•  1
    This chapter contains sections titled: Truth The Liar Tarskian Truth Definition Discussion Conclusion.
  •  564
    Semantics for opaque contexts
    Philosophical Perspectives 12 141-66. 1998.
    In this paper, we outline an approach to giving extensional truth-theoretic semantics for what have traditionally been seen as opaque sentential contexts. We outline an approach to providing a compositional truth-theoretic semantics for opaque contexts which does not require quantifying over intensional entities of any kind, and meets standard objections to such accounts. The account we present aims to meet the following desiderata on a semantic theory T for opaque contexts: (D1) T can be formul…Read more
  •  791
    Vagueness And The Sorites Paradox
    Noûs 36 (s16): 419-461. 2002.
    A sorites argument is a symptom of the vagueness of the predicate with which it is constructed. A vague predicate admits of at least one dimension of variation (and typically more than one) in its intended range along which we are at a loss when to say the predicate ceases to apply, though we start out confident that it does. It is this feature of them that the sorites arguments exploit. Exactly how is part of the subject of this paper. The majority of philosophers writing on vagueness take …Read more
  •  58
    On the Matter of Essential Richness
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 34 (4): 433-457. 2005.
    Alfred Tarski (1944) wrote that "the condition of the 'essential richness' of the metalanguage proves to be, not only necessary, but also sufficient for the construction of a satisfactory definition of truth." But it has remained unclear what Tarski meant by an 'essentially richer' metalanguage. Moreover, DeVidi and Solomon (1999) have argued in this Journal that there is nothing that Tarski could have meant by that phrase which would make his pronouncement true. We develop an answer to the hist…Read more
  •  1
    Tarski on the Concept of Truth
    In Michael Glanzberg (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Truth. pp. 695-717. 2018.
    Alfred Tarski’s work on truth has played such a central role in the discourse on truth that most coming to it for the first time have probably already heard a great deal about what is said there. Unfortunately, since the work is largely technical and Tarski was only tan- gentially philosophical, a certain incautious assimilation dominates many philosophical discussions of Tarski’s ideas, and so, examining Tarski on the concept of truth is in many ways an act of unlearning. In this paper I focus …Read more
  •  288
    Unity in the Variety of Quotation
    In Ludwig Kirk & Ray Greg (eds.), The Semantics and Pragmatics of Quotation, Springer. pp. 99-134. 2018.
    This chapter argues that while quotation marks are polysemous, the thread that runs through all uses of quotation marks that involve reference to expressions is pure quotation, in which an expression formed by enclosing another expression in quotation marks refers to that enclosed expression. We defend a version of the so-called disquotational theory of pure quotation and show how this device is used in direct discourse and attitude attributions, in exposition in scholarly contexts, and in so-c…Read more
  •  75
    Meaning, Publicity and Knowledge
    ProtoSociology 34 98-115. 2017.
    An influential view about the relationship between publicity and linguistic meaning is brought into question. It has been thought that since public languages are essentially public, linguistic meaning is subject to a kind of epistemic cap so that there can be nothing more to linguistic meaning than can be determinately known on the basis of publicly available evidence (Epistemic Thesis). Given the thinness of such evidence, a well-known thesis follows to the effect that linguistic meaning is sub…Read more
  •  36
    De Re Modality: Lessons from Quine
    In A. Orenstein & Petr Kotatko (eds.), Knowledge, Language and Logic: Questions for Quine, Kluwer Academic. pp. 347-365. 2000.
    The aim of the paper is twofold: i) to give a logically explicit formulation of a slight generalization of Quine's master argument about de re modality—an argument which imposes important constraints on modal semantics, ii) to briefly present my favored account of modal locutions (especially locutions of the de re metaphysical flavor) and show how it successfully copes with Quine's argument. Though Quine made this argument so many years ago, it is still widely misunderstood, and so careful atten…Read more
  •  257
    Thinking in L
    Noûs 29 (3): 378-396. 1995.
    Stephen Schiffer has argued that natural languages do not have compositional semantics. But it has been widely held that compositional semantics is required in order to explain how it is possible that we have the linguistic capacities that we do. In particular, our use of natural languages is productive in the sense that there are indefinitely many sentences that we have never heard or considered before, but which we are nonetheless capable of understanding. How is this possible? Compositionalit…Read more
  •  229
    Logical consequence: A defense of Tarski
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 25 (6). 1996.
    In his classic 1936 essay "On the Concept of Logical Consequence", Alfred Tarski used the notion of satisfaction to give a semantic characterization of the logical properties. Tarski is generally credited with introducing the model-theoretic characterization of the logical properties familiar to us today. However, in his book, The Concept of Logical Consequence, Etchemendy argues that Tarski's account is inadequate for quite a number of reasons, and is actually incompatible with the standard mod…Read more
  •  31
    Tarski, the Liar and Tarskian Truth Definitions
    In Dale Jacquette (ed.), A Companion to Philosophical Logic, Blackwell. pp. 164-176. 2002.
    Alfred Tarski's work on truth has become a touchstone for a great deal of philosophical work on truth. A good grasp of it is critical for understanding the contemporary literature on truth and semantics. In this paper, I present a fresh interpretation of Tarski's view, one which aims to draw it out more fully in areas of philosophical interest.
  •  46
    On the possibility of a privileged class of logical terms
    Philosophical Studies 81 (2-3). 1996.
