•  118
    What logic should we think with?
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 51 1-17. 2002.
    Logic ought to guide our thinking. It is better, more rational, more intelligent to think logically than to think illogically. Illogical thought leads to bad judgment and error. In any case, if logic had no role to play as a guide to thought, why should we bother with it?The somewhat naïve opinions of the previous paragraph are subject to attack from many sides. It may be objected that an activity does not count as thinking at all unless it is at least minimally logical, so logic is constitutive…Read more
  •  887
    A puzzle about how things look
    In Mary Margaret McCabe & Mark Textor (eds.), Perspectives on Perception, De Gruyter. 2007.
    Differently illuminated, things in one sense look different, but in another sense look the same.
  •  122
    The Same Name
    Erkenntnis 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
  •  29
    Semantic Theory and Grammatical Structure
    with Barry Richards
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 54 (1). 1980.
  •  2
    Humes Idea of necessary connection
    Manuscrito 20 213-230. 1997.
  •  749
    Reference Without Referents
    Clarendon 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
  •  918
    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.
  •  1
    Referring Descriptions
    In Marga Reimer & Anne Bezuidenhout (eds.), Descriptions and Beyond, Clarendon Press. 2004.
  •  19
    Easy Possibilities
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (4): 907-919. 1997.
  •  77
    Projections and Relations
    The Monist 81 (1): 133-160. 1998.
    The paper evaluates Hume's alleged projectivism about causation and moral values.
  •  5
    Meeting the Hare in her doubles : Causal belief and general belief
    In Marina Frasca-Spada & P. J. E. Kail (eds.), Impressions of Hume, Oxford University Press. 2005.
    Article
  •  72
    Vagueness and Semantic Methodology
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (2): 475-482. 2015.
  •  89
  •  48
    Intensional Transitives and Presuppositions
    Critica 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
  •  578
    The review praises the philosophical quality, but is less enthusiastic about the scholarship and historical accuracy.
  •  1
    The Sainsbury Discussion
    Philosophy International. 1997.
  •  78
    Rejoinder to Rasmussen
    Analysis 44 (3). 1984.
  •  324
    Fiction and Fictionalism
    Routledge. 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
  • Russell
    In Ted Honderich (ed.), The Philosophers: Introducing Great Western Thinkers, Oxford University Press. 1999.
  •  1963
    Concepts without boundaries
    In Rosanna Keefe & Peter Smith (eds.), Vagueness: A Reader, Mit Press. pp. 186-205. 1996.
  •  7
    Option negation and dialetheias
    In Graham Priest, Jc Beall & Bradley P. Armour-Garb (eds.), The Law of Non-Contradiction : New Philosophical Essays, Oxford University Press. pp. 85--92. 2004.
  •  115
    Why the World Cannot be Vague
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (S1): 63-81. 1995.
  •  86
    Benevolence and evil
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (2). 1980.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  4
    J. Cottingham, "Descartes"
    Philosophical Quarterly 37 (149): 453. 1987.
  •  42
    Tolerating Vagueness
    Proceedings 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.
  •  3
    Semantic Theory and Grammatical Structure
    with Barry Richards
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 54 (1): 133-172. 1980.
  •  10
    Indexicals and Reported Speech
    In 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.
  •  61
    Saying and conveying
    Linguistics and Philosophy 7 (4). 1984.