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205Propositional Attitudes: An Essay on Thoughts and How We Ascribe ThemCambridge University Press. 1990.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
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187What are Propositions?Canadian Journal of Philosophy 43 (5): 702-719. 2013.(2013). What are Propositions? Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 43, Essays on the Nature of Propositions, pp. 702-719.
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182Relativistic 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.
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176When Truth Gives OutOxford 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
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165Direct reference and ascriptions of beliefJournal of Philosophical Logic 12 (4): 425--52. 1983.
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126Precis 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.
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114Meaning (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
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113Marcus on Belief and Belief in the ImpossibleTheoria 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.
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103Seeking a centaur, adoring adonis: Intensional transitives and empty termsMidwest Studies in Philosophy 25 (1). 2001.
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73Quantification and Leibniz's lawPhilosophical Review 96 (4): 555-578. 1987.The Philosophical Review, Vol. XCVI, No. 4 (October 1987). Categorically proves that Leibniz's Law (the principle that any instance of _for any x and y, if x=y, then if ...x..., then ..y..._ is true) is not a principle of which is true of natural language objectual quantification.
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72Is 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
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65Semantic theory and indirect speechMind 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
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61Defective Contexts, Accommodation, and NormalizationCanadian Journal of Philosophy 25 (4). 1995.Propositional Attitudes defends an account of ‘believes’ on which the verb is contextually sensitive. x believes that S says that x has a belief which is ‘well rendered’ or acceptably translated by S; since contextually variable information about what makes for a good translation helps determine the extension of ‘believes,’ the verb is contextually sensitive. Sider and Soames criticize this account. They say it has unacceptable consequences in cases in which we make multiple ascriptions of belie…Read more
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50Explaining Attitudes: A Practical Approach to the MindPhilosophical Review 106 (4): 614. 1997.When I started the book, I thought that if there are beliefs, then they are brain states. I still believe that. I express three caveats about the book.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Language |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |