•  102
    Animal Minds: A Non-Representationalist Approach
    American Philosophical Quarterly 50 (3): 213-232. 2013.
    Do animals have minds? We have known at least since Aristotle that humans constitute one species of animal. And some benighted contemporaries apart, we also know that most humans have minds. To have any bite, therefore, the question must be restricted to non-human animals, to which I shall henceforth refer simply as "animals." I shall further assume that animals are bereft of linguistic faculties. So, do some animals have minds comparable to those of humans? As regards that question, there are t…Read more
  •  58
    Quine and Davidson on Language, Thought and Reality
    Cambridge University Press. 2003.
    Quine and Davidson are among the leading thinkers of the twentieth century. Their influence on contemporary philosophy is second to none, and their impact is also strongly felt in disciplines such as linguistics and psychology. This book is devoted to both of them, but also questions some of their basic assumptions. Hans-Johann Glock critically scrutinizes their ideas on ontology, truth, necessity, meaning and interpretation, thought and language, and shows that their attempts to accommodate mea…Read more
  •  30
  •  156
    From armchair to reality?
    Ratio 23 (3): 339-348. 2010.
  •  128
    The linguistic doctrine revisited
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 66 (1): 143-170. 2003.
    At present, there is an almost universal consensus that the linguistic doctrine of logical necessity is grotesque. This paper explores avenues for rehabilitating a limited version of the doctrine, according to which the special status of analytic statements like 'All vixens are female' is to be explained by reference to language. Far from being grotesque, this appeal to language has a respectable philosophical pedigree and chimes with common sense, as Quine came to realize. The problem lies in d…Read more
  •  308
    Concepts, conceptual schemes and grammar
    Philosophia 37 (4): 653-668. 2009.
    This paper considers the connection between concepts, conceptual schemes and grammar in Wittgenstein’s last writings. It lists eight claims about concepts that one can garner from these writings. It then focuses on one of them, namely that there is an important difference between conceptual and factual problems and investigations. That claim draws in its wake other claims, all of them revolving around the idea of a conceptual scheme, what Wittgenstein calls a ‘grammar’. I explain why Wittgenstei…Read more
  •  61
    Subjective, intersubjective, objective
    Philosophical Investigations 26 (4). 2003.
    Books reviewed: Donald Davidson, Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective.
  •  87
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-5, Ahead of Print.
  •  22
    Wittgenstein's `Philosophical Investigations': Text and Context
    with Robert L. Arrington
    Philosophical Quarterly 44 (176): 392-394. 1994.
  •  44
    Wie wichtig ist Erkenntnistheorie?
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 56 (1). 2002.
    In der zeitgenössischen analytischen Philosophe wird oft behauptet, die Erkenntnistheorie sei weniger fundamental als die Ontologie, da sich aus Aussagen über unser Erkenntnisvermögen keine Aussagen über die Wirklichkeit ableiten lassen und die Frage nach der Beschaffenheit der Wirklichkeit der Frage nach ihrer Erkennbarkeit vorausgeht. Dagegen verteidige ich folgende Thesen: eine Form der Erkenntnistheorie—die Auseinandersetzung mit der Skepsis —ist nicht fundamental; eine andere Form—die Ausei…Read more
  •  2
    Meaning, rules, and conventions
    In Edoardo Zamuner & D. K. Levy (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Enduring Arguments, Routledge. 2008.
  •  45
    Wittgenstein and Analytic Philosophy: Essays for P. M. S. Hacker (edited book)
    with John Hyman
    Oxford University Press. 2009.
    Thirteen leading contributors offer new essays in honour of the eminent philosopher and Wittgenstein scholar Peter Hacker. They discuss issues in the interpretation of Wittgenstein, investigate central topics in the history of analytic philosophy, and explore and assess Wittgensteinian ideas about language, mind, action, ethics, and religion.
  •  3
    Does language require conventions
    In Pasquale Frascolla, Diego Marconi & Alberto Voltolini (eds.), Wittgenstein: mind, meaning and metaphilosophy, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 85--112. 2010.
  •  120
    Concepts, abilities, and propositions
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 81 (1): 115-134. 2010.
    This article investigates whether the concept of a concept can be given a fairly uniform explanation through a 'cognitivist' account, one that accepts that concepts exist independently of individual subjects, yet nonetheless invokes mental achievements and capacities. I consider various variants of such an account, which identify a concept, respectively, with a certain kind of abilitiy, rule and way of thinking. All of them are confronted with what I call the 'proposition problem', namely that u…Read more
  •  179
    Analytic philosophy and history: A mismatch?
    Mind 117 (468): 867-897. 2008.
    In recent years, even some of its own practitioners have accused analytic philosophy of lacking historical awareness. My aim is to show that analytic philosophy and history are not such a mismatch after all. Against the objection that analytic philosophers have unduly ignored the past I argue that for the most part they only resist strong versions of historicism, and for good reasons. The history of philosophy is not the whole of philosophy, as extreme historicists maintain, nor is it indispensa…Read more
  •  165
    This paper discusses conceptual relativism. The main focus is on the contrasting ideas of Wittgenstein and Davidson, with Quine, Kuhn, Feyerabend and Hacker in supporting roles. I distinguish conceptual from alethic and ontological relativism, defend a distinction between conceptual scheme and empirical content, and reject the Davidsonian argument against the possibility of alternative conceptual schemes: there can be conceptual diversity without failure of translation, and failure of translatio…Read more
  •  50
    Truth without People?
    Philosophy 72 (279). 1997.
    There is a venerable tradition according to which the concept of truth is totally independent of human beings, their actions and beliefs, because truth consists in the correspondence of mind-independentpropositions to a mind-independent reality. For want of arespect. One way of doing so is relativism, the idea that whether a belief is true or false depends on the point of view of individuals or communities. A closely related position is a consensus theory of truth, according to which a belief is…Read more
  •  165
    Nonsense Made Intelligible
    Erkenntnis 80 (1): 111-136. 2015.
    My topic is the relation between nonsense and intelligibility, and the contrast between nonsense and falsehood which played a pivotal role in the rise of analytic philosophy . I shall pursue three lines of inquiry. First I shall briefly consider the positive case, namely linguistic understanding . Secondly, I shall consider the negative case—different breakdowns of understanding and connected forms of failure to make sense . Third, I shall criticize three important misconceptions of nonsense and…Read more
  •  63
    What is Analytic Philosophy?
    Cambridge University Press. 2008.
    Analytic philosophy is roughly a hundred years old, and it is now the dominant force within Western philosophy. Interest in its historical development is increasing, but there has hitherto been no sustained attempt to elucidate what it currently amounts to, and how it differs from so-called 'continental' philosophy. In this rich and wide-ranging book, Hans Johann Glock argues that analytic philosophy is a loose movement held together both by ties of influence and by various 'family resemblances'…Read more
  • Grammar and Methodology: On Wittgenstein's Later Conception of Philosophy
    Dissertation, University of Oxford (United Kingdom). 1989.
    Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;Even among Wittgenstein's admirers, his conception of philosophy as a therapy for conceptual confusion is generally considered to be the weakest part of his later work. It seems to consist of slogans, which are unsupported by argument and belied by his own 'theory construction'. It may even be self-refuting--a philosophical theory that denies the possibility of philosophical theory. ;Unless these objections can be …Read more