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1305The Function is UnsaturatedIn Michael Beaney (ed.) https://philpapers.org/rec/BEATOH, Oxford University Press. pp. 825-50. 2013.An investigation of what Frege means by his doctrine that functions (and so concepts) are 'unsaturated'. We argue that this doctrine is far less peculiar than it is usually taken to be. What makes it hard to understand, oddly enough, is the fact that it is so deeply embedded in our contemporary understanding of logic and language. To see this, we look at how it emerges out of Frege's confrontation with the Booleans and how it expresses a fundamental difference between Frege's approach to logic a…Read more
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3590Nonconceptual content and the "space of reasons"Philosophical Review 109 (4): 483-523. 2000.In Mind and World, John McDowell argues against the view that perceptual representation is non-conceptual. The central worry is that this view cannot offer any reasonable account of how perception bears rationally upon belief. I argue that this worry, though sensible, can be met, if we are clear that perceptual representation is, though non-conceptual, still in some sense 'assertoric': Perception, like belief, represents things as being thus and so.
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2327Frege on Identity and Identity-Statements: A Reply to Thau and CaplanCanadian Journal of Philosophy 33 (1): 83-102. 2003.The paper argues, as against Thau and Caplan, that the traditional interpretation that Frege abandoned his earlier views about identity and identity--statements is correct
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1562Predicative Frege Arithmetic and ‘Everyday’ MathematicsPhilosophia Mathematica 22 (3): 279-307. 2014.The primary purpose of this note is to demonstrate that predicative Frege arithmetic naturally interprets certain weak but non-trivial arithmetical theories. It will take almost as long to explain what this means and why it matters as it will to prove the results
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161Frege's TheoremClarendon Press. 2011.The book begins with an overview that introduces the Theorem and the issues surrounding it, and explores how the essays that follow contribute to our understanding of those issues.
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935Use and MeaningIn R. E. Auxier & L. E. Hahn (eds.), The Philosophy of Michael Dummett, Open Court. pp. 531--57. 2007.Many philosophers have been attracted to the idea that meaning is, in some way or other, determined by use—chief among them, perhaps, Michael Dummett. But John McDowell has argued that Dummett, and anyone else who would seek to draw serious philosophical conclusions from this claim, must face a dilemma: Either the use of a sentence is characterized in terms of what it can be used to say, in which case profound philosophical consequences can hardly follow, or it will be impossible to make out the…Read more
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129Grundgesetze der Arithmetik I §§29‒32Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (3): 437-474. 1997.Frege's intention in section 31 of Grundgesetze is to show that every well-formed expression in his formal system denotes. But it has been obscure why he wants to do this and how he intends to do it. It is argued here that, in large part, Frege's purpose is to show that the smooth breathing, from which names of value-ranges are formed, denotes; that his proof that his other primitive expressions denote is sound and anticipates Tarski's theory of truth; and that the proof that the smooth breathin…Read more
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1391Reason and LanguageIn Cynthia Macdonald & Graham MacDonald (eds.), McDowell and His Critics, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 22--45. 2008.John McDowell has often emphasized the fact that the use of langauge is a rational enterprise. In this paper, I explore the sense in which this is so, arguing that our use of language depends upon our consciously knowing what our words mean. I call this a 'cognitive conception of semantic competence'. The paper also contains a close analysis of the phenomenon of implicature and some suggestions about how it should and should not be understood.
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