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18Thinking about moralityForum for European Philosophy Blog. 2017.Sarah Sawyer on concepts and the objectivity of moral reasons.
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437Kinds of Kinds: Normativity, Scope and Implementation in Conceptual EngineeringIn Manuel Gustavo Isaac, Kevin Scharp & Steffen Koch (eds.), New Perspectives on Conceptual Engineering, Synthese Library. forthcoming.In this paper I distinguish three kinds of kinds: traditional philosophical kinds such as truth, knowledge, and causation; natural science kinds such as spin, charge and mass; and social kinds such as class, poverty, and marriage. The three-fold taxonomy I work with represents an idealised abstraction from the wide variety of kinds that there are and the messy phenomena that underlie them. However, the kinds I identify are discrete, and the three-fold taxonomy is useful when it comes to understa…Read more
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12The importance of fictional propertiesIn Anthony Everett & Stuart Brock (eds.), Fictional objects, Oxford University Press. pp. 208-229. 2015.
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6Contrastive self-knowledge and the McKinsey paradoxIn Sanford C. Goldberg (ed.), Externalism, Self-Knowledge, and Skepticism: New Essays, Cambridge University Press. pp. 75-93. 2015.In this paper I argue first, that a contrastive account of self-knowledge and the propositional attitudes entails an anti-individualist account of propositional attitude concepts (the concepts of belief, desire, regret, and so on), second, that the final account provides a solution to the McKinsey paradox, and third, that the account has the resources to explain why certain anti-skeptical arguments fail.
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469Concept Pluralism in Conceptual EngineeringInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 1. forthcoming.In this paper, I argue that an adequate meta-semantic framework capable of accommodating the range of projects currently identified as projects in conceptual engineering must be sensitive to the fact that concepts (and hence projects relating to them) fall into distinct kinds. Concepts can vary, I will argue, with respect to their direction of determination, their modal range, and their temporal range. Acknowledging such variations yields a preliminary taxonomy of concepts and generates a meta-s…Read more
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50Names as PredicatesIn Heimir Geirsson & Stephen Biggs (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Reference, Routledge. pp. 198-212. 2021.This contribution to the volume explains predicativism, including reasons that favour it and different versions of it. What all predicativist theories have in common is the claim that a proper name is a general, predicative term, with a hidden determiner in its single use.
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36Thinking about moralityForum for European Philosophy. 2017.Sarah Sawyer on concepts and the objectivity of moral reasons.
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29Social Anti-Individualism and the MentalEncyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences. 2013.This encyclopedia consists of short pieces on specific topics. My contribution concerns the nature of thought and its implications for the status of social sciences.
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55Empty NamesIn Delia Graff Fara & Gillian Russell (eds.), Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Language, . pp. 153-162. 2012.This is an entry on Empty Names for the Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Language, edited by Delia Graff Fara and Gillian Russell.
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419Internalism and Externalism in MindIn James Garvey (ed.), The Continuum Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, Continuum. pp. 133-150. 2011.This companion is aimed at specialists and non-specialists in the philosophy of mind and features 13 commissioned research articles on core topics by leading figures in the field. My contribution is on internalism and externalism in the philosophy of mind. I
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77Belief and Knowledge: Mapping the Cognitive Landscape (review)Mind 110 (438): 546-549. 2001.This is a book review.
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16Contrastivism and Anti-Individualism Part II: A Further Reply to Aikin and DabaySocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective. 2015.This reply sets out an argument that demonstrates that a contrastive theory of self-knowledge is inconsistent with internalism in the philosophy of mind. It follows from my paper 'Contrastive Self-Knowledge', Social Epistemology, 2014, 28: 139-152.
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462The Importance of Fictional PropertiesIn Stuart Brock & Anthony Everett (eds.), Fictional Objects, Oxford University Press. pp. 208-229. 2015.Semantic theories of fictional names generally presuppose, either explicitly or implicitly, that fictional predicates are guaranteed a referent. I argue that this presupposition is inconsistent with anti-realist theories of fictional characters and that it cannot be taken for granted by realist theories of fictional characters. The question of whether a fictional name refers to a fictional character cannot be addressed independently of the much-neglected question of whether a fictional predicate…Read more
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356Privileged access to the worldAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (4): 523-533. 1998.In this paper, I argue that content externalism and privileged access are compatible, but that one can, in a sense, have privileged access to the world. The supposedly absurd conclusion should be embraced.
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1251Truth and objectivity in conceptual engineeringInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 63 (9-10): 1001-1022. 2020.Conceptual engineering is to be explained by appeal to the externalist distinction between concepts and conceptions. If concepts are determined by non-conceptual relations to objective properties rather than by associated conceptions (whether individual or communal), then topic preservation through semantic change will be possible. The requisite level of objectivity is guaranteed by the possibility of collective error and does not depend on a stronger level of objectivity, such as mind-independe…Read more
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224Talk and ThoughtIn Alexis Burgess, Herman Cappelen & David Plunkett (eds.), Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 379-395. 2019.This paper provides an externalist account of talk and thought that clearly distinguishes the two. It is argued that linguistic meanings and concepts track different phenomena and have different explanatory roles. The distinction, understood along the lines proposed, brings theoretical gains in a cluster of related areas. It provides an account of meaning change which accommodates the phenomenon of contested meanings and the possibility of substantive disagreement across theoretical divides, and…Read more
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58Thinking about moralityThe Forum For Philosophy: Essays. 2017.Sarah Sawyer on concepts and the objectivity of moral reasons.
