•  3
    Review of Essays on Linguistic Realism (review)
    Linguist List 30 (1644). 2019.
    The edited volume will be of interest to philosophers and linguists working on the foundations of linguistics. It also contains material regarding some recent technical applications of realist frameworks in semantics, phonology, and morphology. The volume is derived from the proceedings of a workshop convened by the editors, Christina Behme and Martin Neef, on the theme ‘The Foundations of Linguistics: Languages as Abstract Objects’, at Technische Universität Braunschweig, in June 2015. The edit…Read more
  •  91
    Shared decision-making in maternity care: Acknowledging and overcoming epistemic defeaters
    with Deirdre Daly, Sunita Panda, and Cecily Begley
    Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 25 (6). 2019.
    Shared decision-making involves health professionals and patients/clients working together to achieve true person-centred health care. However, this goal is infrequently realized, and most barriers are unknown. Discussion between philosophers, clinicians, and researchers can assist in confronting the epistemic and moral basis of health care, with benefits to all. The aim of this paper is to describe what shared decision-making is, discuss its necessary conditions, and develop a definition that c…Read more
  •  71
    Shared decision-making and maternity care in the deep learning age: Acknowledging and overcoming inherited defeaters
    with Cecily Begley and Valerie Smith
    Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 27 (3). 2021.
    In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) both in health care and academic philosophy. This has been due mainly to the rise of effective machine learning and deep learning algorithms, together with increases in data collection and processing power, which have made rapid progress in many areas. However, use of this technology has brought with it philosophical issues and practical problems, in particular, epistemic and ethical. In this paper the author…Read more
  •  34
    Katz got your tongue? The metaphysics of words
    Synthese 202 (4): 1-29. 2023.
    In the recent literature on the ontology and metaphysics of words, Jerrold J. Katz’ type-realist or ‘Platonist’ view is often mentioned but never spelt out in detail. This is perhaps understandable in light of the fact that his most developed statements on this matter are effectively offshoots of his main discourse in Realistic Rationalism (Katz, 1998a). His direct statements about the metaphysics of words are few and far between and are scattered across the text. This situation has often led to…Read more
  •  24
    Language Disguises Thought: Uncovering the Origins of the Clothing Metaphor in Tractatus 4.002
    Disputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin 11 (23). 2022.
    This article investigates the clothing metaphor in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus at remark 4.002. I consider the antecedents and origins of 4.002, in particular, of the fourth paragraph that contains the metaphor, and also suggest and argue for potential source texts for the third and fourth paragraphs. In particular, early sources for the Tractatus, such as the Notes on Logic and the Notebooks 1914–1916, letters, and other manuscripts and early drafts are considered, especially …Read more
  •  17
    Beta-testing the ethics plugin
    AI and Society 38. 2023.
    The three main kinds of theory in normative ethics, namely, consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, are often presented as the ‘palette’ from which we may choose, or use as a starting point for an investigation. However, this way of doing ethics and philosophy, by the palette, may be leading some of us astray. It has led some to believe that all that there is to ethics, and to ethics of AI, is given in terms of these already devised petrified categories of theory. It has also led others…Read more
  •  93
    Knowing Opposites and Formalising Antonymy
    Epistemology and Philosophy of Science 59 (2). 2022.
    This paper discusses knowledge of opposites. In particular, attention is given to the linguistic notion of antonymy and how it represents oppositional relations that are commonly found in perception. The paper draws upon the long history of work on the formalisation of antonymy in linguistics and formal semantics, and also upon work on the perception of opposites in psychology, and an assessment is made of the main approaches. Treatments of these phenomena in linguistics and psychology posit tha…Read more
  •  247
    In this book, VP builds upon his previous study by shifting focus from the motivation for the ti esti question, to the motivation for the commitment to what is designated by an adequate and true answer to such questions. VP’s aim in this study is to show that what are usually called ‘Forms’ (eidē), rather than being things that have essences, simply are those essences designated by adequate and true answers to ti esti questions. This book is highly recommended for scholars, students, and anyone …Read more
  •  117
    This book has been ably reviewed by others. I am taking a second look at it now on the occasion of the publication of its sequel, a review of which I also provide in this volume. I have had the distinct pleasure of being a student and colleague of Vasilis Politis (VP) since the initiation of the project that led to these monographs, and the great privilege of witnessing the development of the project for more than a decade. VP’s Plato is in a way the only one I have known. When I hear the terms …Read more
  •  475
    Jerrold J. Katz often explained his semantic theory by way of an analogy with physical atomism and an attendant analogy with chemistry. In this chapter, I track the origin and uses of these analogies by Katz, both in explaining and defending his decompositional semantic theory, through the various phases of his work throughout his career.
  •  580
    Heraclitus against the Naïve Paratactic Metaphysics of Mere Things
    Ancient Philosophy Today 3 (1): 74-97. 2021.
    This article considers an interpretative model for the study of Heraclitus, which was first put forward by Alexander Mourelatos in 1973, and draws upon a related model put forward by Julius Moravcsik beginning in 1983. I further develop this combined model and provide a motivation for an interpretation of Heraclitus. This is also of interest for modern metaphysics due to the recurrence of structurally similar problems, including the ‘colour exclusion’ problem that was faced by Wittgenstein. Furt…Read more
  •  585
    Heraclitus' Rebuke of Polymathy: A Core Element in the Reflectiveness of His Thought
    History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 23 (1). 2020.
    I offer an examination of a core element in the reflectiveness of Heraclitus’ thought, namely, his rebuke of polymathy . In doing so, I provide a response to a recent claim that Heraclitus should not be considered to be a philosopher, by attending to his paradigmatically philosophical traits. Regarding Heraclitus’ attitude to that naïve form of ‘wisdom’, i.e., polymathy, I argue that he does not advise avoiding experience of many things, rather, he advises rejecting experience of things as merel…Read more
  •  819
    "It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take “good”, for instance. If you have a word like “good”, what need is there for a word like “bad”? “Ungood” will do just as wel…Read more
  •  139
    This book represents more than a decade of work (p. ix) by this eminent scholar. It is intended primarily for scholars of Classical Greek; however, F.’s laudable practice of, in most cases, providing English translations and repeating them when needed, makes it accessible to non-specialists and undergraduates, as he intended (pp. ix–x).