•  795
    Radical interpretation and decision theory
    with H. Orri Stefánsson
    Synthese 199 (3-4): 6473-6494. 2021.
    This paper takes issue with an influential interpretationist argument for physicalism about intentionality based on the possibility of radical interpretation. The interpretationist defends the physicalist thesis that the intentional truths supervene on the physical truths by arguing that it is possible for a radical interpreter, who knows all of the physical truths, to work out the intentional truths about what an arbitrary agent believes, desires, and means without recourse to any further empir…Read more
  •  7
    The Normativity of Meaning
    In Bob Hale, Crispin Wright & Alexander Miller (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Wiley. 2017.
    This chapter investigates the view that meaning is normative. Meaning is understood here in a broad sense to include such semantic properties as sense, reference, truth‐conditions, content, and the like. Normativity can either be viewed as a property of representations or as a feature of the world. The view that meaning involves rule‐following or a normative judgment of some kind is untenable, and in any case, has no bearing on the hard problem of intentionality. However, the view that meaning i…Read more
  •  38
    Logical Conventionalism and the Adoption Problem
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 97 (1): 47-81. 2023.
    In this paper, I take issue with a core commitment of logical conventionalism: that we impose a logic on ourselves by adopting general linguistic conventions governing our use of logical terms, thereby determining the meanings of the logical constants and which of our inferences are valid. Drawing on Kripke’s ‘adoption problem’, I argue that general logical principles cannot be adopted, either explicitly or implicitly. I go on to argue that the meanings of our logical terms, and the validity of …Read more
  •  30
    John MacFarlane has recently argued that his brand of truth relativism provides the best solution to the puzzle of future contingents: assertions about the future that express propositions that are metaphysically neither necessary nor impossible. In this paper, we show that even if we grant all of the metaphysical, semantic and pragmatic assumptions in terms of which MacFarlane sets and aims to solve the puzzle, his truth relativism is not apt to solve the problem of future contingents. We argue…Read more
  •  274
    John MacFarlane has recently argued that his brand of truth relativism – Assessment Sensitivity – provides the best solution to the puzzle of future contingents: statements about the future that are metaphysically neither necessary nor impossible. In this paper, we show that even if we grant all of the metaphysical, semantic and pragmatic assumptions in terms of which MacFarlane sets and solves the puzzle, Assessment Sensitivity is ultimately self-refuting
  •  371
    Assertion and the Future
    In Sanford C. Goldberg (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Assertion, Oxford University Press. pp. 481-504. 2018.
    It is disputed what norm, if any, governs assertion. We address this question by looking at assertions of future contingents: statements about the future that are neither metaphysically necessary nor metaphysically impossible. Many philosophers think that future contingents are not truth apt, which together with a Truth Norm or a Knowledge Norm of assertion implies that assertions of these future contingents are systematically infelicitous. In this article, we argue that our practice of assertin…Read more
  •  27
    In Unbelievable Errors, Bart Streumer defends the error theory by rejecting all competitors to it. My aim here is to defend one brand of realism from Streumer’s objections: primitivim. The primitivist holds that there exist sui generis normative properties that do not supervene on any descriptive properties. It is argued that Streumer’s objections to primitivism can be met.
  •  27
    The Limits of Expressivism
    In Steven Gross, Nicholas Tebben & Michael Williams (eds.), Meaning Without Representation: Essays on Truth, Expression, Normativity, and Naturalism, Oxford University Press. pp. 224-242. 2015.
    In his recent book, Meaning and Normativity, Allan Gibbard argues at length that meta-ethical expressivism can be profitably extended to semantic and intentional language: meta-linguistic discourse about meaning, reference, content, and the like. This chapter argues that the extension of expressivism to semantic discourse is unprofitable and—worse still—in a certain sense selfundermining. It is unprofitable because it sheds no light on the problem of intentionality; and it undermines itself beca…Read more
  •  146
    In Defence of Narrow Content (review)
    Analysis 79 (3): 539-550. 2019.
  •  45
    No, one should not believe all truths
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (9-10): 1091-1103. 2019.
    ABSTRACTIn a recent paper, Alexander Greenberg defends a truth norm of belief according to which if one has some doxastic attitude towards p, one ought to believe that p if and only if p is true. He responds, in particular, to the ‘blindspot’ objection to truth norms such as da: in the face of true blindspots, such as it is raining and nobody believes that it is raining, truth norms such as da are unsatisfiable; they entail that one ought to believe p, but if one does believe p, they entail that…Read more
  •  163
    Radical Interpretation and The Aggregation Problem
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (2): 283-303. 2019.
