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127The road to hell: Intentions and propositional attitude ascriptionMind and Language 14 (3). 1999.Accounts of propositional attitude reporting which invoke contextual variation in semantic content have become increasingly popular, with good reason: our intuitions about the truth conditions of such reports vary with context. This paper poses a problem for such accounts, arguing that any reasonable candidate source for this contextual variation will yield very counterintuitive results. The accounts, then, cannot achieve their goal of accommodating our truth conditional intuitions. This leaves …Read more
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441Speaker meaning, what is said, and what is implicatedNoûs 36 (2). 2002.[First Paragraph] Unlike so many other distinctions in philosophy, H P Grice's distinction between what is said and what is implicated has an immediate appeal: undergraduate students readily grasp that one who says 'someone shot my parents' has merely implicated rather than said that he was not the shooter [2]. It seems to capture things that we all really pay attention to in everyday conversation'this is why there are so many people whose entire sense of humour consists of deliberately ignoring…Read more
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241Lying, misleading, and what is said: an exploration in philosophy of language and in ethicsOxford University Press. 2012.1. Lying -- 2. The problem of what is said -- 3. What is said -- 4. Is lying worse than merely misleading? -- 5. Some interesting cases.
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135The Best of Intentions: Ignorance, Idiosyncrasy, and Belief ReportingCanadian Journal of Philosophy 29 (1). 1999.Context plays a crucial role in our propositional attitude reporting practices. A belief-reporting sentence which seems true in one context may seem false in another, as Kripke showed us in ‘A Puzzle About Belief.’ To put it a bit sloppily, may seem true when we are discussing Peter's beliefs regarding Paderewski-the-pianist and false when we are discussing his beliefs regarding Paderewski-the-statesman. Peter believes that Paderewski is a fine musician.A number of recent theorists have taken th…Read more
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498Gender and RaceAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 80 (1): 119-143. 2006.Sally Haslanger’s ‘What Good Are Our Intuitions? Philosophical Analysis and Social Kinds’ is, among other things, a part of the theoretical underpinning for analyses of race and gender concepts that she discusses far more fully elsewhere. My reply focuses on these analyses of race and gender concepts, exploring the ways in which the theoretical work done in this paper and others can or cannot be used to defend these analyses against certain objections. I argue that the problems faced by Haslange…Read more
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172Wayne A. Davis, Implicature: Intention, convention, and principle in the failure of Gricean theory (review)Noûs 35 (4): 631-641. 2001.
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98Simple sentences, substitution, and intuitionsOxford University Press. 2007.Substitution and simple sentences -- Simple sentences and semantics -- Simple sentences and implicatures -- The enlightenment problem and a common assumption -- Abandoning (EOI) -- Beyond matching propositions -- App. A : extending the account -- App. B : belief reporting.
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544On Treating Things as People: Objectifi cation, Pornography, and the History of the VibratorHypatia 21 (2): 45-61. 2006.This article discusses recent feminist arguments for the possible existence of an interesting link between treating things as people and treating people as things. It argues, by way of a historical case study, that the connection is more complicated than these arguments have supposed. In addition, the essay suggests some possible general links between treatment of things and treatment of people
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125Enlightened? As if!International Journal of Philosophical Studies 18 (4): 547-549. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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460Scepticism and Implicit BiasDisputatio 5 (37): 243-263. 2013.Saul_Jennifer, Scepticism and Implicit Bias
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101Intensionality: What are intensional transitives?Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76 (1). 2002.[Graeme Forbes] In I, I summarize the semantics for the relational/notional distinction for intensional transitives developed in Forbes. In II-V I pursue issues about logical consequence which were either unsatisfactorily dealt with in that paper or, more often, not raised at all. I argue that weakening inferences, such as 'Perseus seeks a mortal gorgon, therefore Perseus seeks a gorgon', are valid, but that disjunction inferences, such as 'Perseus seeks a mortal gorgon, therefore Perseus seeks …Read more
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3003Dogwhistles, Political Manipulation, and Philosophy of LanguageIn Daniel Fogal, Harris Daniel & Moss Matt (eds.), New Work on Speech Acts, Oxford University Press. 2018.This essay explores the speech act of dogwhistling (sometimes referred to as ‘using coded language’). Dogwhistles may be overt or covert, and within each of these categories may be intentional or unintentional. Dogwhistles are a powerful form of political speech, allowing people to be manipulated in ways they would resist if the manipulation was carried outmore openly—often drawing on racist attitudes that are consciously rejected. If philosophers focus only on content expressed or otherwise con…Read more
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488Pornography, speech acts and contextProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 106 (2). 2006.Catharine MacKinnon has claimed that pornography is the subordination of women. Rae Langton has defended the plausibility and coherence of this claim by drawing on speech act theory. I argue that considering the role of context in speech acts poses serious problems for Langton's defence of MacKinnon. Langton's account can be altered in order to accommodate the role of context. Once this is done, however, her defence of MacKinnon no longer looks so plausible. Finally, I argue that the speech act …Read more
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376Feminism: Issues and ArgumentsOxford University Press. 2003.A stimulating and accessible introduction to feminist philosophy. The chapters are organised around key issues of practical significance. Clear arguments are provided for a variety of feminist positions, drawing upon up-to-date empirical research. No background in feminism or philosophy is needed, and the clarity of the narrative ensures that Feminism: Issues and Arguments will appeal to a wide audience.
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1The Problem with AttitudesDissertation, Princeton University. 1996.In this dissertation, I argue that no account of propositional attitude reporting which does not include a significant degree of context-sensitivity can succeed in accommodating our intuitions about the truth conditions of such reports. Next, I argue that there are two general problems to be faced by any context-sensitive theory of attitude ascription, whether semantic or pragmatic. First, any theory which preserves our intuitions about which inference schemas are valid will violate our intuitio…Read more
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