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503Themes From Kaplan (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1989.This anthology of essays on the work of David Kaplan, a leading contemporary philosopher of language, sprang from a conference, "Themes from Kaplan," organized by the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University.
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118The semantics of common nouns and the nature of semanticsActa Philosophica Fennica 100 115-135. 2023.In “Is semantics possible?” Putnam connected two themes: the very possibility of semantics (as opposed to formal model theory) for natural languages and the proper semantic treatment of common nouns. Putnam observed that abstract semantic accounts are modeled on formal languages model theory: the substantial contribution is rules for logical connectives (given outside the models), whereas the lexicon (individual constants and predicates) is treated merely schematically by the models. This schema…Read more
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3The Puzzle That Never Was—Referential MechanicsIn Richard Schantz (ed.), Prospects for Meaning, Walter De Gruyter. pp. 21-34. 2012.
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32Introduction to the Volume “Naming and Necessity: A 40th‐Year Anniversary”Theoria 88 (2): 276-277. 2021.Theoria, Volume 88, Issue 2, Page 276-277, April 2022.
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17Introduction to the Volume “Naming and Necessity: A 40th‐Year Anniversary”Theoria 88 (2): 276-277. 2022.Theoria, Volume 88, Issue 2, Page 276-277, April 2022.
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48Forty Years Later: Naming Without Necessity, Necessity Without Naming 1Theoria 88 (2): 365-402. 2022.The essay examines the proper treament of (i) naming (ii) necessity. (A) It argues their mutual independence (B) provides a treatment of naming separately from any idea of “designation” (C) gives treatment of de re modality without any use of possible worlds, essences, concepts, rigid designators (D) it argues an ultimate asymmetry–naming/referring is a key real notion of semantics; necessity should not be the central idea in the metaphysics of nature.
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23Is Natural Semantics Possible?—Ordinary English, Formal Deformations-cum-Reformations and the Limits of Model TheoryIn Hans van Ditmarsch & Gabriel Sandu (eds.), Jaakko Hintikka on Knowledge and Game Theoretical Semantics, Springer. pp. 49-108. 2018.The essay is dedicated to the memory of Jaakko Hintikka and Hilary Putnam, two logically inventive philosophers who, nonetheless, showed deep judgment in bringing to the fore the limits of reducing natural languages to formal languages, via the use of logical forms and model theory. Writing in parallel ecologies, the two proposed rather similar “limitative” theses about the popular logical-form-cum-model theory methodology.
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Descartes' Punctum Archimedis: The Primality and Unity of Being, the Derivateness of the General DualitiesIn Hemmo Laiho & Arto Repo (eds.), DE NATURA RERUM - Scripta in honorem professoris Olli Koistinen sexagesimum annum complentis, University of Turku. pp. 25-58. 2016.
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27The Cosmic Ensemble: Reflections on the Nature?Mathematics SymbiosisMidwest Studies in Philosophy 31 (1): 344-371. 2007.
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Dualistic materialismIn Robert C. Koons & George Bealer (eds.), The waning of materialism, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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47Referential Mechanics: Direct Reference and the Foundations of SemanticsOxford University Press. 2014.This volume is focused on understanding a key idea in modern semantics-direct reference-and its integration into a general semantics for natural language.
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238Frege puzzles?Journal of Philosophical Logic 37 (6). 2008.The first page of Frege’s classic “Uber Sinn und Bedeutung” sets for more than a hundred years now the agenda for much of semantics and the philosophy of mind. It presents a purported puzzle whose solution is said to call upon the “entities” of semantics (meanings) and psychological explanation (Psychological states, beliefs, concepts). The paper separates three separate alleged puzzles that can be read into Frege’s data. It then argues that none are genuine puzzles. In turn, much of the Frege-d…Read more
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103Cogito? Descartes and Thinking the WorldOxford University Press. 2008.This volume looks at the first half of the proposition--cogito.
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668What Am I?: Descartes and the Mind-Body ProblemOxford University Press. 2001.In his Meditations, Rene Descartes asks, "what am I?" His initial answer is "a man." But he soon discards it: "But what is a man? Shall I say 'a rational animal'? No: for then I should inquire what an animal is, what rationality is, and in this way one question would lead down the slope to harder ones." Instead of understanding what a man is, Descartes shifts to two new questions: "What is Mind?" and "What is Body?" These questions develop into Descartes's main philosophical preoccupation: the M…Read more
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25RepliesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (3): 717-734. 2007.What Am I? is so-called because of its focus on Descartes’ primal question in the mind-body realm and his primal answer, viz. “a man”. The question and answer are primal in both senses of the adjective: they come first, early in meditation II, when the topic is broached for the first time; and, in my view of Descartes, they are also the most fundamental question and answer. There are other questions—many many other questions—Descartes raises about the mind-body problem. Some came to substitute f…Read more
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43In Everything in Its Right Place, Joseph Almog develops the unitarian and universalist metaphysics of Spinoza
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1The Vernacular and the Omniscient Observer of HistoryIn Marga Reimer & Anne Bezuidenhout (eds.), Descriptions and beyond, Oxford University Press. 2004.
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8Having In Mind: The Philosophy of Keith Donnellan (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2011.Keith Donnellan of UCLA is one of the founding fathers of contemporary philosophy of language, along with David Kaplan and Saul Kripke. Donnellan was and is an extremely creative thinker whose insights reached into metaphysics, action theory, the history of philosophy, and of course the philosophy of mind and language. This volume collects the best critical essays on Donnellan's forty-year body of work. The pieces by such noted philosophers as Tyler Burge, David Kaplan, and John Perry, discuss D…Read more