-
315The thesis, typical among dualists, that there are no necessitation relations between events of consciousness and physical events implies that it is prima facie lucky that in our world the apparently existing psychophysical laws usually match events of consciousness and physical events in a “harmonious” way. The lucky psychophysical laws argument concludes that typical dualism amounts to a psychophysical parallelism that is prima facie too improbable to be true. I argue that an anthropic reasoni…Read more
-
141The question whether the notion of rigidity can be extended in a fruitful way beyond singular terms has received a standard answer in the literature, according to which non-singular terms designate kinds, properties or other abstract singular objects and generalized rigidity is the same thing as singular term rigidity, but for terms designating such objects. I offer some new criticisms of this view and go on to defend an alternative view, on which non-singular terms designate extensions in gener…Read more
-
519Modal Realism and Anthropic ReasoningAustralasian Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.Some arguments against David Lewis’s modal realism seek to exploit apparent inconsistencies between it and anthropic reasoning. A recent argument, in particular, seeks to exploit an inconsistency between modal realism and typicality anthropic premises, premises common in the literature on physical multiverses, to the effect that observers who are like human observers in certain respects must be typical in the relevant multiverse. Here I argue that typicality premises are not applicable to the de…Read more
-
139Reference Fixing and the ParadoxesIn Mattia Petrolo & Giorgio Venturi (eds.), Paradoxes between Truth and Proof, Springer. forthcoming.I defend the hypothesis that the semantic paradoxes, the paradoxes about collections, and the sorites paradoxes, are all paradoxes of reference fixing: they show that certain conventionally adopted and otherwise functional reference-fixing principles cannot provide consistent assignments of reference to certain relevant expressions in paradoxical cases. I note that the hypothesis has interesting implications concerning the idea of a unified account of the semantic, collection and sorites paradox…Read more
-
102The Sorites, Content Fixing, and the Roots of ParadoxIn Otavio Bueno & Ali Abasnezhad (eds.), On the Sorites Paradox, Springer. forthcoming.The presentation of the “dual picture of vagueness” in my earlier work is supplemented here with a number of additional considerations. I emphasize how the picture lends itself naturally to treatments of the contribution of a typical degree adjective to propositional content and to truth conditions. A number of reasonable refinements of the picture are presented, especially concerning occasions of use of a degree adjective in which a class containing a sorites series is somehow involved in conte…Read more
-
27Are Conflicting Reference-Fixing Intentions Possible? Reply to MartoneManuscrito 43 (4): 59-73. 2020.Filipe Martone argues that reference-fixing intentions where the intended object is represented by means of a description can never fix the reference of a demonstrative, and that a speaker, as a matter of empirical fact, never has simultaneous perceptual and non-perceptual reference-fixing intentions that she can intend as fixing the reference of a demonstrative. In this note I reject Martone’s arguments for these claims.
-
6Ceteris Paribus Provisos, Knowledge of Reference-Fixing Conventions, and Proper Names. Reply to OrlandoManuscrito 43 (4): 35-48. 2020.Eleonora Orlando argues that one must understand some descriptivist theories of names that I criticize in my book Roads to Reference as ceteris paribus generalizations, and that on this understanding they survive my criticisms; she also introduces some doubts about my views on the knowledge speakers have of the reference-fixing conventions I postulate for proper names. In this note I argue against Orlando’s suggestion about ceteris paribus provisos and explain my view of the epistemology of refe…Read more
-
28The Problem of Logical Constants and the Semantic Tradition: From Invariantist Views to a Pragmatic AccountIn Gil Sagi & Jack Woods (eds.), The Semantic Conception of Logic : Essays on Consequence, Invariance, and Meaning, Cambridge University Press. pp. 35-54. 2021.I offer new criticisms of invariantist views of logicality, objecting especially to Gila Sher’s arguments for invariantism’s ability to explain the formality, necessity, apriority and normative force of logic. I argue that the semantic conception of logic can do perfectly well without a model-theoretic notion of logicality, and that the descriptive and explanatory theoretical roles sometimes ascribed to invariantism can be played by a non-model-theoretic account of logicality, specifically by on…Read more
-
63Roads to anti-descriptivism (about reference fixing): replies to Soames, Raatikainen, and DevittPhilosophical Studies 179 (3): 1005-1017. 2022.I reply to comments and criticism of my book Roads to Reference by Scott Soames (on the referents of ordinary substance terms and the conventions governing reference fixing for demonstratives, proper names, and color adjectives), Panu Raatikainen (on the exact scope of my critique of descriptivism and on the relation between referential indeterminacy and ‘‘partial reference’’), and Michael Devitt (on the role of referential intentions and anti-descriptivism in the metasemantics of demonstratives…Read more
-
26Précis of Roads to referencePhilosophical Studies 179 (3): 973-976. 2021.This is a summary of the contents of my book Roads to Reference, with emphasis on its proposal that the conventions governing reference fixing for demonstratives, proper names, and ordinary natural kind terms adopt the form of lists of roughly sufficient conditions for reference or reference failure; and its defense of anti-eliminativist views of the referents of ordinary natural kind terms, numerals, and terms for sensible qualities traditionally considered as “seconday”.
