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219Donald Davidson: meaning, truth, language, and realityOxford University Press. 2005.Ernest Lepore and Kirk Ludwig present the definitive critical exposition of the philosophical system of Donald Davidson. Davidson 's ideas had a deep and broad influence in the central areas of philosophy; he presented them in brilliant essays over four decades, but never set out explicitly the overarching scheme in which they all have their place. Lepore's and Ludwig's book will therefore be the key work, besides Davidson 's own, for understanding one of the greatest philosophers of the twentie…Read more
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219The Compositionality Papers (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2002.Ernie Lepore and Jerry Fodor have published a series of original and controversial essays on issues relating to compositionality in language and mind; they have...
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209What is the connection principle?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (4): 837-45. 1994.The Connection Principle (hereafter, CP) says that there is some kind of internal relation between a state's1 having intentional content ("aspectual shape") and its being (at least potentially) conscious. Searle's argument for the principle is just that potential consciousness is the only thing he can think of that would distinguish original intentionality from ersatz (Searle, 1992, pp. 84, 155 and passim. All Searle references are to 1992). Cognitivists have generally found this argument underw…Read more
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208The red Herring and the pet fish: Why concepts still can't be prototypesCognition 58 (2): 253-70. 1996.1 There is a Standard Objection to the idea that concepts might be prototypes (or exemplars, or stereotypes): Because they are productive, concepts must be compositional. Prototypes aren't compositional, so concepts can't be prototypes (see, e.g., Margolis, 1994).2 However, two recent papers (Osherson and Smith, 1988; Kamp and Partee, 1995) reconsider this consensus. They suggest that, although the Standard Objection is probably right in the long run, the cases where prototypes fail to exhibit c…Read more
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194Précis of Insensitive Semantics (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (2). 2006.Insensitive Semantics (I) has three components: It defends a positive theory; it presents a methodology for how to distinguish semantic context sensitivity from other kinds of context sensitivity; and finally, it includes chapters critical of other contributors on these issues. In this Précis, we outline each component, but before doing so a few brief ‘big picture’ remarks about the positions defended in IS are in order
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191Relevance Theory and Shared ContentIn Noel Burton-Roberts (ed.), Pragmatics, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 115--135. 2007.Speakers share content when they make the same assertion (claim, conjecture, proposal, etc). They also share content when they propose (entertain, discuss, etc.) the same hypothesis, theory, and thought. And again when they evaluate whether what each says (thinks, claims, suggests, etc.) is true, false, interesting, obscene, original or offensive. Content sharing, so understood, is the very foundation of communication. Relevance Theory (RT), however, implies that content sharing is impossible; o…Read more
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184Using, Mentioning and Quoting: A Reply to SakaMind 108 (432): 741-750. 1999.Paul Saka, in a recent paper, declares that we can use, mention, or quote an expression. Whether a speaker is using or mentioning an expression, on a given occasion, depends on his intentions. An exhibited expression is used, if the exhibiter intends to direct his audience’s attention to the expression’s extension. It is mentioned, if he intends to draw his audience’s attention to something associated with the exhibited token other than its extension. This includes, but is not limited to, an ort…Read more
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167Is intentional ascription intrinsically normative?In B. Dahlbom (ed.), Dennett and His Critics, Blackwell. 1993.In a short article called “Mid-Term Examination: Compare and Contrast” that epitomizes and concludes his book The Intentional Stance, D. C. Dennett (1987) provides a sketch of what he views as an emerging Interpretivist consensus in the philosophy of mind. The gist is that Brentano’s thesis is true (the intentional is irreducible to the physical) and that it follows from the truth of Brentano’s thesis that: strictly speaking, ontologically speaking, there are no such things as beliefs, desires, …Read more
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166Context shifting argumentsPhilosophical Perspectives 17 (1). 2003.Context Shifting Arguments (CSA) ask us to consider two utterances of an unambiguous, non-vague, non-elliptic sentence S. If the consensus intuition is that what’s said, or expressed or the truth-conditions, and so possibly the truthvalues, of these utterances differ, then CSA concludes S is context sensitive. Consider, for example, simultaneous utterances of ‘I am wearing a hat’, one by Stephen, one by Jason. Intuitively, these utterances can vary in truth-value contingent upon who is speaking …Read more
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166Donald DavidsonIn Christopher Belshaw & Gary Kemp (eds.), 12 Modern Philosophers, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 199-224. 2009.This chapter reviews the work and influence of Donald Davidson across all the areas to which he contributed.
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163Donald Davidson's truth-theoretic semanticsClarendon Press. 2007.The work of Donald Davidson (1917-2003) transformed the study of meaning. Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, two of the world's leading authorities on Davidson's work, present the definitive study of his widely admired and influential program of truth-theoretic semantics for natural languages, giving an exposition and critical examination of its foundations and applications.
