-
322Thought by descriptionPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (1): 83-102. 2008.No Abstract
-
27Consequences of Reference FailureRoutledge. 2019.This book defends the Direct Reference (DR) thesis in philosophy of language regarding proper names and indexical pronouns. It uniquely draws out the significant consequences of DR when it is conjoined with the fact that these singular terms sometimes fail to refer. Even though DR is widely endorsed by philosophers of language, many philosophically important and radically controversial consequences of the thesis have gone largely unexplored. This book makes an important contribution to the DR l…Read more
-
21Skepticism and Content ExternalismStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2018.Hilary Putnam (1981) proposed an interesting and much discussed attempt to refute a skeptical argument that is based on one form of the brain-in-a-vat scenario. In turn, Putnam’s attempted refutation is based on content externalism (also known as semantic externalism). On this view, the referents and meanings of various types of singular and general terms, as well as the propositions expressed by sentences containing such terms, are determined by aspects of the speaker’s external environment. In…Read more
-
621On Knowing Our Own MindsPhilosophical Quarterly 52 (206): 107-116. 2002.This is an anthology of ?fteen papers concerning various philosophical problems related to the topic of self-knowledge. All but one of the papers were previously unpublished, and all but two are descendants of presentations at a conference on self-knowledge held at the University of St Andrews in 1995. The collection.
-
491Transmission of warrant and closure of apriorityIn Susana Nuccetelli (ed.), New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge, Mit Press. pp. 97--116. 2003.In my 1991 paper, AAnti-Individualism and Privileged Access,@ I argued that externalism in the philosophy of mind is incompatible with the thesis that we have privileged , nonempirical access to the contents of our own thoughts.<sup>1</sup> One of the most interesting responses to my argument has been that of Martin Davies (1998, 2000, and Chapter _ above) and Crispin Wright (2000 and Chapter _ above), who describe several types of cases to show that warrant for a premise does not always transmi…Read more
-
752Truths Containing Empty NamesIn Piotr Stalmaszczyk & Luis Fernandez Moreno (eds.), Philosophical Approaches to Proper Names, Peter Lang. pp. 175-202. 2016.Abstract. On the Direct Reference thesis, proper names are what I call ‘genuine terms’, terms whose sole semantic contributions to the propositions expressed by their use are the terms’ semantic referents. But unless qualified, this thesis implies the false consequence that sentences containing names that fail to refer can never express true or false propositions. (Consider ‘The ancient Greeks worshipped Zeus’, for instance.) I suggest that while names are typically and fundamentally used as ge…Read more
-
318The semantic basis of externalismIn Sorin Costreie & Mircea Dumitru (eds.), Meaning and Truth, Pro Universitaria. 2015.1. The primary evidence and motivation for externalism in the philosophy of mind is provided by the semantic facts that support direct reference theories of names, indexi- cal pronouns, and natural kind terms. But many externalists have forgotten their sem- antic roots, or so I shall contend here. I have become convinced of this by a common reaction among externalists to the main argument of my 1991 paper AAnti-Individual- ism and Privileged Access.@ In that argument, I concluded that externalis…Read more
-
457Forms of externalism and privileged accessPhilosophical Perspectives 16 199-224. 2002.In my 1991 paper
-
234The grammar of beliefIn William J. Rapaport & F. Orilia (eds.), Thought, Language, and Ontology, Essays in Memory of Hector-Neri Castaneda, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1998.
-
465Divided reference in causal theories of namesPhilosophical Studies 30 (4). 1976.Gareth evans has proposed a type of case which shows that kripke's sketch of a causal theory of proper names is in need of modification. Kripke has himself suggested a way in which the modification might proceed, But I argue that this suggestion leads in the wrong direction. I consider a development of kripke's view by michael devitt which may overcome evans' case, But which is shown false by a different sort of case. The latter kind of case also shows that a view of names recently proposed by d…Read more
-
1056The semantics of belief ascriptionsNoûs 33 (4): 519-557. 1999.nated discussion of the semantics of such verbs. I will call this view.
-
331Psychologism in SemanticsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 13 (1). 1983.According to grice, Semantic concepts like meaning and reference should be explicated in terms of the propositional attitudes. In this paper, I argue that grice's program is mistaken in principle. I first motivate a gricean strategy for defining denotation, Or semantic reference, In terms of rules that govern what speakers may refer to with the terms they use. I then express three paradigm gricean theories of denotation and introduce considerations which show that these theories are false.
Detroit, Michigan, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |