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87Cook Wilson on knowledge and forms of thinkingSynthese 200 (4): 1-22. 2022.John Cook Wilson is an important predecessor of contemporary knowledge first epistemologists: among other parallels, he claimed that knowledge is indefinable. We reconstruct four arguments for this claim discernible in his work, three of which find no clear analogues in contemporary discussions of knowledge first epistemology. We pay special attention to Cook Wilson’s view of the relation between knowledge and forms of thinking (like belief). Claims of Cook Wilson’s that support the indefinabili…Read more
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38Vindicating ReasonsThe Monist 105 (4): 558-573. 2022.What is the philosophical role of an historical account of how someone, or some people, came to believe or value as they do? I consider some proposals, due to Bernard Williams and David Wiggins, according to which such an account might either vindicate or subvert our believing or valuing as we do. I suggest some reasons for scepticism about those proposals, at least when construed as providing a fundamental means of assessing cases of believing or valuing. The main problem raised for the proposa…Read more
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20Illocution and understandingInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.What are the connections between the successful performance of illocutionary acts and audience understanding or uptake of their performance? According to one class of proposals, audience understanding suffices for successful performance. I explain how those proposals emerge from earlier work and seek to clarify some of their interrelations.
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7Semantics and PragmaticsIn Bob Hale, Crispin Wright & Alexander Miller (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Wiley-blackwell. 1997.Contemporary recognition of the importance of divisions amongst pragmatic and semantic phenomena has its roots in earlier recognition of the importance of pragmatic phenomena. This chapter begins with the idea that semantics concerns the stable meanings of words and expressions while pragmatics concerns language use, or things done with words. It provides some grounds for rejecting, a defense of orthodoxy that sought to treat the variations that Charles Travis highlights as occurring only with r…Read more
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41The various themes explored in this superb collection of essays are organised around one thinker, John McDowell, and one central idea
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49Knowing, knowing perspicuously, and knowing how one knowsGrazer Philosophische Studien 98 (4): 530-543. 2021.In Knowing and Seeing, Michael Ayers presents a view of what he calls primary knowledge according to which one who knows in that way both knows perspicuously and knows how they know. Here, I use some general considerations about seeing, knowing, and knowing how one knows in order to raise some questions about this view. More specifically, I consider some putative limits on one’s capacity to know how one knows. The main question I pursue concerns whether perspicuity should be thought of either (i…Read more
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21J. L. Austin: philosopher and D-Day intelligence officer J. L. Austin: philosopher and D-Day intelligence officer, by M. W. Rowe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2023, 688 pp., £30.00 (hardback), ISBN: 9780198707585 (review)History of European Ideas 50 (3): 569-571. 2024.M. W. Rowe’s outstanding book is the first full-dress biography of the philosopher J. L. (John Langshaw) Austin, who died in 1960 aged 48. During his comparatively short life, Austin made significa...
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58John Cook Wilson on the indefinability of knowledgeEuropean Journal of Philosophy 30 (4): 1547-1564. 2022.Can knowledge be defined? We expound an argument of John Cook Wilson's that it cannot. Cook Wilson's argument connects knowing with having the power to inquire. We suggest that if he is right about that connection, then knowledge is, indeed, indefinable.
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8Prospects for a Truth-conditional Account of Standing MeaningIn Richard Schantz (ed.), Prospects for Meaning, Walter De Gruyter. pp. 195-222. 2012.
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A plea for understandingIn Sarah Sawyer (ed.), New waves in philosophy of language, Palgrave-macmillan. 2010.
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28Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality by David Wiggins (Harvard University Press, 2006)Philosophy 97 (3): 402-407. 2022.
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58Moore on the sceptical philosopherThink 20 (57): 69-87. 2021.1. Since I don't know who you are, dear reader, and since I know that some people don't have hands, I don't know whether you have hands. Probably you do, but knowing that something is probable is rarely, if ever, a way of knowing that thing. By contrast, I know that I have hands. Let me check. Yes, here is one of my hands; and here is another. Since I know that here is one of my hands and that here is another, and since I know that it follows from those two claims that I have hands, I can deduce…Read more
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43Corresponding reasons: on Richard Moran’s The Exchange of WordsPhilosophical Explorations 23 (3): 271-280. 2020.Volume 23, Issue 3, September 2020, Page 271-280.
