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The Relation between Quine and DavidsonIn Gilbert Harman & Ernest LePore (eds.), A Companion to W. V. O. Quine, Wiley-blackwell. 2013.
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Qué son los conceptos?In Mariela Aguilera, Laura Danón, Carolina Scotto & Elisabeth Camp (eds.), Conceptos, lenguaje y cognición, Editorial Universidad Nacional De Córdoba. 2015.
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55Notions of arbitrarinessMind and Language 38 (4): 1120-1137. 2022.Arbitrariness is a distinctive feature of human language, and a growing body of comparative work is investigating its presence in animal communication. But what is arbitrariness, exactly? We propose to distinguish four notions of semiotic arbitrariness: a notion of opaque association between sign forms and semiotic functions, one of sign‐function mapping optionality, one of acquisition‐dependent sign‐function coupling, and one of lack of motivatedness. We characterize these notions, illustrate t…Read more
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51Norms, Reasons, and Anthropological NaturalismPhilosophical Topics 50 (1): 9-32. 2022.This article addresses the two most important areas of potential conflict between inferentialism and naturalism, namely normativity and rationality. Concerning the first, it sides with inferentialism, while at the same time developing a normativist position less vulnerable to naturalistic objections. There is nothing problematic or mysterious about semantic normativity or normativity in general. But one needs to distinguish different types of normativity and recognize that statements of norms ca…Read more
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113Teleology first: Goals before knowledge and beliefBehavioral and Brain Sciences 44. 2021.Comparing knowledge with belief can go wrong in two dimensions: If the authors employ a wider notion of knowledge, then they do not compare like with like because they assume a narrow notion of belief. If they employ only a narrow notion of knowledge, then their claim is not supported by the evidence. Finally, we sketch a superior teleological view.
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25The later Wittgenstein and moral philosophy Benjamin de Mesel, Cham, Springer, 2018, € 50.28, vii+186 pp (review)Ratio 35 (1): 71-74. 2021.Ratio, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 71-74, March 2022.
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167Pluralism About Practical Reasons and Reason ExplanationsPhilosophical Explorations (2): 1-18. 2021.This paper maintains that objectivism about practical reasons should be combined with pluralism both about the nature of practical reasons and about action explanations. We argue for an ‘expanding circle of practical reasons’, starting out from an open-minded monist objectivism. On this view, practical reasons are not limited to actual facts, but consist in states of affairs, possible facts that may or may not obtain. Going beyond such ‘that-ish’ reasons, we argue that goals are also bona fide p…Read more
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91Minds, Brains, and Capacities: Situated Cognition and Neo-AristotelianismFrontiers in Psychology 11. 2020.This article compares situated cognition to contemporary Neo-Aristotelian approaches to the mind. The article distinguishes two components in this paradigm: an Aristotelian essentialism which is alien to situated cognition and a Wittgensteinian “capacity approach” to the mind which is not just congenial to it but provides important conceptual and argumentative resources in defending social cognition against orthodox cognitive science. It focuses on a central tenet of that orthodoxy. According to…Read more
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48Determinacy of ContentThe Harvard Review of Philosophy 27 101-120. 2020.Few arguments against intentional states in animals have stood the test of time. But one objection by Stich and Davidson has never been rebutted. In my reconstruction it runs: Ascribing beliefs to animals is vacuous, unless something counts as an animal believing one specific “content” rather than another; Nothing counts as an animal believing one specific content rather than another, because of their lack of language; Ergo: Ascribing beliefs to animals is vacuous. Several attempts to block the …Read more
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150Was Wittgenstein an Analytic Philosopher?Metaphilosophy 35 (4): 419-444. 2004.This article first surveys the established views on Wittgenstein's relation to analytic philosophy. Next it distinguishes among different ways of defining analytic philosophy—topical, doctrinal, methodological, stylistic, historical, and the idea that it is a family‐resemblance concept. It argues that while certain stylistic features are important, the historical and the family‐resemblance conceptions are the most auspicious, especially in combination. The answer to the title question is given i…Read more
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129Book-Symposium: What is Analytical Philosophy? IntroductionJournal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 2 (2): 36-42. 2013.
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6DenkenIn Johann S. Ach & Dagmar Borchers (eds.), Handbuch Tierethik: Grundlagen – Kontexte – Perspektiven, J.b. Metzler. pp. 52-56. 2018.Seit Descartes gilt Denken nicht nur als das Vermögen, welches Menschen vor Tieren auszeichnet, sondern auch, als das Merkmal, welches den Bereich des Psychischen bzw. Mentalen von dem des bloß Materiellen unterscheidet. Die Cartesianische Auffassung des Denkens ist allerdings sehr umfassend, da sie außer intellektuellen Fähigkeiten auch Empfindung, Wahrnehmung, Einbildungskraft und Wünsche einschließt. Der etablierte Begriff – sowohl in der Umgangssprache als auch in den Wissenschaften – ist je…Read more
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51What Is Meaning? A Wittgensteinian Answer to an Un-Wittgensteinian QuestionIn James Conant & Sebastian Sunday (eds.), Wittgenstein on Philosophy, Objectivity, and Meaning, Cambridge University Press. pp. 185-210. 2019.Wittgenstein has often been ascribed a ‘use-theory of meaning’. However, he explicitly renounced theory construction. Furthermore, his slogan ‘Don’t ask for the meaning, ask for the use!’ invites circumventing the question ‘What is meaning?’ altogether. This chapter argues that, Wittgenstein’s ambivalence notwithstanding, there is no merit in avoiding the title question (‘What is meaning?’). Moreover, it is argued that, while Wittgenstein’s reflections are incompatible with a formal theory of me…Read more
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46Objectivism and Causalism About Reasons for ActionIn Gunnar Schumann (ed.), Explanation in Action Theory and Historiography: Causal and Teleological Approaches, Routledge. pp. 124-145. 2019.This chapter explores whether a version of causalism about reasons for action can be saved by giving up Davidsonian psychologism and endorsing objectivism, so that the reasons for which we act are the normative reasons that cause our corresponding actions. We address two problems for ‘objecto-causalism’, actions for merely apparent normative reasons and actions performed in response to future normative reasons—in neither of these cases can the reason for which the agent acts cause her action. To…Read more
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150Agency, Intelligence and Reasons in AnimalsPhilosophy 94 (4): 645-671. 2019.What kind of activity are non-human animals capable of? A venerable tradition insists that lack of language confines them to ‘mere behaviour’. This article engages with this ‘lingualism’ by developing a positive, bottom-up case for the possibility of animal agency. Higher animals cannot just act, they can act intelligently, rationally, intentionally and for reasons. In developing this case I draw on the interplay of behaviour, cognition and conation, the unduly neglected notion of intelligence a…Read more
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101Philosophy Rehinged?International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 6 (2-3): 274-308. 2016.This paper is devoted to the role hinge propositions play or should play in epistemology and meta-philosophy. It starts by distinguishing different ways in which propositions can be basic or fundamental and by arguing that the foundational status of hinge propositions cannot be reduced to any of the others. The second part maintains that hinges have anti-sceptical potential, provided that one combines Wittgenstein’s critique of sense with Moore’s method of differential certainty. The final part …Read more
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11Thought, Language, and AnimalsGrazer Philosophische Studien 71 (1): 139-160. 2006.This paper discusses Wittgenstein's ideas about the relation between thought, neurophysiology and language, and about the mental capacities of non-linguistic animals. It deals with his initial espousal and later rejection of a 'language of thought', his arguments against the idea that thought requires a medium of images or words, his reasons for resisting the encephalocentric conception of the mind which dominates contemporary philosophy of mind, his mature views about the connection between tho…Read more
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27A Companion to Wittgenstein (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2017.The most comprehensive survey of Wittgenstein’s thought yet compiled, this volume of fifty newly commissioned essays by leading interpreters of his philosophy is a keynote addition to the Blackwell series on the world’s great philosophers, covering everything from Wittgenstein’s intellectual development to the latest interpretations of his hugely influential ideas. The lucid, engaging commentary also reviews Wittgenstein’s historical legacy and his continued impact on contemporary philosophical …Read more
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30IntroductionIn Hans-Johann Glock & John Hyman (eds.), A Companion to Wittgenstein, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 1-4. 2017.
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273The Awful English LanguagePhilosophical Papers 47 (1): 123-154. 2018.The ever-increasing dominance of English within analytic philosophy is an aspect of linguistic globalisation. To assess it, I first address fundamental issues in the philosophy of language. Steering a middle course between linguistic universalism and linguistic relativism, I deny that some languages might be philosophically superior to others, notably by capturing the essential categories of reality. On this background I next consider both the pros and cons of the Anglicisation of philosophy. I …Read more
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209Can Animals Judge?Dialectica 64 (1): 11-33. 2010.This article discusses the problems which concepts pose for the attribution of thoughts to animals. It locates these problems within a range of other issues concerning animal minds (section 1), and presents a ‘lingualist master argument’ according to which one cannot entertain a thought without possessing its constituent concepts and cannot possess concepts without possessing language (section 2). The first premise is compelling if one accepts the building-block model of concepts as parts of who…Read more
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37Concepts: Where Subjectivism Goes WrongPhilosophy 84 (1): 5-29. 2009.The debate about concepts has always been shaped by a contrast between subjectivism, which treats them as phenomena in the mind or head of individuals, and objectivism, which insists that they exist independently of individual minds. The most prominent contemporary version of subjectivism is Fodor's RTM. The Fregean charge against subjectivism is that it cannot do justice to the fact that different individuals cansharethe same concepts. Proponents of RTM have accepted shareability as a ‘non-nego…Read more