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26Quantification and Second-Order QuantificationPhilosophical Perspectives 17 (1): 259--298. 2003.
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109Mental causation for dualistsMind and Language 9 (3): 336-366. 1994.The philosophical problem of mental causation concerns a clash between commonsense and scientific views about the causation of human behaviour. On the one hand, commonsense suggests that our actions are caused by our mental states—our thoughts, intentions, beliefs and so on. On the other hand, neuroscience assumes that all bodily movements are caused by neurochemical events. It is implausible to suppose that our actions are causally overdetermined in the same way that the ringing of a bell may b…Read more
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37Natural number concepts: No derivation without formalizationBehavioral and Brain Sciences 31 (6): 666-667. 2008.The conceptual building blocks suggested by developmental psychologists may yet play a role in how the human learner arrives at an understanding of natural number. The proposal of Rips et al. faces a challenge, yet to be met, faced by all developmental proposals: to describe the logical space in which learners ever acquire new concepts
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101Brass tacks in linguistic theory: Innate grammatical principlesIn Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 1--175. 2005.In the normal course of events, children manifest linguistic competence equivalent to that of adults in just a few years. Children can produce and understand novel sentences, they can judge that certain strings of words are true or false, and so on. Yet experience appears to dramatically underdetermine the com- petence children so rapidly achieve, even given optimistic assumptions about children’s nonlinguistic capacities to extract information and form generalizations on the basis of statistica…Read more
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83Systematicity via MonadicityCroatian 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
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32.1 patterns of reason and traditional grammarIn Ernie Lepore & Barry C. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, Oxford University Press. pp. 822. 2005.
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95Believing in languagePhilosophy 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
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157Innate ideasIn James 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
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81Events and semantic architectureOxford University Press. 2005.A study of how syntax relates to meaning by a leader of the new generation of philosopher-linguists.
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80Semantic monadicity with conceptual polyadicityIn 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
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156Fregean InnocenceMind 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
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118On explaining thatJournal 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
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43Innateness and Universal GrammarIn L. Nadel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Nature Publishing Group. 2003.
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45First-person authority and beliefs as representationsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (1): 67-69. 1993.
New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Language |
Cognitive Sciences |
Areas of Interest
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |