•  34
    Sher, George. A Wild West of the Mind
    Ethics 133 (4): 630-632. 2023.
  •  132
    In recent years, there has been growing discussion amongst philosophers about “conceptual engineering”. Put roughly, conceptual engineering concerns the assessment and improvement of concepts, or of other devices we use in thought and talk (e.g., words). This often involves attempts to modify our existing concepts (or other representational devices), and/or our practices of using them. This paper explores the relation between conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics, where conceptual ethics …Read more
  •  298
    Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2019.
    Conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics are branches of philosophy concerned with questions about how to assess and ameliorate our representational devices (such as concepts and words). It's a part of philosophy concerned with questions about which concepts we should use (and why), how concepts can be improved, when concepts should be abandoned, and how proposals for amelioration can be implemented. Central parts of the history of philosophy have engaged with these issues, but the focus of …Read more
  •  135
    Metasemantics: New Essays on the Foundations of Meaning (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2014.
    Metasemantics comprises new work on the philosophical foundations of linguistic semantics, by a diverse group of established and emerging experts in the philosophy of language, metaphysics, and the theory of content. The science of semantics aspires to systematically specify the meanings of linguistic expressions in context. The paradigmatic metasemantic question is accordingly: what more basic or fundamental features of the world metaphysically determine these semantic facts? Efforts to answer …Read more
  • Truth
    Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 18 (2): 271-272. 2011.
  •  8
    Chapter Eight. Insolubility?
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. pp. 116-134. 2014.
  •  6
    Further Reading
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. pp. 135-142. 2014.
  •  9
    Bibliography
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. pp. 143-152. 2014.
  •  22
    Chapter Four. Indeterminacy
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. pp. 52-67. 2014.
  •  5
    Preface
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. 2014.
  •  14
    Chapter Seven. Kripke
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. pp. 102-115. 2014.
  •  14
    Chapter One. Introduction
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. pp. 1-15. 2014.
  •  11
    Contents
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. 2014.
  •  28
    Chapter Five. Realism
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. pp. 68-82. 2014.
  •  20
    Chapter Three. Deflationism
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. pp. 33-51. 2014.
  •  9
    Chapter Six. Antirealism
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. pp. 83-101. 2014.
  •  26
    Chapter Two. Tarski
    In John P. Burgess & Alexis G. Burgess (eds.), Truth, Princeton University Press. pp. 16-32. 2014.
  •  109
    Truth
    Princeton University Press. 2011.
    This is a concise, advanced introduction to current philosophical debates about truth. A blend of philosophical and technical material, the book is organized around, but not limited to, the tendency known as deflationism, according to which there is not much to say about the nature of truth. In clear language, Burgess and Burgess cover a wide range of issues, including the nature of truth, the status of truth-value gaps, the relationship between truth and meaning, relativism and pluralism about …Read more
  •  792
    Conceptual Ethics I
    Philosophy Compass 8 (12): 1091-1101. 2013.
    Which concepts should we use to think and talk about the world and to do all of the other things that mental and linguistic representation facilitates? This is the guiding question of the field that we call ‘conceptual ethics’. Conceptual ethics is not often discussed as its own systematic branch of normative theory. A case can nevertheless be made that the field is already quite active, with contributions coming in from areas as diverse as fundamental metaphysics and social/political philosophy…Read more
  • Singular Ontology: How To
    In Christopher Daly (ed.), Palgrave Handbook on Philosophical Methods, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 77-111. 2015.
  •  96
    Keeping ‘True’: A Case Study in Conceptual Ethics
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 57 (5-6): 580-606. 2014.
    Suppose our ordinary notion of truth is ‘inconsistent’ in the sense that its meaning is partly given by principles that classically entail a logical contradiction. Should we replace the notion with a consistent surrogate? This paper begins by defusing various arguments in favor of this revisionary proposal, including Kevin Scharp’s contention that we need to replace truth for the purposes of semantic theorizing . Borrowing a certain conservative metasemantic principle from Matti Eklund, the arti…Read more
  •  146
    The Things We Do with Identity
    Mind 127 (505): 105-128. 2018.
    Cognitive partitions are useful. The notion of numerical identity helps us induce them. Consider, for instance, the role of identity in representing an equivalence relation like taking the same train. This expressive function of identity has been largely overlooked. Other possible functions of the concept have been over-emphasized. It is not clear that we use identity to represent individual objects or quantify over collections of them. Understanding what the concept is good for looks especially…Read more
  •  1
    How We Ought to do Things with Words
    In Robert Bolger & Scott Korb (eds.), Gesturing Toward Reality, Bloomsbury Academic. 2014.
  •  68
    Naturalism Without Mirrors
    Philosophical Review 121 (4): 619-622. 2012.
  •  343
    Conceptual Ethics II
    Philosophy Compass 8 (12): 1102-1110. 2013.
    Which concepts should we use to think and talk about the world, and to do all of the other things that mental and linguistic representation facilitates? This is the guiding question of the field that we call ‘conceptual ethics’. Conceptual ethics is not often discussed as its own systematic branch of normative theory. A case can nevertheless be made that the field is already quite active, with contributions coming in from areas as diverse as fundamental metaphysics and social/political philosoph…Read more
  •  124
    Metalinguistic Descriptivism for Millians
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (3): 443-457. 2013.
    Metalinguistic descriptivism is the view that proper names are semantically equivalent to descriptions featuring their own quotations (e.g., ?Socrates? means ?the bearer of ?Socrates??). The present paper shows that Millians can actually accept an inferential version of this equivalence thesis without running afoul of the modal argument. Indeed, they should: for it preserves the explanatory virtues of more familiar forms of descriptivism while avoiding objections (old and new) to Kent Bach's nom…Read more
  •  1
    What is it like to be Asleep?
    Harvard Review of Philosophy 21 18-22. 2014.
  •  1