•  36
    A Problem About Preference
    Philosophers' Imprint 21 (19). 2021.
    Obligation describing language is hooked up with preference, a relation of what-is-better-than-what. But ordinary situations underdetermine such relations of what-is-better-than-what. Even so, there are plainly true sentences describing our obligations in those situations. This mismatch is trouble-making and getting out of the trouble requires either giving up the easy link between “ought” and preference or re-thinking the kind of things preferences can be.
  • An Opinionated Guide to Epistemic Modality
    Oxford Studies in Epistemology 2 32-62. 2008.
  •  36
    In "*Must* ...stay ...strong!" (von Fintel & Gillies 2010) we set out to slay a dragon, or rather what we called The Mantra: that epistemic *must* has a modal force weaker than expected from standard modal logic, that it doesn't entail its prejacent, and that the best explanation for the evidential feel of *must* is a pragmatic explanation. We argued that all three sub-mantras are wrong and offered an explanation according to which *must* is strong, entailing, and the felt indirectness is the pr…Read more
  •  47
    This is a note from an AMC session on Jeff Horty's (2012) book *Reasons as Defaults*.
  •  463
    Updating Data Semantics
    Mind 129 (513): 1-41. 2020.
    This paper has three main goals. First, to motivate a puzzle about how ignorance-expressing terms like maybe and if interact: they iterate, and when they do they exhibit scopelessness. Second, to argue that there is an ambiguity in our theoretical toolbox, and that exposing that opens the door to a solution to the puzzle. And third, to explore the reach of that solution. Along the way, the paper highlights a number of pleasing properties of two elegant semantic theories, explores some meta-theor…Read more
  •  35
    Cognitive Carpentry (review)
    International Studies in Philosophy 30 (2): 151-153. 1998.
  •  248
    An Opinionated Guide to Epistemic Modality
    In Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology: Volume 2, Oxford University Press. pp. 32-62. 2007.
    way on the information available in the contexts in which they are used, it’s not surprising that there is a minor but growing industry of work in semantics and the philosophy of language concerned with the precise nature of the context-dependency of epistemically modalized sentences. Take, for instance, an epistemic might-claim like..
  •  286
    On truth-conditions for if (but not quite only if )
    Philosophical Review 118 (3): 325-349. 2009.
    What we want to be true about ordinary indicative conditionals seems to be more than we can possibly get: there just seems to be no good way to assign truth-conditions to ordinary indicative conditionals. Some take this argument as reason to make our wantings more modest. Others take it to show that indicative conditionals don't have truth-conditions in the first place. But we have overlooked two possibilities for assigning truth-conditions to indicatives. What's more, those possibilities delive…Read more
  •  60
    Common Ground, Corrections, and Coordination
    Argumentation 17 (4): 481-512. 2003.
  •  168
    'Might' Made Right
    In Andy Egan & Brian Weatherson (eds.), Epistemic Modality, Oxford University Press. 2011.
    The simplest story about modals—might, must, possibly, necessary, have to, can, ought to, presumably, likelier, and the rest—is also the canon: modals are context-dependent quantifiers over a domain of possibilities. Different flavors of modality correspond to quantification over different domains of possibilities. Logical modalities quantify over all the possibilities there are, physical modalities over possibilities compatible with the..
  •  31
    Theory-testing experiments in the economics laboratory
    with Mary Rigdon
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (3): 410-411. 2001.
    Features of experimental design impose auxiliary hypotheses on experimenters. Hertwig & Ortmann rightly argue that the ways some variables are implemented in psychology cloud results, whereas the different implementations in economics provide for more robust results. However, not all design variables support this general conclusion. The repetition of trials may confuse results depending on what theory is being tested. We explore this in the case of simple bargaining games.
  •  315
    Counterfactual scorekeeping
    Linguistics and Philosophy 30 (3). 2007.
    Counterfactuals are typically thought--given the force of Sobel sequences--to be variably strict conditionals. I go the other way. Sobel sequences and (what I call) Hegel sequences push us to a strict conditional analysis of counterfactuals: counterfactuals amount to some necessity modal scoped over a plain material conditional, just which modal being a function of context. To make this worth saying I need to say just how counterfactuals and context interact. No easy feat, but I have something t…Read more
  •  223
    CIA leaks
    Philosophical Review 117 (1): 77-98. 2008.
    Epistemic modals are standardly taken to be context-dependent quantifiers over possibilities. Thus sentences containing them get truth-values with respect to both a context and an index. But some insist that this relativization is not relative enough: `might'-claims, they say, only get truth-values with respect to contexts, indices, and—the new wrinkle—points of assessment (hence, CIA). Here we argue against such "relativist" semantics. We begin with a sketch of the motivation for such theories …Read more
  • Rational Belief Change
    Dissertation, The University of Arizona. 2001.
    We must change our beliefs, and change them in particular ways, in response to new information. But not all changes are created equal: some are rational changes, some not. The Problem of Epistemic Change is the problem of specifying the rational constraints on how the epistemic state of an agent ought to change in the face of new information. This dissertation is about the philosophical and logical investigation of rational belief change. I start by arguing that the familiar foundations---cohere…Read more
  •  187
    Consciousness and the limits of our imaginations
    Synthese 126 (3): 361-381. 2001.
    Chalmers' anti-materialist arguments are an interesting twist on a well-known argument form, and his naturalistic dualism is exciting to contemplate. Nevertheless, we think we can save materialism from the Chalmerian attack. This is what we do in the present paper
  •  123
    Sly Pete and Mr. Stone are playing poker on a Mississippi riverboat. It is now up to Pete to call or fold. My henchman Zack sees Stone’s hand, which is quite good, and signals its content to Pete. My henchman Jack sees both hands, and sees that Pete’s hand is rather low, so that Stone’s is the winning hand. At this point, the room is cleared. A few minutes later, Zack slips me a note which says “If Pete called, he won,” and Jack slips me a note which says “If Pete called, he lost”.
  •  80
    What Might be the Case after a Change in View
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 35 (2): 117-145. 2006.
    Peer Reviewed.
  •  101
    “Any theory of conditionals has consequences for less-than-certain judgements. Something is proposed of the form: If A, B is true iff A*B. If a clear-headed person, free from confusions of a logical, linguistic or referential sort, can be nearly sure that A*B yet far from sure that if A, B, or vice versa, then this is strong evidence against the proposal.” (Edgington 1995/2007).
  •  151
    A new solution to Moore's paradox
    Philosophical Studies 105 (3): 237-250. 2001.
    Moore's paradox pits our intuitions about semantic oddnessagainst the concept of truth-functional consistency. Most solutions tothe problem proceed by explaining away our intuitions. But``consistency'' is a theory-laden concept, having different contours indifferent semantic theories. Truth-functional consistency is appropriateonly if the semantic theory we are using identifies meaning withtruth-conditions. I argue that such a framework is not appropriate whenit comes to analzying epistemic moda…Read more
  •  149
    Belief revision and epistemology
    Synthese 122 (1-2): 69-92. 2000.
    Postulational approaches attempt to understand the dynamics of belief revision by appealing to no more than the set of beliefs held by an agent and the logical relations between them. It is argued there that such an approach cannot work. A proper account of belief revision must also appeal to the arguments supporting beliefs, and recognize that those arguments can be defeasible. If we begin with a mature epistemological theory that accommodates this, it can be seen that the belief revision opera…Read more
  •  83
    New foundations for epistemic change
    Synthese 138 (1). 2004.
  •  203
    Must . . . stay . . . strong!
    Natural Language Semantics 18 (4): 351-383. 2010.
    It is a recurring mantra that epistemic must creates a statement that is weaker than the corresponding flat-footed assertion: It must be raining vs. It’s raining. Contrary to classic discussions of the phenomenon such as by Karttunen, Kratzer, and Veltman, we argue that instead of having a weak semantics, must presupposes the presence of an indirect inference or deduction rather than of a direct observation. This is independent of the strength of the claim being made. Epistemic must is therefore…Read more