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1Fodor’s Inexplicitness ArgumentIn Markus Werning, Edouard Machery & Gerhard Schurz (eds.), The Compositionality of Meaning and Content. Volume I - Foundational Issues,, De Gruyter. pp. 59-86. 2005.
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245Unshadowed Thought: Representations in Thought and LanguagePhilosophical Review 111 (3): 470-473. 2002.This is a very poorly written book. It is highly repetitive and verbose. Moreover, despite the repetition, it is fundamentally unclear—both because of unhelpful and unexplained terminology, and because of its distinctively tangled prose. Here is one example of the latter
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Minimal Propositions, Cognitive Safety Mechanisms, and Psychological RealityIn Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism: New Essays on Semantics and Pragmatics, Oxford University Press Uk. 2007.
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Analytic Functionalism and the Qualia ObjectionDissertation, The University of Western Ontario (Canada). 1980.The aim of this dissertation is to rebut a formidable objection to all fuctionalist theories of the mental. The objection is widely known as "the Qualia Objection." It contends that functionalism is false because it cannot give an adequate account of the non-conceptual, non-cognitive, phenomen
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153Shorthand, syntactic ellipsis, and the pragmatic determinants of what is saidMind and Language 19 (4). 2004.Our first aim in this paper is to respond to four novel objections in Jason Stanley's 'Context and Logical Form'. Taken together, those objections attempt to debunk our prior claims that one can perform a genuine speech act by using a subsentential expression—where by 'subsentential expression' we mean an ordinary word or phrase, not embedded in any larger syntactic structure. Our second aim is to make it plausible that, pace Stanley, there really are pragmatic determinants of the literal truthc…Read more
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10Minimal propositions, cognitive safety mechanisms, and psychological realityIn G. Preyer (ed.), Context Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism, Oxford University Press. pp. 278. 2007.
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56Functionalism, homunculi-heads and absent qualiaDialogue 22 (1): 47-56. 1983.It has recently become quite fashionable for one to defend a functionalist theory of mental states. However, as with most trends, functionalism has come under fire in certain philosophical quarters. In this paper, I shall not take up the question of whether any version of functionalism is true. I shall instead discuss a particular objection to a specific brand of functionalism.
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15Descriptions, Indexicals and Speaker MeaningProtoSociology 10 155-190. 1997.In his paper, “Descriptions, Indexicals, and Belief Reports: Some Dilemmas (But Not the Ones You Expect)” (Mind 104, (1995)), Stephen Schiffer presents a powerful argument against anyone who accepts a Russellian account of definite descriptions (including incomplete descriptions) and who also accepts a direct referential account of indexicals. On the one hand, the most plausible version of the Theory of Descriptions, namely, the Hidden-Indexical Theory of Descriptions, entails that a speaker who…Read more
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11Landesman on abstract particularsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 35 (3): 411-414. 1975.
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63The predicate view of proper namesIn Gerhard Preyer Georg Peter (ed.), Logical Form and Language, Oxford University Press. pp. 467503. 2002.
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57Grasping objects and contentsIn Alex Barber (ed.), Epistemology of Language, Oxford University Press. pp. 257-302. 2003.
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108Review of Anandi Hattiangadi, Oughts and Thoughts: Scepticism and the Normativity of Meaning (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (4). 2008.
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26Lewis's puzzle about singular belief-attributionPhilosophia 17 (4): 461-476. 1987.In this paper, I have argued that Lewis fails to undermine thatP-theory by means of a variation of Kripke'sPuzzle. The flaw in Lewis's argument, given a wide interpretation ofworld-fitness, is that it simply begs the question against theP-theorist. I then argued that, given the narrow interpretation ofworld-fitness, Lewis's argument fails because Pierre doesn't have a belief that is narrowly characterizable by a sentence like,Pierre believes that the city that he identifies asLondon is pretty in…Read more
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13On an alleged incoherence in Morick's thesis of extensionality and intentionalityPhilosophical Studies 28 (2). 1975.
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246Explaining attitudes: A practical approach to the mindPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (2): 513-523. 1999.Explaining Attitudes is an important contribution to the philosophy of mind. It is the latest installment in Lynne Rudder Baker’s work, which began with her equally important book, Saving Belief, to restore the attitudes to their proper place. In Explaining Attitudes, she undertakes two important projects. The first is a critique of recent attempts to either naturalize the mind or to cast folk psychology as a discredited theory. The second is the development of an alternative view of the mind, o…Read more
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58An Alleged Incoherence in Berkeley's PhilosophyCanadian Journal of Philosophy 8 (sup1): 177-189. 1978.In a well known paper, “Mind and Ideas in Berkeley” George Pitcher has argued that Berkeley's account of how minds are related to sensible ideas must be incoherent. Douglas Odegard has already criticized Pitcher's treatment of Berkeley, but the criticisms pertain to other questions. No one appears to have challenged Pitcher's most important argument. I hope to show that, while it is well worth analyzing, the argument fails to provide any effective reductio ad absurdum of Berkeley's real position…Read more
Norman, Oklahoma, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |