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34¿Qué es la verdad? Comentario a los libros de S. Blackburn, La verdad. Guía de perplejos, y de B. Williams, Verdad y veracidad (review)Areté. Revista de Filosofía 19 (2): 305-322. 2007.No presenta resumen.
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172Las normas Y su puesta en vigor: Respuesta a Josep CorbíCrítica. Revista Hispanoamericana de Filosofía 49 (145): 113-132. 2017.In his paper “Obras de ficción, formas de conciencia y literatura”, Josep Corbí raises a few sharp objections to my distinction between fiction and non-fiction, as I formulate it in my recently published Relatar lo ocurrido como invención. In this response, I present first in a compact form such ideas, and then I try to answer to Corbí’s criticisms.
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43Indirect AssertionsPolish Journal of Philosophy 10 (1): 13-49. 2016.Imagination and Convention by Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone is a sustained attack on a standard piece of contemporary philosophical lore, Grice’s (1975) theory of conversational implicatures, and on indirect meanings in general. Although I agree with quite a lot of what they say, and with some important aspects of their theoretical stance, here I will respond to some of their criticism. I’ll assume a characterization of implicatures as theory-neutral as possible, on which implicatures are a sor…Read more
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289The Model-Theoretic Argument: Another Turn of the Screw (review)Erkenntnis 44 (3): 305-316. 1996.This paper gives a new twist to already familia refutations of Putnam's "model-theoretic" argument against realism. Recent attempts to defend the model-theoretic argument in the face of those criticisms indicate that the main point of previous rebuttals of the argument can be easily missed. The paper expounds the same point again in a different guise, by having recourse to ideas on models and the model-theoretic account of the logical properties developed by the author in earlier work. Some writ…Read more
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221Supervaluationism and the Report of Vague ContentsIn Richard Dietz & Sebastiano Moruzzi (eds.), Cuts and Clouds: Vaguenesss, its Nature and its Logic, Oxford University Press. 2010.Schiffer has given an argument against supervaluationist accounts of vagueness, based on reports of vague contents. Suppose that Al tells Bob ‘Ben was there’, pointing to a certain place, and later Bob says, ‘Al said that Ben was there’, pointing in the same direction. According to supervaluationist semantics, Schiffer contends, both Al’s and Bob’s utterances of ‘there’ indeterminately refer to myriad precise regions of space; Al’s utterance is true just in case Ben was in any of those precisely…Read more
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597Ostensive signs: Against the identity theory of quotationJournal of Philosophy 91 (5): 253-264. 1994.Defends a version of the Davidsonian Demonstrative Theory of quotation against proponents of the Fregean Identity Theory
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177Las concepciones de la filosofía del lenguaje (review)Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 17 (2). 1998.A critical notice of A. García-Suárez "Ñas concepciones de la filosofía del lenguaje"
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56The philosophical import of connectionism: A critical notice of Andy Clark's associative enginesMind and Language 10 (4): 370-401. 1995.Critical notice of Andy Clark's "Associative Engines".
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198Gómez-Torrente on Modality and Tarskian Logical ConsequenceTheoria 18 (2): 159-170. 2003.Gómez-Torrente’s papers have made important contributions to vindicate Tarski’s model-theoretic account of the logical properties in the face of Etchemendy’s criticisms. However, at some points his vindication depends on interpreting the Tarskian account as purportedly modally deflationary, i.e., as not intended to capture the intuitive modal element in the logical properties, that logical consequence is (epistemic or alethic) necessary truth-preservation. Here it is argued that the views expres…Read more
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325Two-dimensionalism: A neo-Fregean interpretationIn Manuel García-Carpintero & Josep Macià (eds.), Two-Dimensional Semantics, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2006.The truth of a statement depends on the world in two ways: what the statement says is true if the world is as the statement says it is; on the other hand, what the expressions in the statement mean depends on what the world is like (for instance, on what conventions are in place). Each of these two kinds of dependence of truth on the world corresponds to one of the dimensions on the two-dimensional semantic framework, developed in the 1970’ in the work of Evans, Kaplan, Kripke and Stalnaker. The…Read more
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4Qualia that It Is Right to QuinePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2): 357-377. 2003.Dennett (1988) provides a much discussed argument for the nonexistence of qualia, as conceived by philosophers like Block, Chalmers, Loar and Searle. My goal in this paper is to vindicate Dennett's argument, construed in a certain way. The argument supports the claim that qualia are constitutively representational. Against Block and Chalmers, the argument rejects the detachment of phenomenal from information‐processing consciousness; and against Loar and Searle, it defends the claim that qualia …Read more
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525 años de Naming and Necessity: PresentaciónTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 13 (3): 413. 1998.
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268Fictional singular imaginingsIn Robin Jeshion (ed.), New Essays on Singular Thought, Oxford University Press. pp. 273--299. 2010.In a series of papers, Robin Jeshion has forcefully criticized both Donnellan's and Evans’ claims on the contingent a priori, and she has developed an “acquaintanceless” account of singular thoughts as an alternative view. Jeshion claims that one can fully grasp a singular thought expressed by a sentence including a proper name, even if its reference has been descriptively fixed and one’s access to the referent is “mediated” by that description. But she still wants to reject “semantic instrumen…Read more
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265Editorial Introduction: History of the Philosophy of LanguageIn Manuel García-Carpintero & Max Kölbel (eds.), The Continuum Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Continuum International. pp. 1. 2012.The chapter draws a very rough (and rather idiosyncratic) map of the terrain of the contemporary scene in the philosophy of language, as it was set out in the work of Frege, Russell and the early Wittgenstein – the presupposed common background, taught to beginners in the discipline, for the themes to be further explored from a present-day perspective in the rest of the book. The chapter outlines some core issues as they are presented in the insightful systematic articulation of Frege’s and Russ…Read more
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136Bivalence and what is saidDialectica 61 (1). 2007.On standard versions of supervaluationism, truth is equated with supertruth, and does not satisfy bivalence: some truth-bearers are neither true nor false. In this paper I want to confront a well-known worry about this, recently put by Wright as follows: ‘The downside . . . rightly emphasized by Williamson . . . is the implicit surrender of the T-scheme’. I will argue that such a cost is not high: independently motivated philosophical distinctions support the surrender of the T- scheme, and sugg…Read more
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Por la “quineación” de los qualia cartesianosAnálisis Filosófico 19 (2): 101-142. 1999.Dennett provides a much discussed argument against qualia, at least when conceived as philosophers like Block, Chalmers, Loar and Searle do. My goal in this paper is to vindicate Dennett´s argument, construed in a certain way. As I will present it, the argument supports the claim that qualia are constitutively representational. More specifically, against Block and Chalmers the argument supports the claim that the radical distinction between phenomenal and information-processing consciousness the…Read more
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67Fregean sense and the proper function of assertion: Comments on TextorTheoria 15 (38): 303-316. 2000.On behalf of Millian views on the meaning of proper names, Mark Textor offers in 'Knowledge Transmission and Linguistic Sense' a suggestive critical discussion of an argument for Fregean views due to Richard Heck (1995). IWhat exactly Heck's argument is, however, is not very clear, as witnessed by Byrne & Thau's (1996) efforts at reconstructing it and Heck's (1996) reply to which is not terribly illuminating. After presenting a form of a Fregean view and a Heckian argument for it, the paper arg…Read more
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34Davidson, correspondence truth and the frege-Gödel—church argumentHistory and Philosophy of Logic 19 (2): 63-81. 1998.This paper argues for a conditional claim concerning a famous argument—developed by Church in elucidation of some remarks by Frege to the effect that the bedeutung of a sentence is the sentence’s truth-value—the Frege–Gödel–Church argument, or FGC for short. The point we make is this :if, and just to the extent that, Arthur Smullyan’s argument against Quine's use of FGC is sound, then essentially the same rejoinder disposes also of Davidson's use of FGC against ‘correspondence’ theories of truth…Read more
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259A genealogical notionTeorema: International Journal of Philosophy 30 (1): 43-52. 2011.After a critical examination of several attempts to characterize the Analytic tradition in philosophy, in the book here discussed Hanjo Glock goes on to contend that Analytic Philosophy is “a tradition that is held together both by ties of influence and by a family of partially overlapping features”. Here I question the need to appeal to a “family resemblance” component, arguing instead (in part by drawing on related attempts to characterize art, art genres and art schools) for a genealogical ch…Read more
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17Estado de la cuestión: Filosofía del lenguajeTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 20 (2): 223-238. 2010.Se presentan propuestas recientes en tres ámbitos de la filosofía del lenguaje en que se están haciendo contribuciones significativas: el fenómeno de la vaguedad; la distinción entre semántica y pragmática, y el uso de semánticas “bidimensionales” para tratar problemas generados por las tesis de “referencia directa”. Hace unos años existia una percepción de la pérdida por la filosofia del lenguaje, en favor de la filosofia de la mente, del lugar central ocupado en la tradición analítica -una per…Read more
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174Constructing the World by Chalmers, David J.: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. xxvi + 494, £30.00 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (2): 388-391. 2014.Review of Chalmers' "Constructing the World"
