•  43
    Form and Reason (review)
    Teaching Philosophy 18 (2): 185-186. 1995.
  •  45
    n Naming and Necessity Saul Kripke criticized descriptivist theories of proper names and suggested a ‘better picture’ as a replacement. But while the ‘better picture’ that Kripke provided was very interesting and stimulating, it was little more than a sketch of a theory that needed much work and refinement. While Kripke argued that proper names are not synonymous with definite descriptions or clusters of definite descriptions, he was silent on what the semantic contents of names might be. Furthe…Read more
  •  10
    Contemporary analytic and linguistic philosophies (edited book)
    with E. D. Klemke
    Prometheus Books. 1983.
    This new, second edition of the popular college textbook offers the beginning philosophy student a comprehensive introduction to several aspects of one of the most influential schools of thought in the twentieth century. Professor Klemke begins by pointing out the distinctions among the various types of analytic and linguistic philosophies, while emphasising that they all arose as a response to the formerly predominant school of absolute idealism. After a prologue section containing a representa…Read more
  •  53
    Introduction and overview -- Reference -- Propositions: structure and objects -- Reporting attitudes -- Singular propositions and acquaintance -- Beliefs and belief reports -- Empty names -- Attitude contexts: beliefs and justification.
  •  42
  •  66
    Discovering Identity
    Southwest Philosophy Review 17 (2): 43-57. 2001.
    Driven by the intuition that the propositions expressed by a=a and a=b, where ‘a’ and ‘b’ are codesignative names, differ in cognitive value, philosophers constructing theories of beliefs and belief attributions have been attracted to elements from both Frege’s and Russell’s theories. This, I will argue, has had the consequence that some of the theories entail that it is a necessary condition for making the astronomical discovery that Hesperus is Phosphorus that we make a mental discovery about …Read more
  •  152
    The contingent a priori: Kripke's two types of examples
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (2). 1991.
    In Naming and Necessity' Saul A. Kripke gives two types of examples of contingent truths knowable a priori. So he disagrees with the first leg of the thesis. As we will see later, his examples depend on the direct designation theory of names. While there have been attempts to provide examples of the contingent a priori that do not depend on that theory, most of those examples should be viewed as expansions, or modifications, of Kripke's examples. Philip Kitcher, for example, gives an interesting…Read more