•  7
    Sustainable Development in Mineral Economies
    with Raymond F. Mikesell
    Oxford University Press UK. 1998.
    The mineral economies comprise approximately one-fifth of developing countries. They face special problems in achieving sustainable development, and have as a group been less successful than resource-deficient neighbours. This book examines the apparent paradox, detailing the current problems facing the mineral economies and the future policies necessary to overcome these problems. Nine countries are studied: Botswana, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Jamaica, Namibia, Papua New Guinea, Peru, and Tri…Read more
  •  2
    Propositional Attitude Ascription
    In Michael Devitt & Richard Hanley (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language, Wiley-blackwell. 2006.
  •  202
    This book makes a stimulating contribution to the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. It begins with a spirited defence of the view that propositions are structured and that propositional structure is 'psychologically real'. The author then develops a subtle view of propositions and attitude ascription. The view is worked out in detail with attention to such topics as the semantics of conversations, iterated attitude ascriptions, and the role of propositions as bearers of truth. Along…Read more
  •  4
    Truth and truth bearers
    Oxford University Press. 2015.
    This book collects nine seminal essays by Mark Richard published between 1980 and 2014, alongside four new essays and an introduction that puts the essays in context. Each essay is an attempt, in one way or another, to understand the idea of a proposition. Part I discusses whether the objects of thought and assertion can change truth value over time. Part II develops and defends a relativist view of the objects of assertion and thought; it includes discussions of the nature of disagreement, mora…Read more
  •  63
    Is Reference Essential to Meaning?
    Metaphysics 3 (1): 68-80. 2020.
    Most linguists and philosophers will tell you that whatever meaning is, it determines the reference of names, the satisfaction conditions of nouns and verbs, the truth conditions of sentences; in linguist speak, meaning determines semantic value. So a change in semantic value implies a change in meaning. So the semantic value a meaning determines is essential to that meaning: holding contributions from context constant, if two words have different semantic values they cannot mean the same thing.…Read more
  •  22
    Meanings as Species
    Oxford University Press. 2019.
    Mark Richard presents an original theory of meaning, as the collection of assumptions speakers make in using it and expect their hearers to recognize as being made. Meaning is spread across a population, inherited by each new generation of speakers from the last, and evolving through the interactions of speakers with their environment.
  •  86
    Meaning and Attitude Ascriptions
    Philosophical Studies 128 (3): 683-709. 2006.
  •  110
    Marcus on Belief and Belief in the Impossible
    Theoria 28 (3): 407-420. 2013.
    I review but don’t endorse Marcus’ arguments that impossible beliefs are impossible. I defend her claim that belief’s objects are, in some important sense, not the bearers of truth and falsity, discuss her disposition- alism about belief, and argue it’s a good fit with the idea that belief’s objects are Russellian states of affairs.
  •  22
    Precis of When Truth Gives Out
    Croatian Journal of Philosophy 11 (2): 143-147. 2011.
    When Truth Gives Out discusses some of the relations between performative and expressive aspects of language and those aspects of language that determine truth conditions. Among the topics it takes up are slurring speech, the ‘Frege-Geach’ objection to expressivism, vagueness, and relativism. It develops an alternative to standard truth conditional semantics, one based on the notion of a commitment.
  •  138
  •  26
    Opacity
    In Ernest Lepore & Barry C. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, Oxford University Press. 2006.
    There seems to be a lot of opacity in our language. Quotation is opaque. The modal idioms are apparently opaque. Propositional attitude ascriptions seem opaque, as do the environments created by verbs such as ‘seeks’ and ‘fears’. Opacity raises a number of issues — first and foremost, whether there is such a thing. This article concentrates on the question of whether there is any opacity to be found in natural language, examining various reasons one might have for denying that apparent opacity i…Read more
  • Indeterminacy and Truth Value Gaps
    In Richard Dietz & Sebastiano Moruzzi (eds.), Cuts and Clouds: Vaguenesss, its Nature and its Logic, Oxford University Press. 2010.
