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257Context DynamicsSemantics and Pragmatics. forthcoming.In this paper, I consider how, given mutual knowledge of the information codified in a compositional semantic theory, an assertion of a sentence serves to update the shared information in a conversation. There is a standard account, due to Stalnaker, of how such conversational updating occurs. While this account has much to recommend it, in this paper I argue that it needs to be revised in light of certain patterns of updating that result from certain natural discourses. Having argued for this, …Read more
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451First-Person PropositionsPhilosophers' Imprint. forthcoming.A central dispute in discussions of self-locating attitudes is whether attitude relations like believing and knowing are relations between an agent and properties (things that vary in truth value across individuals) or between an agent and propositions (things that do not so vary). Proponents of the proposition view have argued that the property view is unable to give an adequate account of relations like communication and agreement. We agree with this critique of the property view, and in this …Read more
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1403Classical OpacityPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (3): 524-566. 2019.Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.
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87Semantic IndecisionPhilosophical Perspectives 32 (1): 108-143. 2018.Philosophical Perspectives, EarlyView.
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83Bunder’s paradoxReview of Symbolic Logic 13 (4): 829-844. 2020.Systems ofillative logicare logical calculi formulated in the untypedλ-calculus supplemented with certain logical constants.1In this short paper, I consider a paradox that arises in illative logic. I note two prima facie attractive ways of resolving the paradox. The first is well known to be consistent, and I briefly outline a now standard construction used by Scott and Aczel that establishes this. The second, however, has been thought to be inconsistent. I show that this isn’t so, by providing …Read more
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216Rational Probabilistic IncoherencePhilosophical Review 122 (4): 527-575. 2013.Probabilism is the view that a rational agent's credences should always be probabilistically coherent. It has been argued that Probabilism follows, given the assumption that an epistemically rational agent ought to try to have credences that represent the world as accurately as possible. The key claim in this argument is that the goal of representing the world as accurately as possible is best served by having credences that are probabilistically coherent. This essay shows that this claim is fal…Read more
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736Agreement theorems for self-locating beliefReview of Symbolic Logic 9 (2): 380-407. 2016.Abstract
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79Credence in the Image of ChancePhilosophy of Science 82 (4): 626-648. 2015.In this article, I consider what sorts of chance credence norms can be justified by appeal to the idea that ideal credences should line up with the chances. I argue that the Principal Principle cannot be so justified but that an alternative norm, the Temporal Principle—which maintains that an agent’s credence in a proposition ϕ, conditional on the temporal proposition that says that the chance of ϕ is x, should be x—can be so justified.
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156Vagueness and semantic indiscriminabilityPhilosophical Studies 160 (3): 365-377. 2012.I argue, pace Timothy Williamson, that one cannot provide an adequate account of what it is for a case to be borderline by appealing to facts about our inability to discriminate our actual situation from nearby counterfactual situations in which our language use differs in subtle ways. I consider the two most natural ways of using such resources to provide an account of what it is for a case to be borderline and argue that both face crippling defects. I argue that the problems faced by these two…Read more
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226Belief and IndeterminacyPhilosophical Review 121 (1): 1-54. 2012.An attractive approach to the semantic paradoxes holds that cases of semantic pathology give rise to indeterminacy. What attitude should a rational agent have toward a proposition that it takes to be indeterminate in this sense? Orthodoxy holds that rationality requires that an agent disbelieve such a proposition. I argue that a rational agent should be such that it is indeterminate whether it believes the proposition in question. For rational agents, indeterminacy in the objects of their attitu…Read more
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3284Doxastic LogicIn Jonathan Weisberg & Richard Pettigrew (eds.), The Open Handbook of Formal Epistemology, Philpapers Foundation. pp. 499-541. 2019.
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774Agreement and Updating For Self-Locating BeliefJournal of Philosophical Logic 47 (3): 513-547. 2018.In this paper, I argue that some plausible principles concerning which credences are rationally permissible for agents given information about one another’s epistemic and credal states have some surprising consequences for which credences an agent ought to have in light of self-locating information. I provide a framework that allows us to state these constraints and draw out these consequences precisely. I then consider and assess the prospects for rejecting these prima facie plausible principle…Read more
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801Benardete’s paradox and the logic of counterfactualsAnalysis 78 (1): 22-34. 2018.I consider a puzzling case presented by Jose Benardete, and by appeal to this case develop a paradox involving counterfactual conditionals. I then show that this paradox may be leveraged to argue for certain non-obvious claims concerning the logic of counterfactuals.
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4Metasemantics and Metaphysical IndeterminacyIn Alexis Burgess & Brett Sherman (eds.), Metasemantics: New Essays on the Foundations of Meaning, Oxford University Press. 2014.
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435A Problem for Credal ConsequentialismIn Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij & Jeff Dunn (eds.), Epistemic Consequentialism, Oxford University Press. 2018.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |