•  161
    Analyzing Ideology (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2023.
  •  160
    On a Case for Truth‐Relativism
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (1): 179-188. 2016.
  •  155
    Knowledge, Habit, Practice, Skill
    Journal of Philosophical Research 40 (Supplement): 315-323. 2015.
    According to Pierre Bourdieu, practices and habits are out the realm of rationality; this claim about their nature explains their peculiar resistance to rational revision. I argue that one can explain the fact that practices and habits are difficult to revise, without abandoning the view that they are within the space of reasons.
  •  132
    Truth and Metatheory in Frege
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 77 (1): 45-70. 1996.
    In this paper it is contended, against a challenging recent interpretation of Frege, that Frege should be credited with the first semirigorous formulation of semantic theory. It is argued that the considerations advanced against this contention suffer from two kinds of error. The first involves the attribution to Frege of a skeptical attitude towards the truth-predicate. The second involves the sort of justification which these arguments assume a classical semantic theory attempts to provide. Fi…Read more
  •  131
    Quantifiers and Context Dependence
    Analysis 55 (4): 291--295. 1995.
    Let DDQ be the thesis that definite descriptions are quantifiers. Philosophers often deny DDQ because they believe that quantifiers do not depend on context in certain ways, ways in which definite descriptions do depend on context. In this paper, we examine one such argument, which, if sound, would entail the negation of DDQ.We show that this argument fails, and draw some consequences from its failure
  •  111
    Neutrality
    Philosophical Topics 49 (1): 165-185. 2021.
    Neutrality functions as an ideal in deliberation—we are supposed to have a neutral standpoint in debate, speak without bias or taking sides. We argue against the ideal of neutrality. We sketch how a theory of meaning could avoid commitment even to the coherence of a neutral space of discourse for exchanging reasons. In a model that accepts the ideal of neutrality, what makes propaganda exceptional is its non-neutrality. However, a critique of propaganda cannot take the form of “clearing out” the…Read more
  •  110
    Reply to Hintikka and Sandu: Frege and Second-Order Logic
    Journal of Philosophy 90 (8): 416-424. 1993.
    Hintikka and Sandu had argued that 'Frege's failure to grasp the idea of the standard interpretation of higher-order logic turns his entire foundational project into a hopeless daydream' and that he is 'inextricably committed to a non-standard interpretation' of higher-order logic. We disagree.
  •  107
    When we utter sentences containing quantifiers, typically we are not to be taken to speak about absolutely everything there is. Suppose Mary has invited her friend John to a party to which she is going. If, upon entering the party, Mary turns to Jack and utters (1), it would be rather odd of Jack to object by pointing out that John in fact knows several people who are not present.
  •  104
    Nominal restriction
    In Georg Peter & Gerhard Preyer (eds.), Logical Form and Language, Oxford University Press. pp. 365--390. 2002.
  •  101
    Precis of How Propaganda Works
    Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 31 (3): 287-294. 2016.
    Precis by the autor of the book How Propaganda Works (Princeton University Press, 2015).Sinopsis del autor del libro How Propaganda Works (Princeton University Press, 2015).
  •  98
    In the Twentieth Century, Logic and Philosophy of Language are two of the few areas of philosophy in which philosophers made indisputable progress. For example, even now many of the foremost living ethicists present their theories as somewhat more explicit versions of the ideas of Kant, Mill, or Aristotle. In contrast, it would be patently absurd for a contemporary philosopher of language or logician to think of herself as working in the shadow of any figure who died before the Twentieth Century…Read more
  •  97
    How Propaganda Works, Precis
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96 (2): 470-474. 2018.
  •  97
    Reply to Bach and Neale
    with Jason Stanley and Zoltan Gendler Szabo
    Mind and Language 15 (2-3): 295-298. 2000.
  •  94
    Précis of knowledge and practical interests (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (1). 2007.
    Our intuitions about whether someone knows that p vary even fixing the intuitively epistemic features of that person’s situation. Sometimes they vary with features of our own situation, and sometimes they vary with features of the putative knower’s situation. If the putative knower is in a risky situation and her belief that p is pivotal in achieving a positive outcome of one of the actions available to her, or avoiding a negative one, we often feel she must be in a particularly good epistemic p…Read more
  •  94
  •  83
    Complex Demonstratives: A Quantificational Account
    Philosophical Review 111 (4): 605-609. 2002.
