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412Does belief (only) aim at the truth?Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 93 (2): 279-300. 2012.It is common to hear talk of the aim of belief and to find philosophers appealing to that aim for numerous explanatory purposes. What belief 's aim explains depends, of course, on what that aim is. Many hold that it is somehow related to truth, but there are various ways in which one might specify belief 's aim using the notion of truth. In this article, by considering whether they can account for belief 's standard of correctness and the epistemic norms governing belief, I argue against certain…Read more
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35A Luxury of the Understanding: On the Value of True Belief, by Allan Hazlett (review)Mind 125 (499): 918-922. 2016.
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126The use of ‘use’Grazer Philosophische Studien 76 (1): 135-147. 2008.Many equate the meaning of a linguistic expression with its use. This paper investigates prominent objections to the equivalence claim and argues that they are unsuccessful. Once one suitably distinguishes the kind of use to be identified with meaning, the two do not diverge. Doing so, however, requires employing terms that are cognates of ‘meaning’ (if not ‘meaning’ itself). Nonetheless, I stress, this does not count against the equivalence claim. Moreover, one should not assume that the circul…Read more
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104Review: A Sceptical Guide to Meaning and Rules: Defending Kripke's Wittgenstein (review)Mind 116 (464): 1132-1136. 2007.
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142Particularly general and generally particular: language, rules and meaningLogique Et Analyse 53 (209): 77-90. 2010.Semantic generalists and semantic particularists disagree over the role of rules or principles in linguistic competence and in the determination of linguistic meaning, and hence over the importance of the notions of a rule or of a principle in philosophical accounts of language. In this paper, I have argued that the particularist’s case against generalism is far from decisive and that by moderating the claims she makes on behalf of her thesis the generalist can accommodate many of the considerat…Read more
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175Languages, language-games, and forms of lifeIn Hans-Johann Glock & John Hyman (eds.), A Companion to Wittgenstein, Wiley-blackwell. 2017.In this paper, after outlining the methodological role Wittgenstein's appeal to language-games is supposed to play, I examine the picture of language which his discussion of such games and their relations to what Wittgenstein calls forms of life suggests. It is a picture according to which language and its employment are inextricably connected to wider contexts—they are embedded in specific natural and social environments, they are tied to purposive activities serving provincial needs, and caugh…Read more
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63Meaning- theories and the principle of humanitySouthern Journal of Philosophy 44 (4): 697-716. 2006.In this paper, I briefly outline the notion of a truth-conditional meaning-theory and introduce two prominent problems it faces. The“extensionality problem” arises because not all correct specifications of truth-conditions are meaning-giving. The “explanatory problem”concerns the extent to which truth-conditional meaning-theories can contribute to the task of clarifying the nature of linguistic meaning.The “principle of humanity” is supposed to resolve both issues simultaneously. I argue that it…Read more
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82Fregean sense and anti-individualismPhilosophical Books 48 (3): 233-240. 2007.The definitive version of this article is published in Philosophical Books 48.3 July 2007 pp. 233-240 by Blackwell Publishing, and is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com.
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12Book Review: Maximilian de Gaynesfordl John McDowell. Polity, 2004 (review)Philosophical Papers 34 (1). 2005.NoAvailable Philosophical Papers Vol.34(1) 2005: 137-142
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1515If you justifiably believe that you ought to Φ, you ought to ΦPhilosophical Studies 173 (7): 1873-1895. 2016.In this paper, we claim that, if you justifiably believe that you ought to perform some act, it follows that you ought to perform that act. In the first half, we argue for this claim by reflection on what makes for correct reasoning from beliefs about what you ought to do. In the second half, we consider a number of objections to this argument and its conclusion. In doing so, we arrive at another argument for the view that justified beliefs about what you ought to do must be true, based in part …Read more
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255Stick to the Facts: On the Norms of AssertionErkenntnis 78 (4): 847-867. 2013.The view that truth is the norm of assertion has fallen out of fashion. The recent trend has been to think that knowledge is the norm of assertion. Objections to the knowledge view proceed almost exclusively by appeal to alleged counterexamples. While it no doubt has a role to play, such a strategy relies on intuitions concerning hypothetical cases, intuitions which might not be shared and which might shift depending on how the relevant cases are fleshed out. In this paper, I reject the knowledg…Read more
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540Truth is (Still) the Norm for Assertion: A Reply to LittlejohnErkenntnis 80 (6): 1245-1253. 2015.In a paper in this journal, I defend the view that truth is the fundamental norm for assertion and, in doing so, reject the view that knowledge is the fundamental norm for assertion. In a recent response, Littlejohn raises a number of objections against my arguments. In this reply, I argue that Littlejohn’s objections are unsuccessful
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95Oughts and thoughts: Rule-following and the normativity of content – Anandi Hattiangadi (review)Philosophical Quarterly 58 (233): 743-745. 2008.No Abstract
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Meta-Ethics |
Aesthetics |
17th/18th Century British Philosophy |
Philosophy of Language |
Areas of Interest
20th Century Philosophy |
Value Theory |