-
11Events and semantic architectureOxford University Press. 2005.A study of how syntax relates to meaning by a leader of the new generation of philosopher-linguists.
-
21Semantic 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
-
8Fregean 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
-
27On 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
-
43Innateness and Universal GrammarIn L. Nadel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Nature Publishing Group. 2003.
-
8First-person authority and beliefs as representationsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (1): 67-69. 1993.
-
10Causing ActionsOxford 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 ambiguityIn Wolfram Hinzen & Hans Rott (eds.), Belief and meaning: Essays at the interface, Deutsche Bibliothek Der Wissenschaften. pp. 43--72. 2002.
-
5Meaning before truthIn Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Contextualism in philosophy: knowledge, meaning, and truth, Oxford University Press. 2005.
-
138 Innate ideasIn James McGilvray (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky, Cambridge University Press. pp. 164. 2005.
-
26When Other Things Aren’t Equal: Saving Ceteris Paribus Laws from VacuityBritish 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
-
Specifying senses innocently1In Dunja Jutronić (ed.), The Maribor papers in naturalized semantics, Pedagoška Fakulteta Maribor. pp. 318. 1997.
-
15Actions, adjuncts, and agencyMind 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
-
28Nature, nurture, and universal grammarLinguistics 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
-
6Logical Form and LFIn Ernie Lepore & Barry C. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, Oxford University Press. pp. 822--841. 2005.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.
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 |