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Un principio empirista del significado contra el realismo “metafísico”Análisis Filosófico 18 (1): 39-64. 1998.This paper starts from the assumption that, while realism about natural kinds –as sustained by Putnam´s Twin Earth throught-experiment and Kripke´s analogous consideration- is correct, it should be made compatible with a principle that competent speakers know the truth-conditions their utterances signify. A distinction is drawn between a form of realism compatible with such principle and one which is not. A sensible form of realism envisages the conceptual possibility that a term applies in case…Read more
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79Foundational Semantics II: Normative AccountsPhilosophy Compass 7 (6): 410-421. 2012.Descriptive semantic theories purport to characterize the meanings of the expressions of languages in whatever complexity they might have. Foundational semantics purports to identify the kind of considerations relevant to establish that a given descriptive semantics accurately characterizes the language used by a given individual or community. Foundational Semantics I presents three contrasting approaches to the foundational matters, and the main considerations relevant to appraise their merits.…Read more
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577De se thoughts and immunity to error through misidentificationSynthese 195 (8): 3311-3333. 2018.I discuss an aspect of the relation between accounts of de se thought and the phenomenon of immunity to error through misidentification. I will argue that a deflationary account of the latter—the Simple Account, due to Evans —will not do; a more robust one based on an account of de se thoughts is required. I will then sketch such an alternative account, based on a more general view on singular thoughts, and show how it can deal with the problems I raise for the Simple Account.
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623Accommodating PresuppositionsTopoi 35 (1): 37-44. 2016.In this paper I elaborate on previous criticisms of the influential Stalnakerian account of presuppositions, pointing out that the well-known practice of informative presupposition puts heavy strain on Stalnaker’s pragmatic characterization of the phenomenon of presupposition, in particular of the triggering of presuppositions. Stalnaker has replied to previous criticisms by relying on the well-taken point that we should take into account the time at which presupposition-requirements are to be c…Read more
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46Editorial: Philosophy and Cognitive NeuroscienceDialectica 57 (1): 3-6. 2003.Editorial comment on the relations between philosophy and cognitive science
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103Contexts as Shared CommitmentsFrontiers in Psychology 6. 2015.Contemporary semantics assumes two influential notions of context: one coming from Kaplan (1989), on which contexts are sets of predetermined parameters, and another originating in Stalnaker (1978), on which contexts are sets of propositions that are “common ground”. The latter is deservedly more popular, given its flexibility in accounting for context-dependent aspects of language beyond manifest indexicals, such as epistemic modals, predicates of taste, and so on and so forth; in fact, properl…Read more
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516Assertion and the semantics of force-markersIn Claudia Bianchi (ed.), The Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction, Csli Publications. pp. 133--166. 2004.In recent work, Williamson has defended a suggestive account of assertion. Williamson claims that the following norm or rule (the knowledge rule) is constitutive of assertion, and individuates it: (KR) One must ((assert p) only if one knows p) Williamson is not directly concerned with the semantics of assertion-markers, although he assumes that his view has implications for such an undertaking; he says: “in natural languages, the default use of declarative sentences is to make assertions” (op. c…Read more
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88Foundational Semantics I: Descriptive AccountsPhilosophy Compass 7 (6): 397-409. 2012.Descriptive semantic theories purport to characterize the meanings of the expressions of languages in whatever complexity they might have. Foundational semantics purports to identify the kind of considerations relevant to establish that a given descriptive semantics accurately characterizes the language used by a given individual or community. Foundational Semantics I presents three contrasting approaches to the foundational matters, and the main considerations relevant to appraise their merits.…Read more
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111Estado de la cuestión: Filosofia Del lenguaje (state of the art: Philosophy of language)Theoria 20 (2): 223-238. 2005.Se presentan propuestas recientes en tres ámbitos de la filosofía del lenguaje en que se están haciendo contribuciones significativas: el fenómeno de la vaguedad; la distinción entre semántica y pragmática, y el uso de semánticas “bidimensionales” para tratar problemas generados por las tesis de “referencia directa”. Hace unos años existia una percepción de la pérdida por la filosofia del lenguaje, en favor de la filosofia de la mente, del lugar central ocupado en la tradición analítica -una per…Read more
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Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |