•  99
  •  38
    Categorical Propositions and Existential Import: A Post-modern Perspective
    History and Philosophy of Logic 42 (4): 307-373. 2021.
    This article examines the traditional and modern doctrines of categorical propositions and argues that both doctrines have serious problems. While the doctrines disagree about existential imports...
  •  14
    The Cyclical Argument and Principles of Change in Plato’s Phaedo
    History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 12 (1): 85-102. 2009.
  •  75
    Is composition identity?
    Synthese 198 (Suppl 18): 4467-4501. 2018.
    Say that some things compose something, if the latter is a whole, fusion, or mereological sum of the former. Then the thesis that composition is identity holds that the composition relation is a kind of identity relation, a plural cousin of singular identity. On this thesis, any things that compose a whole are identical with the whole. This article argues that the thesis is incoherent. To do so, the article formulates the thesis in a plural language, a symbolic language that includes counterpart…Read more
  •  53
    Two syllogisms in the mozi: Chinese logic and language
    Review of Symbolic Logic 12 (3): 589-606. 2019.
    This article examines two syllogistic arguments contrasted in an ancient Chinese book, the Mozi, which expounds doctrines of the Mohist school of philosophers. While the arguments seem to have the same form, one of them is valid but the other is not. To explain this difference, the article uses English plural constructions to formulate the arguments. Then it shows that the one-horse argument is valid because it has a valid argument form, the plural cousin of a standard form of valid categorical …Read more
  •  50
    Nominalism and Comparative Similarity
    Erkenntnis 83 (4): 793-803. 2018.
    Nominalism about attributes has serious difficulties in accounting for truths involving abstract nouns. Prominent among such truths are statements of comparative similarity among attributes. This paper argues that one cannot account for the truth of such statements without invoking attributes.
  •  39
    Intensionality and variable objects
    Analysis 74 (3): 431-436. 2014.
    This article examines Moltmann’s analysis of intensional transitive verbs , and argues that the analysis fails because the key notion it employs, ‘variable satisfier’, is inconsistent
  •  300
    The Logic and Meaning of Plurals. Part I
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 34 (5-6): 459-506. 2005.
    Contemporary accounts of logic and language cannot give proper treatments of plural constructions of natural languages. They assume that plural constructions are redundant devices used to abbreviate singular constructions. This paper and its sequel, "The logic and meaning of plurals, II", aim to develop an account of logic and language that acknowledges limitations of singular constructions and recognizes plural constructions as their peers. To do so, the papers present natural accounts of the l…Read more
  •  76
    Is Two a Property?
    Journal of Philosophy 96 (4): 163. 1999.
  •  108
  •  607
    Is there a plural object?
    In Donal Baxter & Aaron Cotnoir (eds.), Composition as Identity, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
    A plurality or plural object is a single object that is also many, and pluralitism is the thesis that there is such an object. This paper argues that pluralitism and closely related theses (e.g., the many-one identity thesis and the composition as identity thesis) violate logic. To do so, it formulates an approach to the logic and semantics of plural constructions that results in plural logic and relates treatments of plural constructions to accounts of natural number. And it gives a critical…Read more
  •  92
    Conditionals and a Two-Envelope Paradox
    Journal of Philosophy 110 (5): 233-257. 2013.
    C onsider two contrary conditionals 1 about two envelopes, Ali and Baba: (a) If Ali has more money than Baba, the difference between the amounts in them is $5. (b) If Ali has more money than Baba, the difference between the amounts in them is $10. Can these both be true? The answer is a resounding yes on the standard account of conditionals, which identifies indicative con- ditionals with material conditionals. It is not the same with many other contemporary accounts of c onditionals. They yield…Read more
  •  67
    Abstract nouns and resemblance nominalism
    Analysis 74 (4): 622-629. 2014.
    In developing resemblance nominalism, Rodriguez-Pereyra attempts to meet the challenge that truths involving abstract nouns pose to the doctrine. He holds that one can render sentences containing abstract nouns without invoking attributes and defends this view by giving nominalistic sentences that express the truthmakers of two such sentences: ‘Scarlet is a colour’ and ‘Carmine resembles vermillion more than it resembles French blue.’ This article argues that his renderings have serious problems…Read more
  •  68
    A New Case for Indeterminacy Of Translation
    Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 39 283-289. 2008.
    In this paper, I revisit W. V. Quine’s thesis of indeterminacy of translation. I think Quine’s arguments for the thesis are marred by his controversial assumptions about language that amount to a kind of linguistic behaviorism. I hope to cast a new light on the thesis by presenting a strong argument for the thesis that does not rest on those assumptions. The argument that I present in the paper results from adapting Benson Mates’s objection to Rudolph Carnap’s analysis ofsynonymy as intensional …Read more
  •  46
    The Problem of Knowing the Forms in Plato's "Parmenides"
    with Eunshil Bae
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 15 (3). 1998.
  •  59
    Numbers and Relations
    Erkenntnis 49 (1). 1998.
    In this paper, I criticize John Bigelow's account of number and present my own account that results from the criticism. In doing so, I argue that proper understanding of the nature of number requires a radical departure from the standard conception of language and reality and outline the alternative conception that underlies my account of number. I argue that Bigelow's account of number rests on an incorrect analysis of the plural constructions underlying the talk of number and propound an analy…Read more
  •  32
    Descending Chains and the Contextualist Approach to Semantic Paradoxes
    Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 40 (4): 554-567. 1999.
    Plausible principles on truth seem to yield contradictory conclusions about paradoxical sentences such as the Strengthened Liar. Those who take the contextualist approach, such as Parsons and Burge, attempt to justify the seemingly contradictory conclusions by arguing that the natural reasoning that leads to them involves some kind of contextual shift that makes them compatible. This paper argues that one cannot take this approach to give a proper treatment of infinite descending chains of seman…Read more
  •  205
    Is mereology ontologically innocent?
    Philosophical Studies 93 (2): 141-160. 1999.
  •  413
    Is two a property?
    Journal of Philosophy 96 (4): 163-190. 1999.
  •  174
    The logic and meaning of plurals. Part II
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 35 (3): 239-288. 2006.
    In this sequel to "The logic and meaning of plurals. Part I", I continue to present an account of logic and language that acknowledges limitations of singular constructions of natural languages and recognizes plural constructions as their peers. To this end, I present a non-reductive account of plural constructions that results from the conception of plurals as devices for talking about the many. In this paper, I give an informal semantics of plurals, formulate a formal characterization of truth…Read more
  •  105
    Glymour on explanation
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (3): 914-917. 1994.