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656What 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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495Themes 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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235Frege 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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224The structure–in–things: Existence, essence and logicProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (2). 2003.It has been common in contemporary philosophical logic to separate existence, essence and logic. I would like to reverse these separative tendencies. Doing so yields two theses, one about the existential basis of truth, the other about the essentialist basis of logic. The first thesis counters the common claim that both logical and essential truths-in short, structural truths-are existence-free. It is proposed that only real existences can generate essentialist and logical predications. The seco…Read more
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186The philosophy of David Kaplan (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2010.This volume collects new, previously unpublished articles on Kaplan, analyzing a broad spectrum of topics ranging from cutting edge linguistics and the ...
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122Précis of what am I? (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (3). 2005.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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115Is a Unified Description of Language-and-Thought Possible?Journal of Philosophy 102 (10): 493-531. 2005.
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102Cogito? Descartes and Thinking the WorldOxford University Press. 2008.This volume looks at the first half of the proposition--cogito.
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93Direct reference and significant cognition: Any paradoxes?1Philosophical Books 47 (1): 2-14. 2006.
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89A Unified Treatment of (Pro-) Nominals in Ordinary EnglishIn Andrea Bianchi (ed.), On Reference, Oxford University Press. 2015.
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87The 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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86The Plenitude of Structures and Scarcity of PossibilitiesJournal of Philosophy 88 (11): 620-622. 1991.
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70The Cosmic Ensemble: Reflections on the Nature?Mathematics SymbiosisMidwest Studies in Philosophy 31 (1): 344-371. 2007.
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51Forty 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.