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Historical BackgroundIn I: The Meaning of the First Person Term, Clarendon Press. 2006.The historical development towards the current standard account of I as a ‘pure indexical’ has two main features. First, the gradual acquisition of a logical apparatus which can distinguish genuine from non-singular referring expressions, and categorize the latter into names, descriptive terms, indexicals, and so on. Second, the development and acceptance of three supposed doctrines: that a simple rule is sufficient to give the meaning of I ; that one can use I to express thoughts without having…Read more
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Expressive UseIn I: The Meaning of the First Person Term, Clarendon Press. 2006.I satisfies its expressive use in the deictic mode. It is the expressive use of any singular term to express thoughts. This requires that the speaker know the positive answer to the question: ‘which individual is being spoken of?’, that is, the term must achieve discriminability of reference for the speaker. Deictic terms require salience if they are to achieve discriminability of reference for the speaker, i.e., it is as the individual made salient that one must identify the referent of a use o…Read more
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ConclusionIn I: The Meaning of the First Person Term, Clarendon Press. 2006.I has the logical character, inferential role, referential function, expressive use, and communicative role of a deictic term. Uses of I share the referential security and identificatory ease of certain uses of other deictic terms. I has a distinct character within the group due to kind salience, expressive demonstration, communicative demonstration, and certain other features. These findings show that the whole standard account of indexicals and demonstratives, due to Kaplan, rests on two false…Read more
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Communicative RoleIn I: The Meaning of the First Person Term, Clarendon Press. 2006.I fulfils its communicative role in the deictic mode. It is the communicative role of any singular term to communicate thoughts. This requires that the audience know the positive answer to the question: ‘which individual is being spoken of?’, that is, the term must achieve discriminability of reference for the audience. Deictic terms require salience if they are to achieve discriminability of reference for the audience, i.e., it is as the individual made salient that one must identify the refere…Read more
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23Attuning film and philosophy: the space-time continuumIn Craig Fox & Britt Harrison (eds.), Philosophy of Film Without Theory, Palgrave Macmillan. 2023.Ordinarily, what we experience does not jump from one place or time to another—we have to pass through all the intermediate times and places. But in films, what we experience can jump in both dimensions, both separately and together. This phenomenon has been memorably described in film criticism by Rudolph Arnheim and it has been deployed philosophically by Suzanne Langer and Colin McGinn. But discussion of space-time discontinuity remains hampered by the lack of attunement between film critical…Read more
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38The mind of Pope Francis: a review article by Professor Max De Gaynesford (t86)Ampleforth Journal. forthcoming.I dispute the commonly held impression that Pope Francis is a compassionate shepherd and determined leader but that he lacks the intellectual depth of his recent predecessors.
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32Balance in the golden bowl: attuning philosophy and literary criticismIn Yemima Ben-Menahem (ed.), Hilary Putnam, Cambridge University Press. 2005.This paper argues that Henry James’ treatment of balancing in The Golden Bowl—to which Putnam insightfully draws attention—calls for the attunement of philosophy and literary criticism. The process may undermine Putnam’s own reading of the novel, but it also finds new reasons to endorse what his reading was meant to deliver: the confidence that philosophy and thoughtful appreciation of literature have much to contribute to each other, and the conviction that morality can incorporate (Kantian) se…Read more
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69Integrity Over Time: Korsgaard and the Unity CriterionThe Harvard Review of Philosophy 18 (1): 50-72. 2012.
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30Ascent: Philosophy and Paradise LostBritish Journal of Aesthetics 59 (4): 491-494. 2019.Ascent: Philosophy and Paradise LostZamirTzachioup. 2018. pp. 218. £36.49
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14The sonnets and attunementIn Craig Bourne & Emily Caddick Bourne (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy, Routledge. 2017.
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9Attuning philosophy and literary criticism: a response to 'In the Heart of the Country'In Patrick Hayes & Jan Wilm (eds.), Beyond the Ancient Quarrel: Literature, Philosophy, and J.M. Coetzee, Oxford University Press. 2017.
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37Uptake in actionIn Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), Interpreting J. L. Austin: Critical Essays, Cambridge University Press. 2017.
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59How Not To Do Things With Words: J. L. Austin on Poetry: ArticlesBritish Journal of Aesthetics 51 (1): 31-49. 2011.If philosophy and poetry are to illuminate each other, we should first understand their tendencies to mutual antipathy. Examining mutual misapprehension is part of this task. J. L. Austin's remarks on poetry offer one such point of entry: they are often cited by poets and critics as an example of philosophy's blindness to poetry. These remarks are complex and their purpose obscure—more so than those who take exception to them usually allow or admit. But it is reasonable to think that, for all hi…Read more
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36Utterance of a sentence in poetry can be performative, and explicitly so. The best-known of Geoffrey Hill’s critical essays denies this, but his own poetry demonstrates it. I clarify these claims and explain why they matter. What Hill denies illuminates anxieties about responsibility and commitment that poets and critics share with philosophers. What Hill demonstrates affords opportunities for mutual benefit between philosophy and criticism.
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40Philosophy has tended to regard poetry primarily in terms of truth and falsity, assuming that its business is to state or describe states of affairs. Speech act theory transforms philosophical debate by regarding poetry in terms of action, showing that its business is primarily to do things. The proposal can sharpen our understanding of types of poetry; examples of the ‘Chaucer-Type’ and its variants demonstrate this. Objections to the proposal can be divided into those that relate to the agent …Read more
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42Wittgenstein on 'I' and the selfIn Hans-Johann Glock & John Hyman (eds.), A Companion to Wittgenstein, Wiley-blackwell. 2017.Consensus identifies an underlying continuity to Wittgenstein's treatment of the self and 'I', despite certain obvious surface variations and revisions. Almost all Wittgenstein's arguments and observations concerning 'I' and the self in the Tractatus are arranged as attempts to explicate. The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world, not a part of it. The picture that…Read more
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21Scepticism in the sonnetsIn Craig Bourne & Emily Caddick Bourne (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy, Routledge. 2017.
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14The rift in the lute: attuning poetry and philosophyOxford University Press. 2017.What is it for poetry to be serious and to be taken seriously? What is it to be open to poetry, exposed to its force, attuned to what it says and alive to what it does? These are important questions that call equally on poetry and philosophy. But poetry and philosophy, notoriously, have an ancient quarrel. Maximilian de Gaynesford sets out to understand and convert their mutual antipathy into something mutually enhancing, so that we can begin to answer these and other questions. The key to attun…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
History of Western Philosophy |
Value Theory |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
History of Western Philosophy |
Value Theory |