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127My language disquotesAnalysis 59 (3). 1999.This paper is a defence of Putnam's claim that the proposition expressed by the sentence 'I am a brain-in-a-vat' is necessarily false. In particular, the paper defends the anti-sceptical conclusion against an attack by Noonan.
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227Sufficient absencesAnalysis 63 (3): 202-208. 2003.In this paper, I argue that subvenient bases of natural kinds and also of thoughts, must be ocnstrued as involving absences.
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302The nature of content: a critique of Yli-Vakkuri and HawthorneInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.In their book, Narrow Content, Juhani Yli-Vakkuri and John Hawthorne attempt to argue against the claim that there is a kind of thought content which is both narrow and theoretically significant. However, their failure to distinguish indexical from non-indexical thought renders their arguments ineffective; a large class of the arguments they present are in fact irrelevant to the question of whether thought content is narrow. The unified treatment of thought content they advocate fails to capture…Read more
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505Concepts, conceptions and self-knowledgeErkenntnis (y). 2019.Content externalism implies first, that there is a distinction between concepts and conceptions, and second, that there is a distinction between thoughts and states of mind. In this paper, I argue for a novel theory of self-knowledge: the partial-representation theory of self-knowledge, according to which the self-ascription of a thought is authoritative when it is based on a con-scious, occurrent thought in virtue of which it partiall…Read more
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784The Role of Concepts in Fixing LanguageCanadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (5): 555-565. 2020.This is a contribution to the symposium on Herman Cappelen’s book Fixing Language. Cappelen proposes a metasemantic framework—the “Austerity Framework”—within which to understand the general phenomenon of conceptual engineering. The proposed framework is austere in the sense that it makes no reference to concepts. Conceptual engineering is then given a “worldly” construal according to which conceptual engineering is a process that operates on the world. I argue, contra Cappelen, that an adequate…Read more
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412Narrow Content, by Juhani Yli-Vakkuri and John Hawthorne (review)Mind 128 (511): 976-984. 2019.This is an extended review of Juhani Yli-Vakkuri & John Hawthorne's book: Narrow Content (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)..
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808The Importance of ConceptsProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 118 (2): 127-147. 2018.Words change meaning over time. Some meaning shift is accompanied by a corresponding change in subject matter; some meaning shift is not. In this paper I argue that an account of linguistic meaning can accommodate the first kind of case, but that a theory of concepts is required to accommodate the second. Where there is stability of subject matter through linguistic change, it is concepts that provide the stability. The stability provided by concepts allows for genuine disagreement and ameliorat…Read more
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228Subjective ExternalismTheoria 84 (1): 4-22. 2018.In this article I argue for a novel theory of representational content, which I call ‘subjective externalism’. The view combines an internal, subjective constraint on the attribution of thought content which traditionally underpins internalist theories of thought, and an external, objective constraint on the attribution of thought content which traditionally underpins externalist theories of thought. While internalism and externalism are mutually inconsistent, the constraints to which each theor…Read more
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451Minds and moralsPhilosophical Issues 24 (1): 393-408. 2014.In this paper, I argue that an externalist theory of thought content provides the means to resolve two debates in moral philosophy. The first—that between judgement internalism and judgement externalism—concerns the question of whether there is a conceptual connection between moral judgement and motivation. The second—that between reasons internalism and reasons externalism—concerns the relationship between moral reasons and an agent's subjective motivational set. The resolutions essentially ste…Read more
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48Review of Jessica brown, Anti-Individualism and Knowledge (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2005 (1). 2005.This is a review of Jessica Brown's book: Anti-Individualism and Knowledge
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91The role of object-dependent content in psychological explanationTeorema: International Journal of Philosophy 25 (1): 181-192. 2006.This is a defence of the role of object-dependent content in psychological action. I argue against the two-list argument against object-dependent content as articulated by Noonan.
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418Contrastive Self-knowledgeSocial Epistemology 28 (2): 139-152. 2014.In this paper, I draw on a recent account of perceptual knowledge according to which knowledge is contrastive. I extend the contrastive account of perceptual knowledge to yield a contrastive account of self-knowledge. Along the way, I develop a contrastive account of the propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, regrets and so on) and suggest that a contrastive account of the propositional attitudes implies an anti-individualist account of propositional attitude concepts (the concepts of belief…Read more
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834Cognitivism: A New Theory of Singular Thought?Mind and Language 27 (3): 264-283. 2012.In a series of recent articles, Robin Jeshion has developed a theory of singular thought which she calls ‘cognitivism’. According to Jeshion, cognitivism offers a middle path between acquaintance theories—which she takes to impose too strong a requirement on singular thought, and semantic instrumentalism—which she takes to impose too weak a requirement. In this article, I raise a series of concerns about Jeshion's theory, and suggest that the relevant data can be accommodated by a version of acq…Read more
Areas of Specialization
3 more
Conceptual Engineering |
Philosophy of Mind |
Content Internalism and Externalism |
Object-Dependent Contents |
Social Epistemology |
Names |
Reference |
Fregean Sense |
Areas of Interest
Content Internalism and Externalism |
Conceptual Engineering |