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44Quine, evidence, and our sciencePhilosophical Studies 181 (5): 961-976. 2024.As is reasonably well-appreciated, Quine struggled with his definition of the all-important notion of an observation sentence; especially in order to make them bear out his commitment to language’s being a ‘social art’. In an earlier article (_Mind_ 131(523):805–825, 2022), I proposed a certain repair, which here I will explain, justify and articulate further. But it also infects the definition of observation categoricals, and furthermore makes it a secondary matter, a seeming afterthought, that…Read more
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44Science versus the Humanities: Hyman on Wollheim on DepictionJournal of Aesthetic Education 50 (2): 1-7. 2016.In the seventh chapter of his extraordinary book The Objective Eye, John Hyman offers various criticisms of Richard Wollheim’s theory of pictorial depiction.1 My immediate purpose in this short piece is to make the case that these criticisms fail. By no means do I claim that there are not other criticisms to be made against Wollheim’s theory or that Hymans’s book as a whole fails—not in its overarching attempt to rescue the objectivity of art from subjectivist views or, more narrowly, that Hyman…Read more
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14Quine's Relationship with Analytic PhilosophyIn Ernie Lepore & Gilbert Harman (eds.), A Companion to W. V. O. Quine, Wiley-blackwell. 2013.Sennett and Fisher: Quine on Paraphrase and Regimentation: Regimentation plays an integral role in Quine's influential approaches to metaphysics, philosophy of science, and semantics. In this paper we explore Quine's views on regimentation and its applications. We also consider how the Quinean view of regimentation interacts with his views on ontological commitment, holism, indeterminacy of translation, and the inscrutability of reference.
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4W.V. QuineIn John Shand (ed.), Central Works of Philosophy V5: Twentieth Century: Quine and After, Routledge. pp. 15-39. 2006.
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57Caesar from Frege's PerspectiveDialectica 59 (2): 179-199. 2005.I attempt to explain Frege's handling of the Julius Caesar issue in terms of his more general philosophical commitments. These only became fully explicit in his middle-period writings, but his earlier moves are best explained, I suggest, if we suppose them to be implicit in his earlier thinking. These commitments conditionally justify Frege in rejecting Hume's Principle as either a definition or axiom but in accepting Axiom V. However, the general epistemological picture they constitute has seri…Read more
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16AndrewLugg, Wittgenstein's Remarks on ColourLondon: Anthem Press, 2021. 206 pp. £80.00. ISBN 9781785276743 (review)Philosophical Investigations 46 (3): 399-402. 2023.Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.
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38A Unified Account: Pictorial, Photographic and Sculptural Seeing as Spectral SeeingTheoria 86 (3): 341-358. 2020.Theoria, EarlyView. The account of pictorial representation introduced in an earlier paper of mine is extended to photography and sculpture, and the beginnings of an extension to film is sketched.
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3Naturalism and its challenges (edited book)Routledge. 2024.This volume features new essays on the application and role of naturalism in philosophical inquiry. It serves as an important update on current controversies about naturalism. The contributors include leading figures who have written on naturalism and its relevance to a wide range of issues across philosophical subdisciplines. The chapter discuss how naturalism can be properly employed in different philosophical areas such as epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language,…Read more
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43The Logic of Aspect-Perception and Perceived ResemblanceActa Analytica 36 (1): 49-53. 2020.Does the relation of seeing something as another really differ from seeing the one as resembling the other? Does seeing a cloud as a camel really differ from seeing a resemblance between the cloud and a camel? It is easy to think not, but I claim that the logic of the relation B sees x as resembling y differs markedly from that of B sees x as y and thus that we have two relations, not one. Aspect-perception is nontransitive, nonsymmetric, irreflexive and categorical. Perceived or subjective rese…Read more
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30Pictures and depictions: A consideration of Peacocke's viewsBritish Journal of Aesthetics 30 (4): 332-341. 1990.
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51Philosophy and Museums : Volume 79: Essays on the Philosophy of MuseumsCambridge University Press. 2017.Museums and their practices - especially those involving collection, curation and exhibition - generate a host of philosophical questions. Such questions are not limited to the domains of ethics and aesthetics, but go further into the domains of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of religion. Despite the prominence of museums as public institutions, they have until recently received surprisingly little scrutiny from philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition. By bringing together contrib…Read more
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Quine's Relationship with Analytic PhilosophyIn Gilbert Harman & Ernest LePore (eds.), A Companion to W. V. O. Quine, Wiley-blackwell. 2013.
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Wittgenstein have a theory of colour?In Frederik Gierlinger & Štefan Joško Riegelnik (eds.), Wittgenstein on Colour, De Gruyter. 2014.