-
15Sobre el regreso de Carroll, el convencionalismo y los fundamentos de la lógicaAnálisis Filosófico 40 (Especial): 111-131. 2021.Propongo que el argumento carrolliano de Quine en “Truth by Convention” no refuta una variedad especialmente genuina de convencionalismo acerca de la lógica. También argumento que la lección carrolliana básica acerca del convencionalismo es que la introducción de convenciones o tesis aceptadas acerca de qué es lógicamente correcto no puede por sí sola instaurar las disposiciones inferenciales correspondientes. Apoyándome en mi discusión del regreso carrolliano, indico finalmente que hay cuando m…Read more
-
18On descriptivism and natural kind terms. Reply to Fernández MorenoManuscrito 43 (4): 86-96. 2020.Luis Fernández Moreno has given a number of arguments that descriptive knowledge or stipulations have a greater role in the fixing of the reference of natural kind terms than I allow in my book Roads to Reference. In this note I criticize Fernández Moreno’s arguments.
-
40Context-sensitive reference fixing and objectivity. Reply to BarcelóManuscrito 43 (4): 13-21. 2020.Axel Barceló has extended the objectivist apparatus for handling color terms that I develop in my book Roads to Reference, so that the extension covers also some aesthetic predicates. In this note I argue that Barceló’s extension probably attempts to go too far.
-
15Logical Form, Truth Conditions, and Adequate FormalizationDisputatio 12 (58): 209-222. 2020.I discuss Andrea Iacona’s idea that logical form mirrors truth conditions, and that logical form, and thus truth conditions, are in turn represented by means of adequate formalization. I criticize this idea, noting that the notion of adequate formalization is highly indefinite, while the pre-theoretic idea of logical form is often much more definite. I also criticize Iacona’s claim that certain distinct sentences, with the same truth conditions and differing only by co-referential names, must be…Read more
-
16Demonstrative contents and opaque thoughts. Reply to ValenteManuscrito 43 (4): 130-141. 2020.Matheus Valente presents a number of examples designed to show that my theory of reference fixing for demonstratives violates the desideratum that demonstrative thoughts should be transparent to speakers. In this note I argue that the alleged desideratum is not really such and defend my theory against other criticisms made by Valente.
-
32Numerals, positionality, and reference fixing. Reply to VivancoManuscrito 43 (4): 165-176. 2020.Melisa Vivanco objects to my theory of the Arabic numerals in Roads to Reference that the reference fixing procedure that I postulate doesn’t exploit the morphological structure of the Arabic numerals, but it should. Against Vivanco, I argue that the procedure in question does exploit the morphological structure of the numerals in an essential way.
-
26Do conflicting intentions give rise to multiple demonstrative reference? Reply to MenaManuscrito 43 (4): 189-198. 2020.According to Ricardo Mena, a demonstrative refers to all the objects that the utterer has an intention for it to refer to, which may be more than one in cases where her referential intentions conflict. In this note I argue that Mena’s proposal has several serious problems.
-
21On the ordinary notion of substance. Reply to Abreu ZavaletaManuscrito 43 (4): 108-115. 2020.My proposed mechanism of reference fixing for ordinary natural kind terms in the book Roads to Reference appeals to the ordinary notion of substance. In this note I reply to an objection by Martín Abreu Zavaleta that that notion is too vague to allow for a sufficiently constrained property to become the referent of a given ordinary substance term. I argue that the notion of substance is far less vague than Abreu Zavaleta claims.
-
13Ordinary kinds and ontological angst. Reply to DemartiniManuscrito 43 (4): 215-220. 2020.Thainá Demartini has criticized my view that ordinary natural kind terms refer to vague non-scientific kinds and defended the more traditional view that they refer to precise kinds discovered by science. In this note I reject Demartini’s worries as based on inadequate ontological scruples.
