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    The methodology of nonexistence
    Journal of Philosophy 76 (11): 649-662. 1979.
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    Extensional theories of ontological commitment
    Journal of Philosophy 64 (14): 446-450. 1967.
  •  26
    Critical notice
    Synthese 39 (1): 155-164. 1978.
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    A Meinongian Analysis of Fictional Objects
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 1 (1): 73-86. 1975.
    This paper explores the view that there are such things as (nonexistent) fictional objects, and that we refer to such objects when we say things like "Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective", or "Conan Doyle wrote about Sherlock Holmes". A theory of such objects is developed as a special application of a Meinongian Ontology.
  • Billingham and Buridan on the foundations of syllogistic reasoning
    In Christoph Kann, Benedikt Löewe, Christian Rode & Sara Liana Uckelman (eds.), Modern views of medieval logic, Peeters. 2018.
  •  3
    8 The Power of Medieval Logic
    In Charles Bolyard & Rondo Keele (eds.), Later Medieval Metaphysics: Ontology, Language, and Logic, Fordham University Press. pp. 188-205. 2013.
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    Word Meaning and Montague Grammar (review)
    Philosophical Review 91 (2): 290-295. 1982.
  •  93
    A course in semantics
    with Daniel Altshuler and Roger Schwarzschild
    MIT Press. 2019.
    An introductory text in linguistic semantics, uniquely balancing empirical coverage and formalism with development of intuition and methodology. This introductory textbook in linguistic semantics for undergraduates features a unique balance between empirical coverage and formalism on the one hand and development of intuition and methodology on the other. It will equip students to form intuitions about a set of data, explain how well an analysis of the data accords with their intuitions, and exte…Read more
  •  47
    Formal Philosophy: Selected Papers of Richard Montague (review)
    Journal of Philosophy 72 (7): 196-203. 1975.
  •  3
    Indeterminate Identity: Metaphysics and Semantics (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 52 (207): 262-265. 2002.
  •  50
    A Meinongian Analysis of Fictional Objects
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 1 (1): 73-86. 1975.
    This paper explores the view that there are such things as (nonexistent) fictional objects, and that we refer to such objects when we say things like "Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective", or "Conan Doyle wrote about Sherlock Holmes". A theory of such objects is developed as a special application of a Meinongian Ontology.
  •  21
    X*—Worldly Indeterminacy of Identity
    with Peter Woodruff
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 95 (1): 171-192. 1995.
    Terence Parsons, Peter Woodruff; X*—Worldly Indeterminacy of Identity, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 171–192
  •  34
    Frege and the Hierarchy
    with Tyler Burge, Peter A. French, Theodore E. Uehling, and Howard K. Wettstein
    Journal of Symbolic Logic 48 (2): 495-496. 1983.
  •  41
    Indeterminacy of Identity of Objects and Sets
    with Peter W. Woodruff
    Noûs 31 (S11): 321-348. 1997.
  • The Elimination of Individual Concepts
    Dissertation, Stanford University. 1966.
  •  35
    Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond by Richard Routley (review)
    Journal of Philosophy 80 (3): 173-179. 1983.
  •  15
    Russell's Early Views on Denoting
    In D. F. Austin (ed.), Philosophical Analysis, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 17--44. 1988.
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    Indeterminancy of identity of objects and sets
    with Peter W. Woodruff
    Philosophical Perspectives 11 321-348. 1997.
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    Referring to nonexistent objects
    Theory and Decision 11 (1): 95--110. 1979.
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    Missing Modes of Supposition
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 27 (sup1): 1-24. 1997.
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    Bhartrhari on what cannot be said
    Philosophy East and West 51 (4): 525-534. 2001.
    Bhartṛhari claims that certain things cannot be signified--for example, the signification relation itself. Hans and Radhika Herzberger assert that Bhartṛhari's claim about signification can be validated by an appeal to twentieth-century results in set theory. This appeal is unpersuasive in establishing this view, but arguments akin to the semantic paradoxes (such as the "liar" paradox) come much closer. Unfortunately, these arguments are equally telling against another of his views: that the tha…Read more
  •  55
    Underlying states and time travel
    In Achille Varzi, James Higginbotham & Fabio Pianesi (eds.), Speaking of Events, Oxford University Press. 2000.
    I begin by sketching a theory about the semantics of verbs in event sentences, and the evidence on which that theory is based. In the second section, I discuss the evidence for extending that theory to state sentences, including copulative sentences with adjectives and nouns; the evidence for this extension of the theory is not very good. In the third section, I discuss new evidence based on considerations of talk about time travel; that evidence is apparently quite good. I conclude with a probl…Read more
  •  10
    The Treatise on Univocation is an early work on the fallacy called univocation. This fallacy is a kind of ambiguity due to the shifted reference of words in a sentence when the ambiguity does not fall under the well-known Aristotelian kinds (equivocation, composition and division, . . .). Examples include the shift of reference of common terms due to tense and modality; e.g. the shift whereby the reference of 'giraffe' is extended to past or future giraffes when the tense of the sentence 'A gira…Read more
  •  14
    Meinong und die Gegenstandstheorie
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 50 145-161. 1995.
    It is tempting to think that Meinong overlooked the "specific/nonspecific" distinction. For example, 'I am looking for a grey horse' may either mean that there is a specific horse I am looking for, or just that I am grey-horse-seeking. The former reading, and not the latter, requires for its truth that there be a grey horse. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether it is defensible to maintain Meinong's theory here: to take nonspecific reading of any verb concerning a possibly non-exi…Read more