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151A Tall Tale: In Defense of Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act PluralismIn Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth, Oxford University Press. pp. 197-220. 2005.In Insensitive Semantics (2004), we argue for two theses – Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism. In this paper, we outline our defense against two objections often raised against Semantic Minimalism. To get to that defense, we first need some stage setting. To that end, we begin with five stage setting sections. These lead to the first objection, viz., that it might follow from our view that comparative adjectives are context insensitive. We defend our view against that objection (not, a…Read more
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148Brandom BeleagueredPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (3): 677-691. 2007.We take it that Brandom’s sense of the geography is that our way of proceeding is more or less the first and his is more or less the second. But we think this way of describing the situation is both unclear and misleading, and we want to have this out right at the start. Our problem is that we don’t know what “you start with” means either in formulations like “you start with the content of words and proceed to the content of sentences” or in formulations like “you start with the content of sente…Read more
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147Why Compositionality Won’t Go Away: Reflections on Horwich’s ‘Deflationary’Ratio 14 (4): 350-368. 2001.Compositionality is the idea that the meanings of complex expressions (or concepts) are constructed from the meanings of the less complex expressions (or concepts) that are their constituents.1 Over the last few years, we have just about convinced ourselves that compositionality is the sovereign test for theories of lexical meaning.2 So hard is this test to pass, we think, that it filters out practically all of the theories of lexical meaning that are current in either philosophy or cognitive sc…Read more
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145Analyticity AgainIn Michael Devitt & Richard Hanley (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 19--114. 2006.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Analyticity and Meaning Realism Logical Truths Conclusion Addendum.
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139What Cannot Be Evaluated Cannot Be Evaluated, and It Cannot Be Supervalued EitherJournal of Philosophy 93 (10): 516-535. 1996.
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136QuotationStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2012.Starting with Frege, the semantics (and pragmatics) of quotation has received a steady flow of attention over the last one hundred years. It has not, however, been subject to the same kind of intense debate and scrutiny as, for example, both the semantics of definite descriptions and propositional attitude verbs. Many philosophers probably share Davidson's experience: ‘When I was initiated into the mysteries of logic and semantics, quotation was usually introduced as a somewhat shady device, and…Read more
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134Saying and AgreeingMind and Language 25 (5): 583-601. 2010.No semantic theory is complete without an account of context sensitivity. But there is little agreement over its scope and limits even though everyone invokes intuition about an expression's behavior in context to determine its context sensitivity. Minimalists like Cappelen and Lepore identify a range of tests which isolate clear cases of context sensitive expressions, such as ‘I’, ‘here’, and ‘now’, to the exclusion of all others. Contextualists try to discredit the tests and supplant them with…Read more
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133The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2005.The Oxford Handbooks series is a major new initiative in academic publishing. Each volume offers an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates. Oxford Handbooks provide scholars and graduate students with compelling new perspectives upon a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences. Ernie Lepore a…Read more
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131Meaning and Argument: An Introduction to Logic Through Language (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2000.Meaning and Argument shifts introductory logic from the traditional emphasis on proofs to the symbolization of arguments. Another distinctive feature of this book is that it shows how the need for expressive power and for drawing distinctions forces formal language development. This revised edition includes expanded sections, additional exercises, and an updated bibliography. Updated and revised edition includes extended sections, additional exercises, and an updated bibliography. Distinctive ap…Read more
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131Is radical interpretation possible?In Ralf Stoecker (ed.), Reflecting Davidson, De Gruyter. pp. 57-76. 1993.
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131Reply to TsohatzidisMind 107 (427): 665-666. 1998.We reply to Savis Tsohatzidis's comments on our paper The Varieties of Quotation.
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130Why meaning (probably) isn't conceptual rolePhilosophical Issues 3 15-35. 1993.It's an achievement of the last couple of decades that people who work in linguistic semantics and people who work in the philosophy of language have arrived at a friendly, de facto agreement as to their respective job descriptions. The terms of this agreement are that the semanticists do the work and the philosophers do the worrying. The semanticists try to construct actual theories of meaning (or truth theories, or model theories, or whatever) for one or another kind of expression in one or an…Read more
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130The Myth of Unarticulated ConstituentsIn Michael O'Rourke & Corey Washington (eds.), Situating Semantics: Essays on the Philosophy of John Perry, Mit Press. pp. 199-214. 2007.This paper evaluates arguments presented by John Perry (and Ken Taylor) in favor of the presence of an unarticulated constituent in the proposition expressed by utterance of, for example, (1):1 1. It's raining (at t). We contend that these arguments are, at best, inconclusive. That's the critical part of our paper. On the positive side, we argue that (1) has as its semantic content the proposition that it is raining (at t) and that this is a location-neutral proposition. According to the view we…Read more
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128Quotation, context sensitivity, signs and expressionsPhilosophical Issues 16 (1). 2006.Can one and the same quotation be used on different occasions to quote distinct objects? The view that it can is taken for granted throughout the literature (e.g. Goddard & Routley 1966, Christensen 1967, Davidson 1979, Goldstein 1984, Jorgensen et al 1984, Atlas 1989, Clark & Gerrig 1990, Washington 1992, García-Carpintero 1994, 2004, 2005, Reimer 1996, Saka 1998, Wertheimer 1999). Garcia-Carpintero (1994, p. 261) illustrates with the quotation expression ''gone''. He says it can be used to quo…Read more
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128ResponseMind and Language 21 (1). 2006.Reading these excellent commentaries we already wish we had written another book—a more comprehensive, clearer, and better defended one than what we have. We are, however, quite fond of the book we ended up with, and so we’ve decided that, rather than to yield, we’ll clarify. These contributions have helped us do that, and for that we are grateful to our critics. We’re lucky in that many (so far about twenty)1 extremely able philosophers have read and commented on our work in print. A slightly d…Read more
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127What is Logical Form?In Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Logical Form and Language, Clarendon Press. 2002.This paper articulates and defends a conception of logical form as semantic form revealed by a compositional meaning theory. On this conception, the logical form of a sentence is determined by the semantic types of its primitive terms and their mode of combination as it relates to determining under what conditions it is true. We develop this idea in the framework of truth-theoretic semantics. We argue that the semantic form of a declarative sentence in a language L is revealed by a (canonical) p…Read more
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