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15Understanding First: Exploring Its Scope and Testing Its LimitsPhilosophy Psychiatry and Psychology 30 (3): 205-207. 2023.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Understanding First: Exploring Its Scope and Testing Its LimitsMarga Reimer, PhD (bio)I thoroughly enjoyed reading and reflecting on this provocative, engagingly written, and persuasively argued paper. My commentary focuses on the authors’ “understanding first” principle. I begin by exploring that principle’s scope by appeal to aesthetic analogues to the moral cases of Pete and Jacob; I then explore its limits by appeal to cases invo…Read more
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598MetaphorIn Ernest Lepore & Barry C. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Language, Oxford University Press. pp. 845. 2006.Metaphor has traditionally been construed as a linguistic phenomenon: as something produced and understood by speakers of natural language. So understood, metaphors are naturally viewed as linguistic expressions of a particular type, or as linguistic expressions used in a particular type of way. This linguistic conception of metaphor is adopted in this article. In doing so, the article does not intend to rule out the possibility of non-linguistic forms of metaphor. Many theorists think that non-…Read more
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Exploring Austin's galaxy: searching for truth through the lens of ordinary languageIn Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), Interpreting J. L. Austin: Critical Essays, Cambridge University Press. 2017.
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217The problem of empty namesAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (4). 2001.This Article does not have an abstract
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62A Defense of De Re Belief ReportsMind and Language 10 (4): 446-463. 1995.In Talk About Beliefs, Mark Crimmins claims that de re belief reports are not nearly as common as they are generally thought to be. In the following paper, I take issue with this claim. I begin with a critique of Crimmins’arguments on behalf of the claim, and then follow with an argument on behalf of the opposing claim: that de re belief reports are indeed quite common. In defending this claim, I make some observations about the nature of tacit reference, a phenomenon central to Crimmins’account…Read more
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67Moral Disorder In the DSM-IV?: The Cluster B Personality DisordersPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 20 (3): 203-215. 2013.
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77Distinguishing Between the Psychiatrically and Philosophically Deluded: Easier Said Than DonePhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 17 (4): 341-346. 2010.take leave of one’s senses English, Verb. 1. (idiomatic) To go crazy; to stop behaving rationally A Chief concern in “Only a Philosopher or a Madman” was to draw attention to a number of striking yet underappreciated similarities between paradigm psychiatric delusions and standard philosophical doctrines, “nihilistic” as well as “common sense.” The similarities were presented as illuminating given their potential to inform the debate over whether psychiatric delusions are properly (or usefully) …Read more
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58The wettstein/salmon debate: Critique and resolutionPacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (2). 1998.Does Keith Donnellan's referential/attributive distinction have ‘semantic significance’? Howard Wettstein has claimed (in several papers) that it does; Nathan Salmon has responded (in several papers) that it does not. Specifically, while Wettstein has claimed that definite descriptions, used referentially, function semantically as demonstratives, Salmon has responded to Wettstein's claims by defending a unitary Russellian account of such expressions, according to which they invariably function a…Read more
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27Affective Dysfunction and the Cluster B Personality DisordersPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 20 (3): 225-229. 2013.
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24Philosophy of psychiatryIn Gerhard Preyer (ed.), Donald Davidson on truth, meaning, and the mental, Oxford University Press. pp. 249. 2012.
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128Incomplete descriptionsErkenntnis 37 (3). 1992.Standard attempts to defend Russell's Theory of Descriptions against the problem posed by incomplete descriptions, are discussed and dismissed as inadequate. It is then suggested that one such attempt, one which exploits the notion of a contextually delimited domain of quantification, may be applicable to incomplete quantifier expressions which are typically treated as quantificational: expressions of the form AllF's, NoF's, SomeF's, Exactly eightF's, etc. In this way, one is able to retain the …Read more
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9What Do Belief Ascrebers Really Mean? A Reply to Stephen SchifferPacific Philosophical Quarterly 77 (4): 404-423. 2017.Stephen Schiffer has recently claimed that the currently popular “hidden‐indexical” theory of belief reports is an implausible theory of such reports. His central argument for this claim is based on what he refers to as the “meaning‐intention” problem. In this paper, I claim that the meaning‐intention problem is powerless against the hidden‐indexical theory of belief reports. I further contend that the theory is in fact a plausible theory of such reports.
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26Childhood Trauma and the Mentally Ill Parent: Reconciling Moral and Medical Conceptions of" What Really Happened"Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 17 (3): 265-267. 2010.
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110Metaphorical Meanings. Do you see what I mean?The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 3. 2007.My intention in this paper is to propose a conception of metaphorical meaning on which the meaning of a metaphor includes propositional as well as non-propositional features. I will make two general claims on behalf of the proposed account: first, it is intuitive; second, it is of theoretical value. In claiming that the proposed account is of theoretical value, I mean only that its adoption leads to an increased understanding of the nature of metaphor: of metaphorical thought and ofmetaphorical …Read more
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3What Do Belief Ascrebers Really Mean? A Reply to Stephen SchifferPacific Philosophical Quarterly 77 (4): 404-423. 2017.Stephen Schiffer has recently claimed that the currently popular “hidden‐indexical” theory of belief reports is an implausible theory of such reports. His central argument for this claim is based on what he refers to as the “meaning‐intention” problem. In this paper, I claim that the meaning‐intention problem is powerless against the hidden‐indexical theory of belief reports. I further contend that the theory is in fact a plausible theory of such reports.
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94A Davidsonian perspective on psychiatric delusionsPhilosophical Psychology 24 (5). 2011.A number of philosophers have argued that psychiatric delusions threaten Donald Davidson's rationalist account of intentional agency. I argue that a careful look at both Davidson's account and psychiatric delusions shows that, in fact, the two are perfectly compatible. Indeed, a Davidsonian perspective on psychiatric delusions proves remarkably illuminating
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41Review of John Perry, Reference and Reflexivity (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2002 (6). 2002.
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93Performative utterances: A reply to Bach and Harnish (review)Linguistics and Philosophy 18 (6). 1995.
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78Is the impostor hypothesis really so preposterous? Understanding the capgras experiencePhilosophical Psychology 22 (6). 2009.In his classic paper, “Delusional thinking and perceptual disorder,” Brendan Maher (1974) argues that psychiatric delusions are hypotheses designed to explain anomalous experiences, and are “developed through the operation of normal cognitive processes.” Consider, for instance, the Capgras delusion. Patients suffering from this particular delusion believe that someone close to them—such as a spouse, a sibling, a parent, or a child—has been replaced by an impostor: by someone who bears a striking…Read more
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Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |