•  171
    First-Order Logic with Adverbs
    Logic and Logical Philosophy 1-36. forthcoming.
    This paper introduces two languages and associated logics designed to afford perspicuous representations of a range of natural language arguments involving adverbs and the like: first-order logic with basic adverbs (FOL-BA) and first-order logic with scoped adverbs (FOL-SA). The guiding logical idea is that an adverb can come between a term and the rest of the statement it is a part of, resulting in a logically stronger statement. I explain various interesting challenges that arise in the attemp…Read more
  •  419
    The Truth Table Formulation of Propositional Logic
    Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Developing a suggestion of Wittgenstein, I provide an account of truth tables as formulas of a formal language. I define the syntax and semantics of TPL (the language of Tabular Propositional Logic), and develop its proof theory. Single formulas of TPL, and finite groups of formulas with the same top row and TF matrix (depiction of possible valuations), are able to serve as their own proofs with respect to metalogical properties of interest. The situation is different, however, for groups of for…Read more
  •  244
    Modal Inertness and the Zombie Argument
    Res Philosophica 100 (3): 413-421. 2023.
    This article proposes a way of blocking the zombie argument against materialism. The central idea—which can be motivated in various ways, but which I will motivate by drawing on recent work by Wolfgang Schwarz—is that sentences reporting conscious experience are modally inert, roughly in the sense that adding them to a description of a metaphysically possible scenario always results in a description of a metaphysically possible scenario. This is notable in that it leads to a way of blocking the …Read more
  •  384
    Sufficient Conditions for Counterfactual Transitivity and Antecedent Strengthening
    American Philosophical Quarterly 60 (3): 237-247. 2023.
    This paper is about two controversial inference-patterns involving counterfactual or subjunctive conditionals. Given a plausible assumption about the truth-conditions of counterfactuals, it is shown that one can't go wrong in applying hypothetical syllogism (i.e., transitivity) so long as the set of worlds relevant for the conclusion is a subset of the sets of worlds relevant for the premises. It is also shown that one can't go wrong in applying antecedent strengthening so long as the set of wor…Read more
  •  125
    This book is about the idea that some true statements would have been true no matter how the world had turned out, while others could have been false. It develops and defends a version of the idea that we tell the difference between these two types of truths in part by reflecting on the meanings of words. It has often been thought that modal issues—issues about possibility and necessity—are related to issues about meaning. In this book, the author defends the view that the analysis of meaning is…Read more
  •  596
    Reversing logical nihilism
    Synthese 200 (3): 1-18. 2022.
    Gillian Russell has recently proposed counterexamples to such elementary argument forms as Conjunction Introduction and Identity. These purported counterexamples involve expressions that are sensitive to linguistic context—for example, a sentence which is true when it appears alone but false when embedded in a larger sentence. If they are genuine counterexamples, it looks as though logical nihilism—the view that there are no valid argument forms—might be true. In this paper, I argue that the pur…Read more
  •  746
    Validity as (material!) truth‐preservation in virtue of form
    Analytic Philosophy 64 (2): 177-181. 2022.
    According to a standard story, part of what we have in mind when we say that an argument is valid is that it is necessarily truth preserving: if the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true. But—the story continues—that’s not enough, since ‘Roses are red, therefore roses are coloured’ for example, while it may be necessarily truth-preserving, is not so in virtue of form. Thus we arrive at a standard contemporary characterisation of validity: an argument is valid when it is NTP in virt…Read more
  •  413
    A simple theory of rigidity
    Philosophical Studies 178 (12): 4187-4199. 2021.
    The notion of rigidity looms large in philosophy of language, but is beset by difficulties. This paper proposes a simple theory of rigidity, according to which an expression has a world-relative semantic property rigidly when it has that property at, or with respect to, all worlds. Just as names, and certain descriptions like The square root of 4, rigidly designate their referents, so too are necessary truths rigidly true, and so too does cat rigidly have only animals in its extension. After spe…Read more
  •  385
    That’s the Guy Who Might Have Lost
    Analytic Philosophy 62 (4): 418-426. 2021.
    In an influential passage of Naming and Necessity Kripke argues, with the help of a fictional dialogue, that de re metaphysical modal distinctions have intuitive content. In this note I clarify the workings of the argument, and what it does and does not support. I conclude that Kripke’s argument does not, despite possible appearances, support the view that metaphysical modal distinctions are made in common sense discourse. The argument does however support the view that if metaphysical modal dis…Read more
  •  629
    The accident of logical constants
    Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 9 (1): 34-42. 2020.
    Work on the nature and scope of formal logic has focused unduly on the distinction between logical and extra-logical vocabulary; which argument forms a logical theory countenances depends not only on its stock of logical terms, but also on its range of grammatical categories and modes of composition. Furthermore, there is a sense in which logical terms are unnecessary. Alexandra Zinke has recently pointed out that propositional logic can be done without logical terms. By defining a logical-term-…Read more
  •  614
    Apriority and Essential Truth
    Metaphysica 21 (1): 1-8. 2020.
    There is a line of thought, neglected in recent philosophy, according to which a priori knowable truths such as those of logic and mathematics have their special epistemic status in virtue of a certain tight connection between their meaning and their truth. Historical associations notwithstanding, this view does not mandate any kind of problematic deflationism about meaning, modality or essence. On the contrary, we should be upfront about it being a highly debatable metaphysical idea, while none…Read more
  •  82
    Quine’s Poor Tom
    European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 15 (1): 5-16. 2019.
    Section 31 of Quine's Word and Object contains an eyebrow-raising argument, purporting to show that if an agent, Tom, believes one truth and one falsity and has some basic logical acumen, and if belief contexts are always transparent, then Tom believes everything. Over the decades this argument has been debated inconclusively. In this paper I clarify the situation and show that the trouble stems from bad presentation on Quine’s part.
  •  636
    A Note on Carnap’s Result and the Connectives
    Axiomathes 29 (3): 285-288. 2019.
    Carnap’s result about classical proof-theories not ruling out non-normal valuations of propositional logic formulae has seen renewed philosophical interest in recent years. In this note I contribute some considerations which may be helpful in its philosophical assessment. I suggest a vantage point from which to see the way in which classical proof-theories do, at least to a considerable extent, encode the meanings of the connectives (not by determining a range of admissible valuations, but in th…Read more
  •  109
    How May the Propositional Calculus Represent?
    South American Journal of Logic 3 (1): 173-184. 2017.
    This paper is a conceptual study in the philosophy of logic. The question considered is 'How may formulae of the propositional calculus be brought into a representational relation to the world?'. Four approaches are distinguished: (1) the denotational approach, (2) the abbreviational approach, (3) the truth-conditional approach, and (4) the modelling approach. (2) and (3) are very familiar, so I do not discuss them. (1), which is now largely obsolete, led to some interesting twists and turns …Read more
  •  379
    Propositions, Meaning, and Names
    Philosophical Forum 49 (3): 335-362. 2018.
    The object of this paper is to sketch an approach to propositions, meaning and names. The key ingredients are a Twin-Earth-inspired distinction between internal and external meaning, and a middle-Wittgenstein-inspired conception of internal meaning as role in language system. I show how the approach offers a promising solution to the problem of the meaning of proper names. This is a plea for a neglected way of thinking about these topics.
  •  780
    Linking Necessity to Apriority
    Acta Analytica 34 (1): 1-7. 2019.
    There is an important and fairly straightforward link between necessity and apriority which can shed light on our knowledge of the former, but initially plausible attempts to spell out what it is fall victim to counterexamples. Casullo discusses one such proposal, argues—following Anderson :1–20, )—that it fails, and suggests an alternative. In this paper, I argue that Casullo’s alternative also fails, before making a suggestion for which I can find no counterexamples and which, notably, handles…Read more
  •  853
    On Identity Statements: In Defense of a Sui Generis View
    Disputatio 8 (43): 269-293. 2016.
    This paper is about the meaning and function of identity statements involving proper names. There are two prominent views on this topic, according to which identity statements ascribe a relation: the object-view, on which identity statements ascribe a relation borne by all objects to themselves, and the name-view, on which an identity statement 'a is b' says that the names 'a' and 'b' codesignate. The object- and name-views may seem to exhaust the field. I make a case for treating identity state…Read more
  •  729
    A Counterexample to the Breckenridge-Magidor Account of Instantial Reasoning
    Journal of Philosophical Research 41 539-541. 2016.
    In a recent paper, Breckenridge and Magidor argue for an interesting and counterintuitive account of instantial reasoning. According to this account, in arguments such as one beginning with 'There is some x such that x is mortal. Let O be such an x. ...', the 'O' refers to a particular object, although we cannot know which. I give and defend a simple counterexample involving the notion of an unreferred-to object.
  •  275
    Reply to Adams and Clarke
    Logos and Episteme 7 (2): 221-225. 2016.
    Here I defend two counterexamples to Nozick’s truth-tracking theory of knowledge from an attack on them by Adams and Clarke. With respect to the first counterexample, Adams and Clarke make the error of judging that my belief counts as knowledge. More demonstrably, with respect to the second counterexample they make the error of thinking that, on Nozick’s method-relativized theory, the method M in question in any given case must be generally reliable.
  •  655
    A Problem for Hofweber’s Ontological Project
    Philosophia 43 (3): 843-846. 2015.
    Thomas Hofweber's well-known ontological project crucially involves inferring negative existential statements from statements of non-reference, i.e. statements that say that some term or terms do not refer. Here, after explaining the context of this move, I aim to show that it is fallacious, and that this vitiates Hofweber's ontological project.
  •  1765
    Two New Counterexamples to the Truth-Tracking Theory of Knowledge
    Logos and Episteme 6 (3): 309-311. 2015.
    I present two counterexamples to the recently back-in-favour truth-tracking account of knowledge: one involving a true belief resting on a counterfactually robust delusion, one involving a true belief acquired alongside a bunch of false beliefs. These counterexamples carry over to a recent modification of the theory due to Briggs and Nolan (2012), and seem invulnerable to a recent defence of the theory against known counterexamples, by Adams and Clarke (2005).
  •  337
    Against the Brogaard-Salerno Stricture
    The Reasoner 10 (4): 29-30. 2016.
    'It is widely agreed that contraposition, strengthening the antecedent and hypothetical syllogism fail for subjunctive conditionals', write Brogaard and Salerno in (2008: Counterfactuals and context, Analysis 68.1, 39–46). In that article they argue that the putative counterexamples to these principles are actually no threat, on the grounds that they involve a certain kind of illicit contextual shift. -/- Here I argue that this particular kind of contextual shift, if it is properly so called, is…Read more