    Complex demonstrative phrases, in English, are phrases such as ‘that woman in the department’ and ‘that car on the corner’. They are of particular interest to philosophers for two related reasons. The first involves the problem of intentionality. If there are phrases that are candidates for “latching directly onto the world,” they are such phrases, and their “simple” counterparts, as in the occurrences of ‘that’ in ‘that is nice’. As a result, philosophers interested in intentionality, from the …Read more
  •  79
    Replies to Dickie, Schroeder and Stalnaker (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (3): 762-778. 2012.
  •  77
    Language in context: selected essays
    Oxford University Press. 2007.
    Publisher description.
  •  76
    Precis of Know How (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (3): 733-736. 2012.
  •  71
    Complex Demonstratives: A Quantificational Account (review)
    Philosophical Review 111 (4): 605-609. 2002.
    Complex demonstrative phrases, in English, are phrases such as ‘that woman in the department’ and ‘that car on the corner’. They are of particular interest to philosophers for two related reasons. The first involves the problem of intentionality. If there are phrases that are candidates for “latching directly onto the world,” they are such phrases, and their “simple” counterparts, as in the occurrences of ‘that’ in ‘that is nice’. As a result, philosophers interested in intentionality, from the …Read more
  •  69
    Replies to Gilbert Harman, Ram Neta, and Stephen Schiffer (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (1): 196-210. 2007.
  •  55
    Context and Logical Form
    In Maite Ezcurdia & Robert J. Stainton (eds.), The Semantics-Pragmatics Boundary in Philosophy, Broadview Press. pp. 316. 2013.
  •  53
    Précis of Knowledge and Practical Interests
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (1): 168-172. 2007.
    Jason Stanley's "Knowledge and Practical Interests" is a brilliant book, combining insights about knowledge with a careful examination of how recent views in epistemology fit with the best of recent linguistic semantics. Although I am largely convinced by Stanley's objections to epistemic contextualism, I will try in what follows to formulate a version that might have some prospect of escaping his powerful critique.
  •  48
    Replies
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96 (2): 497-511. 2018.
  •  38
    Quantifiers and Context Dependence
    Analysis 55 (4): 291-295. 1995.
    Let DDQ be the thesis that definite descriptions are quantifiers. Philosophers often deny DDQ because they believe that quantifiers do not depend on context in certain ways, ways in which definite descriptions do depend on context. In this paper, we examine one such argument, which, if sound, would entail the negation of DDQ.We show that this argument fails, and draw some consequences from its failure.
  •  36
    "As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don't have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism's roots have been present in the United States for more than a century. Alarmed by the pervasive rise of fascist tactics both at home and around the globe, Stanley focuses here on the structures that unite them, layin…Read more
  •  34
    Knowledge and Action
    Revista Cultura E Fé 37 (144). 2008.
    Reconhecido centro de formação profissional em carreiras jurídicas, o IDC oferece Especialização, preparação para Exame de Ordem e Cursos de Extensão em mais de 20 áreas do Direito, aprofundando os conhecimentos de advogados e bacharéis. Possui também graduação em Filosofia, além de promover Cursos Preparatórios para Concursos em diversas áreas, obtendo excelentes resultados de aprovação graças à preocupação constante na qualificação e excelência de seu corpo docente e infra-estrutura.
  •  32
    Is Epistemology Tainted?
    Disputatio 8 (42): 1-35. 2016.
    Epistemic relativism comes in many forms, which have been much discussed in the last decade or so in analytic epistemology. My goal is to defend a version of epistemic relativism that sources the relativity in the metaphysics of epistemic properties and relations, most saliently knowledge. I contrast it with other relativist theses. I argue that the sort of metaphysical relativism about knowledge I favor does not threaten the objectivity of the epistemological domain.
  •  29
    The Politics of Language
    Princeton University Press. 2023.
    A provocative case for the inherently political nature of language In The Politics of Language, David Beaver and Jason Stanley present a radical new approach to the theory of meaning, offering an account of communication in which political and social identity, affect, and shared practices play as important a role as information. This new view of language, they argue, has dramatic consequences for free speech, democracy, and a range of other areas in which speech plays a central role. Drawing on …Read more