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.
  •  82
    The normativity of meaning and the hard problem of intentionality
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 61 (7): 742-754. 2018.
    This note addresses two of Gibbard's central contentions in Meaning and Normativity: first, that the concept of meaning is normative, and second, that an expressivist account of semantic concepts and statements can shed light on the hard problem of intentionality, the problem of explaining intentionality in naturalistic terms.
  •  183
    Moral supervenience
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 48 (3-4): 592-615. 2018.
    It is widely held, even among nonnaturalists, that the moral supervenes on the natural. This is to say that for any two metaphysically possible worlds w and w′, and for any entities x in w and y in w′, any isomorphism between x and y that preserves the natural properties preserves the moral properties. In this paper, I put forward a conceivability argument against moral supervenience, assuming non-naturalism. First, I argue that though utilitarianism may be true, and the trolley driver is permit…Read more
  •  27
    This chapter discusses the application of formal methods from social choice theory to the metasemantic question of whether radical interpretation is possible. Radical interpretation involves deducing semantic truths from non-semantic truths by appeal to certain a priori principles or criteria, such as the principle of charity. A familiar view is that the intended interpretation is the one that best meets a combination of constraints. It is suggested that this situation can be modelled as follows…Read more
  •  281
    Making it Implicit: Brandom on Rule Following
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (2): 419-431. 2003.
    In Making it Explicit, Brandom aims to articulate an account of conceptual content that accommodates its normativity—a requirement on theories of content that Brandom traces to Wittgenstein's rule following considerations. It is widely held that the normativity requirement cannot be met, or at least not with ease, because theories of content face an intractable dilemma. Brandom proposes to evade the dilemma by adopting a middle road—one that uses normative vocabulary, but treats norms as implici…Read more
  •  299
    1. IntroductionA considerable number of philosophers maintain that meaning is intrinsically normative. In this journal, Daniel Whiting has defended the normativity of meaning against some of my recent objections . 1 This paper responds to Whiting's arguments
  •  177
    [email protected]
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 31 (4): 647-657. 2000.
  •  468
    Is meaning normative?
    Mind and Language 21 (2): 220-240. 2006.
    Many people claim that semantic content is normative, and that therefore naturalistic theories of content face a potentially insuperable difficulty. The normativity of content allegedly undermines naturalism by introducing a gap between semantic 'ought's and the explanatory resources of naturalism. I argue here that this problem is not ultimately pressing for naturalists. The normativity thesis, I maintain, is ambiguous; it could mean either that the content of a term prescribes a pattern of use…Read more
  •  114
    The love of truth
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41 (4): 422-432. 2010.
    It is frequently said that belief aims at truth, in an explicitly normative sense—that is, that one ought to believe the proposition that p if, and only if, p is true. This truth norm is frequently invoked to explain why we should seek evidential justification in our beliefs, or why we should try to be rational in our belief formation—it is because we ought to believe the truth that we ought to follow the evidence in belief revision. In this paper, I argue that this view is untenable. The truth …Read more
  •  575
    The open future, bivalence and assertion
    Philosophical Studies 167 (2): 251-271. 2014.
    It is highly now intuitive that the future is open and the past is closed now—whereas it is unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first. Recently, it has become increasingly popular to claim that the intuitive openness of the future implies that contingent statements about the future, such as ‘There will be a sea battle tomorrow,’ are non-bivalent (neither true nor false). In this paper, we argue that the non-bivalence of future contingents is at odds…Read more
  •  196
    In Oughts and Thoughts, Anandi Hattiangadi provides an innovative response to the argument for meaning skepticism set out by Saul Kripke in Wittgenstein on ...
  •  90
    The Rules of Thought, by Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa and Benjamin Jarvis, is a dense and ambitious book whose principal aim is to defend the view that philosophical inquiry is a priori inquiry into essential natures. The book covers a broad range of philosophical issues spanning the philosophy of mind and language, the epistemology of metaphysical modality and the philosophy of philosophy. It will be of considerable interest to many, since there is something in it for just about everyone. That sai…Read more
  •  576
    Does thought imply ought?
    Analysis 67 (4). 2007.
    N.B. Dr Bykvist is now based at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford. The full-text of this article is not currently available in ORA, but you may be able to access the article via the publisher copy link on this record page.