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76Illocution and understandingInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.What are the connections between the successful performance of illocutionary acts and audience understanding or uptake of their performance? According to one class of proposals, audience understanding suffices for successful performance. I explain how those proposals emerge from earlier work and seek to clarify some of their interrelations.
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68Austin’s Way with Skepticism: An Essay on Philosophical Method, by Mark KaplanMind 129 (513): 323-331. 2020._ Austin’s Way with Skepticism: An Essay on Philosophical Method _, by KaplanMark. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 192.
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358Enough is Enough: Austin on KnowingIn Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), Interpreting J. L. Austin: Critical Essays, Cambridge University Press. 2017.
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78Demystifying MeaningPhilosophical Papers 30 (2): 145-167. 2001.Abstract Some philosophers find linguistic meaning mysterious. Two approaches suggest themselves for removing the felt mystery, or demystifying meaning. One involves providing a substantive account of meaning in meaning-free terms. Although this approach has come under serious attack in recent years, Paul Horwich has recently presented a version of the approach that might be thought impervious. A preliminary attempt is made to argue that Horwich's version is vulnerable to the considerations felt…Read more
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120The ordinary and the experimental: Cook Wilson and Austin on method in philosophyBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (5): 939-960. 2018.To what extent was ordinary language philosophy a precursor to experimental philosophy? Since the conditions on pursuit of either project are at best unclear, and at worst protean, the general question is hard to address. I focus instead on particular cases, seeking to uncover some central aspects of J. L. Austin’s and John Cook Wilson’s ordinary language based approach to philosophical method. I make a start at addressing three questions. First, what distinguishes their approach from other more…Read more
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36Grice and Marty on ExpressionIn Hamid Taieb & Guillaume Fréchette (eds.), Mind and Language – On the Philosophy of Anton Marty, De Gruyter. pp. 263-284. 2017.
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27Trust in the darkForum for European Philosophy Blog. 2016.Guy Longworth asks whether we can gain knowledge from others.
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93IV—Sharing Thoughts About OneselfProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 113 (1pt1): 57-81. 2013.This paper is about first‐person thoughts—thoughts about oneself that are expressible through uses of first‐person pronouns. It is widely held that first‐person thoughts cannot be shared. My aim is to postpone rejection of the more natural view that such thoughts about oneself can be shared. I sketch an account on which such thoughts can be shared and indicate some ways in which deciding the fate of the account will depend upon further work.
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568A Plea for UnderstandingIn Sarah Sawyer (ed.), New waves in philosophy of language, Palgrave-macmillan. 2010.
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96Understanding what was saidSynthese 195 (2): 815-834. 2018.On the most prominent account, understanding what was said is always propositional knowledge of what was said. I develop a more minimal alternative, according to which understanding is sometimes a distinctive attitude towards what was said—to a first approximation, entertaining what was said. The propositional knowledge account has been supported on the basis of its capacity to explain testimonial knowledge transmission. I argue that it is not so supported.
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321Linguistic understanding and knowledgeNoûs 42 (1). 2008.Is linguistic understanding a form of knowledge? I clarify the question and then consider two natural forms a positive answer might take. I argue that, although some recent arguments fail to decide the issue, neither positive answer should be accepted. The aim is not yet to foreclose on the view that linguistic understanding is a form of knowledge, but to develop desiderata on a satisfactory successor to the two natural views rejected here.
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149Review: Robert J. Matthews: The Measure of Mind: Propositional Attitudes and Their Attribution (review)Mind 117 (466): 494-500. 2008.
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50The Objects of Thought by Tim Crane Oxford University Press2014, pp. 208, £27.50 ISBN: 978-0-19-968274-4 (review)Philosophy 90 (1): 146-151. 2015.
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788Ignorance of Linguistics: A Note on Michael Devitt’s Ignorance of LanguageCroatian Journal of Philosophy 9 (1): 21-34. 2009.Michael Devitt has argued that Chomsky, along with many other Linguists and philosophers, is ignorant of the true nature of Generative Linguistics. In particular, Devitt argues that Chomsky and others wrongly believe the proper object of linguistic inquiry to be speakers' competences, rather than the languages that speakers are competent with. In return, some commentators on Devitt's work have returned the accusation, arguing that it is Devitt who is ignorant about Linguistics. In this note, I c…Read more
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