-
90Roads to Reference: An Essay on Reference Fixing in Natural LanguageOxford University Press. 2019.How is it that words come to stand for the things they stand for? Is the thing that a word stands for - its reference - fully identified or described by conventions known to the users of the word? Or is there a more roundabout relation between the reference of a word and the conventions that determine or fix it? Do words like 'water', 'three', and 'red' refer to appropriate things, just as the word 'Aristotle' refers to Aristotle? If so, which things are these, and how do they come to be referre…Read more
-
62Soames on the logical empiricists on truth, meaning, convention, and logical truthPhilosophical Studies 176 (5): 1357-1365. 2019.In the first part of this paper, I express doubts that Tarski and Carnap were guilty of some confusions about the relations between truth and meaning, attributed to them by Soames. In the second part, I consider Quine's Carrollian argument against conventionalism about logical truth, discussed only briefly and approvingly by Soames, and I explore the question whether some not obviously incorrect forms of conventionalism about logical truth, such as what I call "finitary conventionalism", are imm…Read more
-
28Semantics vs. Pragmatics in Impure QuotationIn Paul Saka & Michael Johnson (eds.), The Semantics and Pragmatics of Quotation, Springer. pp. 135-167. 2017.I defend a semantic theory of quotation marks, according to which these are ambiguous, as they have several different acceptations involving corresponding different conventional indications. In particular, in allusion (“mixed”) uses, the corresponding conventional indication is one with an adverbial or prepositional content, roughly equivalent to “using the quoted expression or an appropriate version of it”. And in “scare” uses, the corresponding conventional indication is that the enclosed expr…Read more
-
Notas sobre el “Wahrheitsbegriff”, IIAnálisis Filosófico 21 (2): 149-186. 2001.This is the second part of a two-part paper devoted to a study of some historical, logical and philosophical issues arising from a reading of Tarski´s celebrated “Wahrheitsbegriff” monograph. This second part concentrates on issues related to Tarski´s “Wahrheitsbegriff” version of the theorem on the indefinability of truth. One of these issues is the correct exegesis of Tarski´s claim that a truth definition cannot be constructed in a metalanguage if its order is not higher than that of the obje…Read more
-
La teoría de los modos infinitos de SpinozaRevista Latinoamericana de Filosofia 23 (2): 295-318. 1997.
-
Notas sobre el “Wahrheitsbegriff”, IAnálisis Filosófico 21 (1): 5-42. 2001.This is the first part of a two-part paper devoted to a study of some historical, logical and philosophical issues arising from a reading of Tarski´s celebrated “Wahrheitsbegriff” monograph. This first part starts with an exposition of Tarski´s “Wahrheitsbegriff” theory of truth which is historically accurate but more easily intelligible to the modern reader than Tarski´s “Wahrheitsbegriff” presentation. This exposition is then used in the refutation of some historical, logical and philosophical…Read more
-
38What Quotations Refer ToIn Elke Brendel (ed.), Understanding Quotation, De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 139--160. 2011.When quotations are used with a purely referential purpose, they are mostly used with the purpose of referring to expressions, in the sense of rather abstract expression types. However, in many cases purely referential quotations are used with the purpose of referring to things other than very abstract expression types, such as boldface types, sounds, particular tokens, etc. The paper deals with the question of what mechanism underlies the possibility of successfully referring to different thing…Read more
-
81How Quotations ReferJournal of Philosophy 110 (7): 353-390. 2013.The article proposes a theory on which quotations are unstructured, context-insensitive devices that get their referents fixed by a conventional wholesale reference-fixing rule. First, it criticizes recent theories for postulating eccentric or anomalous facts concerning the contribution of noun phrases to truth conditions, the semantics of demonstratives or general syntax. Second, it notes that the proposed theory is not subject to some familiar objections to classical theories, nor to eccentric…Read more
-
54Remarks on Impure QuotationIn Philippe De Brabanter (ed.), Hybrid Quotations, John Benjamins. pp. 129-151. 2005.Quotation marks are ambiguous, although the conventional rules that govern their different uses are similar in that they contain quantifications over quotable expressions. Pure uses are governed by a simple rule: by enclosing any expression within quotation marks one gets a singular term, the quotation, that stands for the enclosed expression. Impure uses are far less simple. In a series of uses the quotation marks conventionally indicate that (part of) the enclosed expression is a contextually …Read more
Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |