•  102
    Executing the second best option
    Analysis 54 (4): 201-207. 1994.
  •  52
    A “should” too many
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (1): 26-27. 1994.
  •  83
    Systematicity via Monadicity
    Croatian Journal of Philosophy 7 (3): 343-374. 2007.
    Words indicate concepts, which have various adicities. But words do not, in general, inherit the adicities of the indicated concepts. Lots of evidence suggests that when a concept is lexicalized, it is linked to an analytically related monadic concept that can be conjoined with others. For example, the dyadic concept CHASE(_,_) might be linked to CHASE(_), a concept that applies to certain events. Drawing on a wide range of extant work, and familiar facts, I argue that the (open class) lexical i…Read more
  •  95
    Believing in language
    Philosophy of Science 63 (3): 338-373. 1996.
    We propose that the generalizations of linguistic theory serve to ascribe beliefs to humans. Ordinary speakers would explicitly (and sincerely) deny having these rather esoteric beliefs about language--e.g., the belief that an anaphor must be bound in its governing category. Such ascriptions can also seem problematic in light of certain theoretical considerations having to do with concept possession, revisability, and so on. Nonetheless, we argue that ordinary speakers believe the propositions e…Read more
  •  19
    Mind and World (review)
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (4): 613-636. 1996.
  •  185
    Innate ideas
    with Stephen Crain
    In James A. McGilvray (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky, Cambridge University Press. pp. 164--181. 2005.
    Here's one way this chapter could go. After defining the terms 'innate' and 'idea', we say whether Chomsky thinks any ideas are innate -- and if so, which ones. Unfortunately, we don't have any theoretically interesting definitions to offer; and, so far as we know, Chomsky has never said that any ideas are innate. Since saying that would make for a very short chapter, we propose to do something else. Our aim is to locate Chomsky, as he locates himself, in a rationalist tradition where talk of in…Read more
  •  81
    Events and semantic architecture
    Oxford University Press. 2005.
    A study of how syntax relates to meaning by a leader of the new generation of philosopher-linguists.
  •  156
    Fregean Innocence
    Mind and Language 11 (4): 338-370. 1996.
    Frege's account of opacity is based on two attractive ideas: every meaningful expression has a sense (Sinn) that determines the expression's semantic value (Bedeutung); and the semantic value of a‘that’‐clause is the thought expressed by its embedded sentence. Considerations of compositionality led Frege to a more problematic view: inside ‘that’‐clauses, an expression does not have its customary Bedeutung. But contrary to initial appearances, compositionality does not entail a familiar substitut…Read more
  •  80
    Semantic monadicity with conceptual polyadicity
    In Wolfram Hinzen, Edouard Machery & Markus Werning (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Compositionality, Oxford University Press. 2012.
    Many concepts, which can be constituents of thoughts, are somehow indicated with words that can be constituents of sentences. But this assumption is compatible with many hypotheses about the concepts lexicalized, linguistic meanings, and the relevant forms of composition. The lexical items simply label the concepts they lexicalize, and that composition of lexical meanings mirrors composition of the labeled concepts, which exhibit diverse adicities. If a phrase must be understood as an instructio…Read more
  •  43
  •  127
    On explaining that
    Journal of Philosophy 97 (12): 655-662. 2000.
    How can a speaker can explain that P without explaining the fact that P, or explain the fact that P without explaining that P, even when it is true (and so a fact) that P? Or in formal mode: what is the semantic contribution of 'explain' such that 'She explained that P' can be true, while 'She explained the fact that P' is false (or vice versa), even when 'P' is true? The proposed answer is that 'explained' is a semantically monadic predicate, satisfied by events of explaining. But 'the fact tha…Read more
  •  76
    Logical form
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
  •  21
    Causing Actions
    Oxford University Press. 2000.
    Paul Pietroski presents an original philosophical theory of actions and their mental causes. We often act for reasons: we deliberate and choose among options, based on our beliefs and desires. However, bodily motions always have biochemical causes, so it can seem that thinking and acting are biochemical processes. Pietroski argues that thoughts and deeds are in fact distinct from, though dependent on, underlying biochemical processes within persons.
  • Does every sentence like this exhibit a scope ambiguity
    with Norbert Hornstein
    In Wolfram Hinzen & Hans Rott (eds.), Belief and Meaning: Essays at the Interface, Deutsche Bibliothek Der Wissenschaften. pp. 43--72. 2002.
  •  92
    Possible Worlds, Syntax, and Opacity
    Analysis 53 (4). 1993.
  •  5
    Meaning before truth
    In Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth, Oxford University Press. 2005.
  •  48
    8 Innate ideas
    with Stephen Crain
    In James A. McGilvray (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky, Cambridge University Press. pp. 164. 2005.
  •  57
    Euthyphro and the semantic
    Mind and Language 15 (2-3): 341-349. 2000.
  •  413
    When Other Things Aren’t Equal: Saving Ceteris Paribus Laws from Vacuity
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (1): 81-110. 1995.
    A common view is that ceteris paribus clauses render lawlike statements vacuous, unless such clauses can be explicitly reformulated as antecedents of ?real? laws that face no counterinstances. But such reformulations are rare; and they are not, we argue, to be expected in general. So we defend an alternative sufficient condition for the non-vacuity of ceteris paribus laws: roughly, any counterinstance of the law must be independently explicable, in a sense we make explicit. Ceteris paribus laws …Read more
  •  108
    Actions, adjuncts, and agency
    Mind 107 (425): 73-111. 1998.
    The event analysis of action sentences seems to be at odds with plausible (Davidsonian) views about how to count actions. If Booth pulled a certain trigger, and thereby shot Lincoln, there is good reason for identifying Booths' action of pulling the trigger with his action of shooting Lincoln; but given truth conditions of certain sentences involving adjuncts, the event analysis requires that the pulling and the shooting be distinct events. So I propose that event sortals like 'shooting' and 'pu…Read more
  •  427
    Nature, nurture, and universal grammar
    Linguistics and Philosophy 24 (2): 139-186. 2001.
    In just a few years, children achieve a stable state of linguistic competence, making them effectively adults with respect to: understanding novel sentences, discerning relations of paraphrase and entailment, acceptability judgments, etc. One familiar account of the language acquisition process treats it as an induction problem of the sort that arises in any domain where the knowledge achieved is logically underdetermined by experience. This view highlights the cues that are available in the inp…Read more
  •  34
    On Explaining That
    Journal of Philosophy 97 (12): 655. 2000.
  •  24
    Logical Form and LF
    In Ernest Lepore & Barry C. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, Oxford University Press. pp. 822--841. 2006.
    We can use sentences to present arguments, some of which are valid. This suggests that premises and conclusions, like sentences, have structure. This in turn raises questions about how logical structure is related to grammar, and how grammatical structure is related to thought and truth.
  •  59
    Framing Event Variables
    Erkenntnis 80 (1): 31-60. 2015.
    Davidsonian analyses of action reports like ‘Alvin chased Theodore around a tree’ are often viewed as supporting the hypothesis that sentences of a human language H have truth conditions that can be specified by a Tarski-style theory of truth for H. But in my view, simple cases of adverbial modification add to the reasons for rejecting this hypothesis, even though Davidson rightly diagnosed many implications involving adverbs as cases of conjunct-reduction in the scope of an existential quantifi…Read more
  •  48
    Character before content
    In Judith Jarvis Thomson (ed.), Content and Modality: Themes From the Philosophy of Robert Stalnaker, Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 34--60. 2006.
    Speakers can use sentences to make assertions. Theorists who reflect on this truism often say that sentences have linguistic meanings, and that assertions have propositional contents. But how are meanings related to contents? Are meanings less dependent on the environment? Are contents more independent of language? These are large questions, which must be understood partly in terms of the phenomena that lead theorists to use words like ‘meaning’ and ‘content’, sometimes in nonstandard ways. Oppo…Read more