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21Intentionality Without ExoticaIn Robin Jeshion (ed.), New Essays on Singular Thought, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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61Departing from Frege: essays in the philosophy of languageRoutledge. 2002.This text argues that we must depart considerably from Frege's own views if we are to work towards an adequate conception of natural language.
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68Moral dilemmasThink 8 (22): 57-63. 2009.Could it be that one morally ought to do something morally bad? Some people think the answer is obviously ‘No’. Indeed, these theorists may say, it is contradictory to suppose that one morally ought to do something morally bad. Others hold that it is not a contradiction but a sad fact of life that one may be morally required to do something morally bad. This latter position is the one I'll be supporting. If it's the right view, it really matters in practical affairs. For example, almost everyone…Read more
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24Philosophical 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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129Russell 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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19Thinking 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 J. W. Davis (ed.), Philosophical logic, D. Reidel. pp. 45-69. 1969.
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6SoritesIn B. Hale & C. Wright (eds.), Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Blackwell. 1995.
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4Philosophical logicIn A. C. Grayling (ed.), Philosophy: A Guide Through the Subject, Oxford University Press. 1995.
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77Cartesian possibilities and the externality and extrinsicness of contentSynthese 89 (3): 407-424. 1991.
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35Names in free logical truth theoryIn José Luis Bermúdez (ed.), Thought, Reference, and Experience: Themes From the Philosophy of Gareth Evans, Clarendon Press. 2005.Evans envisaged a language containing both Russellian and descriptive names. A language with descriptive names, which can contribute to truth conditions even if they have no bearer, needs a free logical truth theory. But a metalanguage with this logic threatens to emasculate Russellian names. The paper details this problem and shows, on Evans's behalf, how it might be resolved.
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31Austerity and OpennessIn Cynthia Macdonald & Graham Macdonald (eds.), McDowell and his critics, Blackwell. pp. 6--1. 2006.Article
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16III*—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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18The 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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85Sorites paradoxes and the transition questionPhilosophical Papers 21 (3): 177-190. 1992.This discusses the kind of paradox that has since become known as "the forced march sorites", here called "the transition question". The question is whether this is really a new kind of paradox, or the familiar sorites in unfamiliar garb. The author argues that resources adequate to deal with ordinary sorites are sufficient to deal with the transition question, and tentatively proposes an affirmative answer.
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34Hume's idea of necessary connection/A idéia de conexão necessária em HumeManuscrito 30 (2): 341-355. 2007.Hume seems to tell us that our ideas are copies of our corresponding impres-sions, that we have an idea of necessary connection, but that we have no corresponding impression, since nothing can be known to be really necessarily connected. The paper considers two ways of reinterpreting the doctrine of the origins of ideas so as to avoid the apparent inconsistency. If we see the doctrine as concerned primarily with establishing conditions under which we possess an idea, there is no need for an idea…Read more
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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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505A very large fly in the ointment: Davidsonian truth theory contextualizedIn Richard Schantz (ed.), Prospects for Meaning, Walter De Gruyter. 2012.one hand, it raises fundamental doubts about the Davidsonian project, which seems to involve isolating specifically semantic knowledge from any other knowledge or skill in a way reflected by the ideal of homophony. Indexicality forces a departure from this ideal, and so from the aspiration of deriving the truth conditions of an arbitrary utterance on the basis simply of axioms which could hope to represent purely semantic knowledge. In defence of Davidson, I argue that once his original idea for…Read more
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1Referring descriptionsIn Marga Reimer & Anne Bezuidenhout (eds.), Descriptions and Beyond, Oxford University Press. pp. 369--89. 2004.
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95Lessons 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.
Austin, Texas, United States of America
Areas of Interest
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Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
M&E, Misc |