    Alfred Tarski's (1936) semantic account of the logical properties (logical consequence, logical truth and logical consistency) makes essential appeal to a distinction between logical and non-logical terms. John Etchemendy (1990) has recently argued that Tarski's account is inadequate for quite a number of different reasons. Among them is a brief argument which purports to show that Tarski's reliance on the distinction between logical and non-logical terms is in principle mistaken. According to E…Read more
  •  136
    Fodor and the inscrutability problem
    Mind and Language 12 (3-4): 475-89. 1997.
    In his 1993 Nicod Lectures (The Elm & the Expert), Jerry Fodor proposed a solution to a certain version of the problem of 'inscrutability of reference', which problem poses a challenge to a certain naturalistic, computational approach to cognition which Fodor has favored. The problem is that a purely informational account of an agent's mental contents cannot discriminate meanings finely enough. Fodor proposes a strategy of solution which appeals to the inferential dispositions of agents to discr…Read more
  •  77
    Williamson's master argument on vagueness
    Synthese 138 (2): 175-206. 2004.
    According to Timothy Williamson 's epistemic view, vague predicates have precise extensions, we just don't know where their boundaries lie. It is a central challenge to his view to explain why we would be so ignorant, if precise borderlines were really there. He offers a novel argument to show that our insuperable ignorance ``is just what independently justified epistemic principles would lead one to expect''. This paper carefully formulates and critically examines Williamson 's argument. It is …Read more
  •  145
    Meaning and Truth
    Mind 123 (489): 79-100. 2014.
    This paper concerns a key point of decision in Donald Davidson's early work in philosophy of language — a fateful decision that set him and the discourse in the area on the path of truth-theoretic semantics. The decision of moment is the one Davidson makes when, in the face of a certain barrier, he gives up on the idea of constructing an explicit meaning theory that would parallel Tarski's recursive way with truth theory. For Davidson there was little choice: he tells us he does not see how to d…Read more
  • Untokened Sentences in Actual Languages
    In Petr Kotatko & James Hill (eds.), Karlovy Vary Studies in Reference and Meaning, Filosofia-filosofia Publications. pp. 29-42. 1995.
  •  69
    Probabilistic causality reexamined
    Erkenntnis 36 (2). 1992.
    According to Nancy Cartwright, a causal law holds just when a certain probabilistic condition obtains in all test situations which in turn satisfy a set of background conditions. These background conditions are shown to be inconsistent and, on separate account, logically incoherent. I offer a corrective reformulation which also incorporates a strategy for problems like Hesslow's thrombosis case. I also show that Cartwright's recent argument for modifying the condition to appeal to singular cause…Read more
  •  57
    Introduction
    Topoi 18 (2): 87-92. 1999.
  • Tarski's argumentative use of the liar paradox is well-known, but officially it is the Grelling paradox that has final pride of place in Tarski's argument, not the Liar at all. Tarski explicitly gives argumentation that adverts to the liar argument, but it is an alternative argument—one he only hints at and which adverts to the Grelling—which he says has the advantage of removing any empirical element. In this paper, we will examine how the Grelling might be used in place of the Liar in Tarski's…Read more
  •  1
    Modal Identities and de Re Necessity
    Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. 1992.
    I discuss one version of a puzzle about the identity of a statue with the lump of clay of which it is made. The case is one in which the statue and lump agree in all their non-modal features. While this is a favorable case for the claim that they are identical, we nonetheless have discrepant intuitions about their potentialities, which appear irreconcilable. Critical analyses are given of recent treatments by Allan Gibbard, Kit Fine, and Stephen Yablo. An ontologically conservative solution to t…Read more
  •  61
    Tarski and the metalinguistic liar
    Philosophical Studies 115 (1). 2003.
    I offer an interpretation of a familiar, but poorly understood portion of Tarskis work on truth – bringing to light a number of unnoticed aspects of Tarskis work. A serious misreading of this part of Tarski to be found in Scott Soames Understanding Truth is treated in detail. Soamesreading vies with the textual evidence, and would make Tarskis position inconsistent in an unsubtle way. I show that Soames does not finally have a coherent interpretation of Tarski. This is unfortunate, since Soames …Read more
  •  53
    Kripke & the existential complaint
    Philosophical Studies 74 (2). 1994.
    Famously, Saul Kripke proposes that there are contingent a priori truths, and has offered a number of examples to illustrate his claim. The most well-known example involves the standard meter bar in Paris. Purportedly, a certain agent knows a priori that the bar is one meter long. However, in response to a long-standing objection to such examples - the "existential complaint" - generally only modified examples having a conditional form are now considered candidates for the contingent a priori. G…Read more
  •  1
    The Problem of Negative Existentials, Inadvertently Solved
    In Manuel García-Carpintero & Genoveva Martí (eds.), Empty Representations: Reference and Non-Existence, Oxford University Press. pp. 262-274. 2014.
    The problem of negative existentials is one of the classic problems in philosophy of language. Latter-day developments in semantics resolved this problem without our help, but due to accidents of history no one noticed.
  •  91
    Ontology-free modal semantics
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 25 (4). 1996.
    The problem with model-theoretic modal semantics is that it provides only the formal beginnings of an account of the semantics of modal languages. In the case of non-modal language, we bridge the gap between semantics and mere model theory, by claiming that a sentence is true just in case it is true in an intended model. Truth in a model is given by the model theory, and an intended model is a model which has as domain the actual objects of discourse, and which relates these objects in an approp…Read more