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1What is this thing called philosophy of language?Routledge. 2024.Philosophy of language explores some of the most abstract yet most fundamental questions in philosophy. The ideas of some of the subject's great founding figures, such as Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell, as well as of more recent figures such as Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam, are central to a great many philosophical debates to this day and are widely studied. In this clear and carefully structured introduction to the subject, Gary Kemp explains the following key topics: …Read more
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Frege's Philosophy of LogicDissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara. 1993.Gottlob Frege is the single most important figure in the development of modern mathematical logic, and is recognized as a founder of analytical philosophy. The primary aim of this work is to articulate the philosophical basis of Frege's logic and logical theory. I argue that the most general forces which animate Frege's work are neither Kantian, as is sometimes maintained, nor congenial to the semantical outlook on logic which has since Frege's time become standard. These forces are most conspic…Read more
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7Science versus the Humanities: Hyman on Wollheim on DepictionThe Journal of Aesthetic Education 50 (2): 1-7. 2016.
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34Quine’s Tarskian Angle on Truth: Immanence, Semantic Ascent and the Importance of GeneralityPhilosophers' Imprint 24 (1). 2024.There are two main parts to this article: (1) Quine's view of truth is substantive in a way that is not generally recognized. There are elements in the view of deflationism, minimalism, and of course disquotationalism to be sure, but from Quine's perspective the capacity for generalization - ascribing truth not to explicitly given sentences but to kinds of sentences - requires a full-bore Tarskian apparatus. This is necessary in order for truth to play what for Quine are its vital roles in scien…Read more
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18Quine's philosophy: an introductionBloomsbury Academic. 2023.W.V. Quine is one of the leading figures of 20th century analytic philosophy, and still among the most influential. But his work can be challenging and complex, and indeed often misunderstood. In this updated introduction to Quine's thought, Gary Kemp examines his seemingly disparate views as a unified whole and offers a valuable guide for anyone approaching Quine for the first time.
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381Autonomy and privacy in Wittgenstein and BeckettPhilosophy and Literature 27 (1): 164-187. 2003.No abstract available.
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87Propositions as Made of WordsErkenntnis 89 (2): 591-606. 2022.I argue that the principal roles standardly envisaged for abstract propositions can be discharged to the sentences themselves (and similarly for the meanings or senses of words). I discuss: (1) Cognitive Value: Hesperus-Phosphorus; (2) Indirect Sense and Propositional Attitudes; (3) the Paradox of Analysis; (4) the Picture Theory of the Tractatus; (5) Syntactical Diagrams and Meaning; (6) Quantifying-in. (7) Patterns of Use. I end with comparisons with related views of the territory.
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20Quine and the Kantian Problem of ObjectivityIn Robert Sinclair (ed.), Science and Sensibilia by W. V. Quine: The 1980 Immanuel Kant Lectures, Palgrave Macmillan. 2019.Did Quine respond to the Kant-like question of what makes objectivity possible? And if so, what was his answer? I think Quine did have an answer, which is in fact a central theme in his philosophy. For his epistemology was not concerned with the question whether we have knowledge of the external world. His philosophy takes for granted that physics provides the most fundamental account of reality that we have. And like many positivists including Carnap, he takes that sort of question to have a fu…Read more
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728Trust and the appreciation of artRatio 35 (2): 133-145. 2021.Does trust play a significant role in the appreciation of art? If so, how does it operate? We argue that it does, and that the mechanics of trust operate both at a general and a particular level. After outlining the general notion of ‘art-trust’—the notion sketched is consistent with most notions of trust on the market—and considering certain objections to the model proposed, we consider specific examples to show in some detail that the experience of works of art, and the attribution of art-rele…Read more
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Wittgenstein and Other Philosophers: His Influence on Historical and Contemporary Analytic Philosophers (Volume II) (edited book)Routledge. forthcoming.This edited volume includes 49 Chapters, each of which discusses the influence of a philosopher's reading of Wittgenstein in his/her philosophical works and the way such Wittgensteinian ideas have manifested themselves in those works.
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1Wittgenstein and Other Philosophers: His Influence on Historical and Contemporary Analytic Philosophers (Volume I) (edited book)Routledge. forthcoming.This edited volume includes 36 Chapters, each of which discusses the influence of a philosopher's reading of Wittgenstein in his/her philosophical works and the way such Wittgensteinian ideas have manifested themselves in those works.
University of California, Santa Barbara
Department of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara
PhD, 1993
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Aesthetics |
20th Century Philosophy |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |