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36On the content of experiencePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (3). 2007.The intentionalist about consciousness holds that the qualitative character of experience
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18Terms and Truth: Reference Direct and Anaphoric Alan Berger Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002, xvii + 234 pp (review)Dialogue 43 (3): 617-619. 2004.Alan Berger’s Terms and Truth covers various expressionsparticularly names and anaphoric pronouns, but also demonstratives and general termsas they occur in various linguistic contexts, including identity sentences, belief ascriptions, and negative existentials. A central thesis of Berger’s book is that all of these expressions are rigid designators. (So I assume that Berger would say, contrary to what the subtitle might suggest, that anaphoric reference is direct reference.).
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35The editors of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research thank the members of the Editorial Board and the following scholars, who have served as referees during the period of October 2006 through July 2007 (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (3). 2007.
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15Putting Things in ContextsPhilosophical Review 112 (2): 191-214. 2003.Thanks to David Kaplan, we all know how to handle indexicals like ‘I’. ‘I’ doesn’t refer to an object simpliciter; rather, it refers to an object only relative to a context. In particular, relative to a context C, ‘I’ refers to the agent of C. Since different contexts can have different agents, ‘I’ can refer to different objects relative to different contexts. For example, relative to a context c whose agent is Gottlob Frege, ‘I’ refers to Frege; relative to a context c* whose agent is Alexius M…Read more
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Fregean Theories of Names from FictionIn Stephen Biggs and Heimir Geirsson (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Reference, Routledge. 2021.
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Hylomorphic PropositionsIn Chris Tillman & Adam Murray (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Propositions, Routledge. 2022.
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E. E. Constance Jones on Existence in Fiction and ImaginationStudia Semiotyczne (Semiotic Studies) 36 (1): 175-191. 2022.
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136Empty namesDissertation, UCLA. 2002.In my dissertation (UCLA 2002), I argue that, by appropriating Fregean resources, Millians can solve the problems that empty names pose. As a result, the debate between Millians and Fregeans should be understood, not as a debate about whether there are senses, but rather as a debate about where there are senses.
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2OntologyIn Theodore Gracyk & Andrew Kania (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music, Routledge. 2011.
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16Review of Consequences of Reference Failure (review)Philosophical Quarterly 71 (3): 666-669. 2021.Review of _Consequences of Reference Failure_. By McKinsey Michael. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy.
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38Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology: Book Reviews (review)British Journal of Aesthetics 47 (4): 445-446. 2007.
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33Review of Trenton Merricks, Truth and Ontology (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (2). 2008.
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41Review of Stefano Predelli, Contexts: Meaning, Truth, and the Use of Language (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (11). 2006.
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22Review of Jerrold Katz, Sense, Reference, and Philosophy (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2005 (1). 2005.
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23Review of Alan Berger, Terms and Truth: Reference Direct and Anaphoric (review)Dialogue 43 (3): 617-619. 2004.
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584Against widescopismPhilosophical Studies 125 (2): 167-190. 2005.Descriptivists say that every name is synonymous with some definite description, and Descriptivists who are Widescopers say that the definite description that a name is synonymous with must take wide scope with respect to modal adverbs such as “necessarily”. In this paper, I argue against Widescopism. Widescopers should be Super Widescopers: that is, they should say that the definite description that a name is synonymous with must take wide scope with respect to complementizers such as “that”. S…Read more
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807Defending 'Defending Musical Perdurantism'British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (1): 80-85. 2006.British Journal of Aesthetics (forthcoming Jan. 2008).
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107Soames’s new conception of propositionsPhilosophical Studies 173 (9): 2533-2549. 2016.In this paper, I argue that, when it comes to explaining what can be described as “representational” properties of propositions, Soames’s new conception of propositions—on which the proposition that Seattle is sunny is the act of predicating the property being sunny of Seattle and to entertain that proposition is to perform that act—does not have an advantage over traditional ones.
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153On sense and direct referencePhilosophy Compass 1 (2): 171-185. 2006.Millianism and Fregeanism agree that a sentence that contains a name expresses a structured proposition but disagree about whether that proposition contains the object that the name refers to (Millianism) or rather a mode of presentation of that object (Fregeanism). Various problems – about simple sentences, propositional‐attitude ascriptions, and sentences that contain empty names – beset each view. To solve these problems, Millianism can appeal to modes of presentation, and Fregeanism can appe…Read more
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54Fusions and Ordinary Physical ObjectsPhilosophical Studies 125 (1): 61-83. 2005.In “Tropes and Ordinary Physical Objects”, Kris McDaniel argues that ordinary physical objects are fusions of monadic and polyadic tropes. McDaniel calls his view “TOPO”—for “Theory of Ordinary Physical Objects”. He argues that we should accept TOPO because of the philosophical work that it allows us to do. Among other things, TOPO is supposed to allow endurantists to reply to Mark Heller’s argument for perdurantism. But, we argue in this paper, TOPO does not help endurantists do that; indeed, w…Read more
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48A New Defence of the Modal Existence RequirementSynthese 154 (2): 335-343. 2007.In this paper, I defend the claim that an object can have a property only if it exists from two arguments, both of which turn on how to understand Plantinga’s notion of the α-transform of a property.
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538Fine individuationBritish Journal of Aesthetics 47 (2): 113-137. 2007.Jerrold Levinson argues that musical works are individuated by their context of origin. But one could just as well argue that musical works are individuated by their context of reception. Moderate contextualism, according to which musical works are individuated by context of origin but not by context of reception, thus appears to be an unstable position. And, although a more thoroughgoing contextualism, according to which musical works are individuated both by context of origin and by context of…Read more
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151Modality, Individuation, and the Ontology of ArtCanadian Journal of Philosophy 38 (4): 491-517. 2008.In 1988, Michael Nyman composed the score for Peter Greenaway’s film Drowning by Numbers (or did something that we would ordinarily think of as composing that score). We can think of Nyman’s compositional activity as a “generative performance” and of the sound structure that Nyman indicated (or of some other abstract object that is appropriately related to that sound structure) as the product generated by that performance (ix).1 According to one view, Nyman’s score for Drowning by the Numbers—th…Read more
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394Descriptivism, scope, and apparently empty namesPhilosophical Studies 156 (2): 283-288. 2011.Some descriptivists reply to the modal argument by appealing to scope ambiguities. In this paper, we argue that those replies don’t work in the case of apparently empty names like ‘Sherlock Holmes’.
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45Serial Fiction, ContinuedBritish Journal of Aesthetics 54 (1): 65-76. 2014.In ‘Truth, Relativism, and Serial Fiction’, Andrew McGonigal presents new data that a theory of truth in fiction should account for, and argues that the data is best accounted for by his relativist view. I argue against McGonigal’s relativist view and in favour of a more metaphysical view. The key feature of this view is that it is one on which the content of a work of fiction can change over time. Along the way I also argue against Ross Cameron’s contextualist view
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Brutal identityIn Stuart Brock & Anthony Everett (eds.), Fictional Objects, Oxford University Press. 2015.
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116The Extraordinary Impossibility of Sherlock HolmesRes Philosophica 93 (2): 335-355. 2016.In an addendum to Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke argues against his earlier view that Sherlock Holmes is a possible person. In this paper, I suggest a nonstandard interpretation of the addendum. A key feature of this non-standard interpretation is that it attempts to make sense of why Kripke would be rejecting the view that Sherlock Holmes is a possible person without asserting that it is not the case that Sherlock Holmes is a possible person.
Lawrence, Kansas, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
20th Century Analytic Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
20th Century Analytic Philosophy |
Social Ontology |