThingsOxford University Press. 2018.Mark Sainsbury presents an original account of how language works when describing mental states, based on a new theory of what is involved in attributing attitudes like thinking, hoping, and wanting. He offers solutions to longstanding puzzles about how we can direct our thought to such a diversity of things, including things that do not exist.
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Indexicals and Reported SpeechIn Robert L. Arrington, M. Burkholder Peter, James Shannon Dubose, James W. Dye, Bertrand K. Feibleman, Max Hocutt P. Helm, N. Lee Harold, N. Roberts Louise, C. Sallis John & H. Weiss Donald (eds.), Philosophical Logic, Tulane University. pp. 45-69. 1967.
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8SoritesIn B. Hale & Crispin Wright (eds.), Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Blackwell. 1995.
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86Proper namesIn R. M. Sainsbury (ed.), Reference Without Referents, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 86-124. 2005.The sources of the attractiveness of descriptivism and of direct reference theories are identified and shown to be wanting. The intermediate position, RWR, is one in which a proper name may or may not have a bearer, though if it has one it will have it essentially, and if it lacks one this will also be essential. A full development of the view makes use of the notion of the practice of using a name, and a preliminary attempt is made to identify the main components of the concept of a name-using …Read more
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123Pronouns: anaphora and demonstrationIn R. M. Sainsbury (ed.), Reference Without Referents, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 125-169. 2005.Discusses two main uses of pronouns—anaphoric and demonstrative. These pronouns can belong to an intelligible sentence even if they have no referent, so they vindicate the thesis of RWR. A test for intelligibility is that we can correctly report indirect speech in which such a pronoun is used, replacing the original speaker’s demonstrative pronoun by an anaphoric one. For example, a hallucinator’s utterance of ’That little green man is bald’ can be reported as ‘Hallucinating a little green man, …Read more
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73Mental reference and individual conceptsIn R. M. Sainsbury (ed.), Reference Without Referents, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 216-254. 2005.Applies the book’s main ideas to mental content. The suggestion is that individual concepts, the concepts we use to think about individual objects, should be understood in the RWR or reference-conditional way, so that non-referring ones may be components in genuine thoughts. This is applied to perceptual content, and it is suggested that the RWR approach does best justice to the content of hallucinations.
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96Framework issuesIn R. M. Sainsbury (ed.), Reference Without Referents, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 47-85. 2005.Sets out the framework within which Reference without referents theory is developed. Truth theoretic semantics, though it certainly cannot tell us everything we wish to know, is accorded a significant role; the impact of the idea of a Russellian proposition is noted and deplored, negative free logic is described and endorsed, a methodology of maximizing ontological conservatism is stated, and the notion of rigidity is explained and shown to be intuitively consistent with lack of a referent.
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74Existence and fictionIn R. M. Sainsbury (ed.), Reference Without Referents, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 195-215. 2005.Shows how well the book’s theory applies to existential statements, providing a very straightforward account of true negative ones. The theory also applies reasonably well to fiction, and the remaining problems are problematic for all theories.
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62Complex referring expressionsIn R. M. Sainsbury (ed.), Reference Without Referents, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 170-194. 2005.Starts by showing that semantic complexity is not as such a barrier to being a referring expression, using the example of compound names. Goes on to consider whether definite descriptions, at least in some uses, should be counted as referring expressions and concludes that they should be, even if one endorses Russellian truth conditions for sentences containing definite descriptions.
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78A short history of theories of namesIn R. M. Sainsbury (ed.), Reference Without Referents, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 1-46. 2005.Sets out a short history of proper names, those paradigms of referring expressions. The starting point is Mill, and the history is traced through Frege, Russell, Kripke, and McDowell. In the final section, the theory to be defended in the book is briefly stated.
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187Projections and RelationsThe Monist 81 (1): 133-160. 1998.The paper evaluates Hume's alleged projectivism about causation and moral values.
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112Austerity and OpennessIn Cynthia Macdonald & Graham MacDonald (eds.), McDowell and His Critics, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 6--1. 2008.This chapter contains section titled: I II III.
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164Lessons for Vagueness from Scrambled SoritesMetaphysica 14 (2): 225-237. 2013.Vagueness demands many boundaries. Each is permissible, in that a thinker may without error use it to distinguish objects, though none is mandatory. This is revealed by a thought experiment—scrambled sorites—in which objects from a sorites series are presented in a random order, and subjects are required to make their judgments without access to any previous objects or their judgments concerning them.
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164IX*—Understanding and Theories of MeaningProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 80 (1): 127-144. 1980.R. M. Sainsbury; IX*—Understanding and Theories of Meaning, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 80, Issue 1, 1 June 1980, Pages 127–144, https://doi.
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91The Reference Book. By John Hawthorne and David Manley. Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 280, £30. ISBN: 978-0-19-969367-2 (review)Philosophy 88 (3): 475-478. 2013.
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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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Realism vs Nominalism about theDispositional-Non-Dispositional DistinctionIn Michele Marsonet (ed.), The Problem of Realism, Ashgate. pp. 160. 2002.
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RussellIn Ted Honderich (ed.), The Philosophers: Introducing Great Western Thinkers, Oxford University Press. 2001.
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26Option 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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195III*—Tolerating VaguenessProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 89 (1): 33-48. 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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135Vagueness and Semantic MethodologyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (2): 475-482. 2015.
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Areas of Interest
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| Epistemology |
| Metaphysics |
| Philosophy of Action |
| Philosophy of Language |
| Philosophy of Mind |
| M&E, Misc |