University of Florida
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2003
Charlotte, North Carolina, United States of America
  •  446
    Semantics for Non-Declaratives
    In Ernest Lepore & Barry C. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, Oxford University Press. 2006.
    This article begins by distinguishing force and mood. Then it lays out desiderata on a successful account. It sketches as background the program of truth-theoretic semantics. Next, it surveys assimilation approaches and argues that they are inadequate. Then it shows how the fulfillment-conditional approach can be applied to imperatives, interrogatives, molecular sentences containing them, and quantification into mood markers. Next, it considers briefly the recent set of propositions approach to …Read more
  •  40
    Mark Schroeder, Noncognitivism in Ethics (review)
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 10 (2): 234-236. 2013.
  •  20
    Expressive-assertivism
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 89 (2): 169-203. 2008.
    Hybrid metaethical theories attempt to incorporate essential elements of expressivism and cognitivism, and thereby to accrue the benefits of both. Hybrid theories are often defended in part by appeals to slurs and other pejoratives, which have both expressive and cognitivist features. This paper takes far more seriously the analogy between pejoratives and moral predicates. It explains how pejoratives work, identifies the features that allow pejoratives to do that work, and models a theory of mor…Read more
  •  1
    Expressive-Assertivism: A Dual-Use Solution to the Moral Problem
    Dissertation, University of Florida. 2003.
    This dissertation argues for a metaethical theory I call "Expressive-Assertivism." Expressive-Assertivism is a distinctive, substantial refinement of dual-use metaethical theories traditionally associated with R. M. Hare, C. L. Stevenson, and, more recently, with David Copp. If true, Expressive-Assertivism clarifies, resolves, or dissolves---without, in turn, raising additional difficulties---a number of philosophical problems, including what Michael Smith calls "The Moral Problem," which many c…Read more
  •  110
    Expressive‐assertivism
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 89 (2): 169-203. 2008.
    Hybrid metaethical theories attempt to incorporate essential elements of expressivism and cognitivism, and thereby to accrue the benefits of both. Hybrid theories are often defended in part by appeals to slurs and other pejoratives, which have both expressive and cognitivist features. This paper takes far more seriously the analogy between pejoratives and moral predicates. It explains how pejoratives work, identifies the features that allow pejoratives to do that work, and models a theory of mor…Read more
  •  54
    Charles Leslie Stevenson
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. forthcoming.
  •  70
    Frege's Commitment to an Infinite Hierarchy of Senses
    with Christopher M. Lubbers
    Philosophical Papers 32 (1): 31-64. 2003.
    Abstract Though it has been claimed that Frege's commitment to expressions in indirect contexts not having their customary senses commits him to an infinite number of semantic primitives, Terrence Parsons has argued that Frege's explicit commitments are compatible with a two-level theory of senses. In this paper, we argue Frege is committed to some principles Parsons has overlooked, and, from these and other principles to which Frege is committed, give a proof that he is indeed committed to an i…Read more
  •  55
    The trouble with Harrison's 'the trouble with Tarski'
    Philosophical Quarterly 49 (196): 376-383. 1999.
    In ‘The Trouble with Tarski’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 48 (1998), pp. 1–22, Jonathan Harrison attacks ‘Tarski‐style’ truth theories for both formalized and natural languages, on the grounds that (1) truth cannot be a property of sentences; (2) if it could be, T‐sentences would have to be necessary truths, which they are not; and (3) T‐sentences are not necessarily true and can even can be false. I reply that (1) cannot be an objection to Tarskian truth theories, since these can be formulated…Read more