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199Knowledge, the concept know, and the word know: considerations from polysemy and pragmaticsSynthese 203 (1): 1-46. 2023.A recent focus on philosophical methodology has reinvigorated ordinary language philosophy with the contention that philosophical inquiry is better served by attending to the ordinary use of language. Taking cues from findings in the social sciences that deploy methods utilizing language, various ordinary language philosophers embrace a guiding mandate: that ordinary language usage is more reflective of our linguistic and conceptual competencies than standard philosophical methods. We analyze tw…Read more
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Talking about causing eventsThe Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 9 (1). 2014.Questions about the nature of the relationship between language and extralinguistic cognition are old, but only recently has a new view emerged that allows for the systematic investigation of claims about linguistic structure, based on how it is understood or utilized outside of the language system. Our paper represents a case study for this interaction in the domain of event semantics. We adopt a transparency thesis about the relationship between linguistic structure and extralinguistic cogniti…Read more
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19Disagreement and a Functional Equal Weight ViewDisputatio 14 (65): 157-194. 2022.If a colleague of mine, whose opinion I respect, disagrees with me about some claim, this might give me pause regarding my position on the matter. The Equal Weight view proposes that in such cases of peer disagreement I ought to give my colleague’s opinion as much weight as my own, and decrease my certainty in the disputed claim. One prominent criticism of the Equal Weight view is that treating higher-order (indirect) evidence in this way invariably swamps first-order (direct) evidence. While th…Read more
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29Realism and Lexical FlexibilityTheoria 86 (2): 145-186. 2020.Metaphysical investigation often proceeds by way of linguistic meaning. This tradition relies on an assumption about meanings, namely that they can be given in terms of referential relations and truth. Chomsky and others have illustrated the difficulty with this externalist hypothesis regarding natural language meanings, which implies that natural languages are ill‐suited for the purposes of metaphysical investigation. In reply to this discordance between the features of natural languages and th…Read more
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47Externalism and Conceptual AnalysisMetaphilosophy 49 (5): 730-765. 2018.The method of Conceptual Analysis makes use of natural language speaker intuitions about the meanings of expressions, and relies on an externalist assumption about meanings—namely, that they can be given in terms of referential relations and truth. This article argues that this widely used methodology in metaphysics is troubled, because the assumed externalist hypothesis about natural language meanings is beset with trenchant obstacles in explaining linguistic phenomena. It argues that the use o…Read more
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321Lexical Flexibility, Natural Language, and OntologyCroatian Journal of Philosophy 16 (1): 1-44. 2016.The Realist that investigates questions of ontology by appeal to the quantificational structure of language assumes that the semantics for the privileged language of ontology is externalist. I argue that such a language cannot be (some variant of) a natural language, as some Realists propose. The flexibility exhibited by natural language expressions noted by Chomsky and others cannot obviously be characterized by the rigid models available to the externalist. If natural languages are hostile to …Read more
Jinan, Shandong, China
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
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