  •  24
    Context, Vagueness, and Ontology
    In Patrick Greenough & Michael P. Lynch (eds.), Truth and Realism, Oxford University Press. pp. 162. 2006.
  •  4
    Semantic pretense
    In T. Hofweber & A. Everett (eds.), Empty Names, Fiction, and the Puzzles of Non-Existence, Csli Publications. pp. 205--32. 2000.
  •  55
    Content Inside Out
    Analytic Philosophy 54 (2): 258-267. 2013.
  •  38
    Reply to Lynch, Miščević, and Stojanović
    Croatian Journal of Philosophy 11 (2): 197-208. 2011.
    This paper responds to discussions of my book When Truth Gives Out by Michael Lynch, Nenad Miščević, and Isidora Stojanović. Among the topics discussed are: whether relativism is incoherent (because it requires one to think that certain of one’s views are and are not epistemically superior to views one denies); whether and when sentences in which one slurs an individual or group are truth valued; whether relativism about matters of taste gives an account of “faultless disagreement” superior to c…Read more
  •  412
    Reply to MacFarlane, Scharp, Shapiro, and Wright (review)
    Philosophical Studies 160 (3): 477-495. 2012.
    Reply to MacFarlane, Scharp, Shapiro, and Wright Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9793-3 Authors Mark Richard, Philosophy Department, Harvard University, Emerson Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116
  •  120
    Precis of When Truth Gives Out (review)
    Philosophical Studies 160 (3): 441-444. 2012.
    Precis of When Truth Gives Out Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-4 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9792-4 Authors Mark Richard, Philosophy Department, Harvard University, Emerson Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116.
  •  40
    Helen Morris Cartwright, 1931-2006
    Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 80 (5). 2007.
  •  177
    Relativistic content and disagreement (review)
    Philosophical Studies 156 (3): 421-431. 2011.
    Herman Cappelen and John Hawthorne’s Relativism and Monadic Truth presses a number of worries about relativistic content. It forces one to think carefully about what a relativist should mean by saying that speakers disagree or contradict one another in asserting such content. My focus is on this question, though at points (in particular in Sect. 4) I touch on other issues Cappelen and Hawthorne (CH) raise.
  •  83
    Commitment
    Philosophical Perspectives 12 255-281. 1998.
  •  63
    Semantic theory and indirect speech
    Mind and Language 13 (4). 1998.
    Cappelen and Lepore argue against the principle P: A semantic theory ought to assign p to S if uttering S is saying p. An upshot of P’s falsity, they allege, is that some objections to Davidson’s programme (such as Foster’s) turn out to be without force. This essay formulates and defends a qualified version of P against Cappelen and Lepore’s objections. It distinguishes P from the more fundamental Q: A semantic theory ought to assign p to S iff literal utterance of S literally says p. Without so…Read more
  •  378
    Contextualism and relativism
    Philosophical Studies 119 (1-2): 215-242. 2004.
  •  36
    Thirteen seminal essays by Mark Richard develop a nuanced account of semantics and propositional attitudes. The collection addresses a range of topics in philosophical semantics and philosophy of mind, and is accompanied by a new Introduction which discusses attitudes realized by dispositions and other non-linguistic cognitive structures.
  •  170
    When Truth Gives Out
    Oxford University Press. 2008.
    Is the point of belief and assertion invariably to think or say something true? Is the truth of a belief or assertion absolute, or is it only relative to human interests? Most philosophers think it incoherent to profess to believe something but not think it true, or to say that some of the things we believe are only relatively true. Common sense disagrees. It sees many opinions, such as those about matters of taste, as neither true nor false; it takes it as obvious that some of the truth is rela…Read more
  •  114
    Meaning (edited book)
    Wiley-Blackwell. 2003.
    _ Meaning_ brings together some of the most significant philosophical work on linguistic representation and understanding, presenting canonical essays on core questions in the philosophy of language. Brings together essential readings which define and advance the literature on linguistic representation and understanding. Examines key topics in philosophy of language, including analyticity; translational indeterminacy; theories of reference; meaning as use; the nature of linguistic competence; tr…Read more