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UPDATE: AS OF JUNE 18, 2007, THIS PAGE WILL NO LONGER BE UPDATED. CLICK HERE TO GET TO MY CURRENT SITE.
Weblog: Lemmings
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Books (in progress)
Some recent or forthcoming articles (penultimate drafts)
- “That may be Jupiter: An Heuristic for Thinking Two-Dimensionally”, American Philosophical Quarterly, October 2007.
- “What Mary Did Yesterday: Reflections on Knowledge-wh”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Reductionists about knowledge-wh hold that 's
knows-wh' (e.g. 'John knows who stole his car') is reducible to
'there is a proposition p such that s knows that p,
and p answers the indirect question of the wh-clause'.
Anti-reductionists hold that 's knows-wh' is reducible to
's knows that p, as the true answer to the indirect
question of the wh-clause'. I argue that both of these positions are
defective. I then offer a new analysis of knowledge-wh as a special
kind of de re knowledge.
- “The Missing Dimension: Two-Dimensional Approaches to Matters Epistemic”, commissioned for Philosophy Compass: Epistemology,
Tamar Szabo Gendler, topic ed. Editor-in-chief: Brian Weatherson.
This paper is currently being revised. I have decided to
focus on a particular debate in the literature, viz. attitude
reports. Naturally, the focus of the paper will be on knowledge
reports, including a priori knowledge reports.
- “Sea Battle Semantics,” Philosophical Quarterly, forthcoming. The final version is available for subscribers on Blackwell Online Early. MacFarlane
has argued that our intuitions about future contingents motivate a
shift from standard semantics to relativistic semantics. In this
paper I defend standard semantics against MacFarlane's
criticism. A shorter version of
this paper was presented at the Pacific Meeting of the APA in San Francisco 2007. Peter Ludlow was commenting.
- “Two
Modal –Isms: Fictionalism and Ersatzism,” Philosophical Perspectives 20, Metaphysics, John
Hawthorne, ed. (2006), 77-94. The paper presents some problems
for holistic
Erzatzism and defends timid modal fictionalism against charges.
- “Sharvy's Theory of Definite Descriptions
Revisited”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (2007), 160-180. The paper
revisits Sharvy's theory of plural definite descriptions. An alternative
account of plural definite descriptions, building on the ideas of plural
quantification and non-distributive plural predication is developed. Finally, an
application of the general account of plural definite description in an account
of generic uses of definite descriptions is provided.
- “On Keeping Blue Swans and Unknowable Facts at Bay.
A Case Study on Fitch's Paradox”, in J. Salerno, ed. New Essays on the
Knowability Paradox, Oxford University Press, forthcoming. The paper
develops a Fitch-like paradox for strong modal fictionalism. It is argued that
the most promising strategy to avoid paradox is to reject the claim that modal
claims are to be analyzed in terms of the contents of the fiction of possible
worlds. It is hoped that by looking at the parallel case of modal fictionalism
light can be shed on the threat posed by Fitch's paradox to semantic
anti-realism.
- “The But not All: A New Account
of Plural Definite Descriptions,”
Mind and Language, 22, 4 (September 2007), 402-426. The paper argues against the
view that the semantic import of
plural descriptions is existential quantification. It
then argues
that plural descriptions
have the semantic import of partitive
constructions with
variable quantificational force. I
am giving a shortened and slightly different version of
this paper at the Eastern Meeting of the APA in D.C. December 2006,
which Zoltan Szabo
will comment on. Although the longer version has been
accepted
for publication, Mind and Language was kind enough to allow me to send
them a revised version of the longer version after the
meeting.
So what you see here isn't quite what will eventually appear
in
the journal.
- “Span Operators”,
Analysis 67 (2007): 72-79. The paper argues that Lewis
and Sider are too quick to deny the presentist the right to
employ span operators.
- “Number Words and Ontological
Commitment”,
The Philosophical Quarterly 57 (2007), 1-20. The paper examines
a
recent anti-Fregean line with respect to number discourse.
- “Descriptions: Predicates
or Quantifiers?”, Australasian
Journal of Philosophy 85 (2007), 117-136. Here I examine the thesis
that descriptions are predicates which Delia Graff Fara has
recently
defended.
- “A Puzzle
about Properties,” Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, LXXIV, 3 (2007). The paper develops a paradox for the
so-called abundant conception of properties.
- “Tensed Relations,”
Analysis, 66 (2006): 194-202. Here I try to make sense
of irreducibly tensed properties and relations. Official Published Version.
- “The Trivial Argument for Epistemic Value
Pluralism. Or How I learned to Stop Caring about Truths”, ed., D. Pritchard,
Alan Millar, and Adrian Haddock, Epistemic Value, Oxford University
Press, forthcoming. Relativism offers a nifty way of accommodating
most of our intuitions about epistemic modals, predicates of personal taste,
color expressions, future contingents, and conditionals. But in spite of its manifest merits
relativism is squarely at odds with epistemic value monism: the view that truth
is the highest epistemic goal. I will
call the argument from relativism to epistemic value pluralism the trivial
argument for epistemic value pluralism.
After formulating the argument, I will look at three possible ways to
refute it. I will then argue that two of
these are unsuccessful, and defend the third, which involves denying that there
are any genuinely relative truths.
- “Knowability and a Modal
Closure Principle”,
with J.
Salerno, American Philosophical Quarterly 43
(2006), 261-270.
This is a study of an alleged incompatibility (proposed by
Sven
Rosenkranz) between normal modal logic and factive conceptions of
knowability.
- “Knowability,
Possibility and Paradox,” with J.
Salerno, in V. Hendricks and D.
Pritchard (eds.) New Waves in Epistemology, Ashgate, 2006,
forthcoming. Quantified expressions play a special role in
modal contexts. On the account of this special role articulated by
Stanley and Szabo, we propose a solution to the knowability paradoxes.
- “Can Virtue Reliabilism Explain the
Value of Knowledge,” Canadian Journal of
Philosophy
36
(2006) 335-354. The
paper develops the RR line that final value can make for a
difference in value between knowledge and mere true belief. It
then argues that there is a secondary value problem, viz. that
of accounting for the difference in value between knowledge and
mere justified true belief. Finally, it offers a solution to the
secondary value problem
- “
The
‘Gray’s
Elegy’ Argument, and the Prospects for the Theory of Denoting
Concepts,” Synthese 152 (2006), 47-79. The
‘Gray’s Elegy’ argument rests on the
premise that if a denoting concept occurs
in a proposition, then the proposition is not about the concept. I argue that the premise
is false. Official Published Version.
- “Anti-Realism, Theism, and the
Conditional Fallacy,” with J.
Salerno, Nous 39 (2005): 123-139. Here we disagree with Plantinga and Rea that the best
way to be an anti-realist is to be a theist. We argue, however, that
without a massive revision of classical logic, the anti-realist will
have to embrace an unwelcome form of idealism.
- “On Luck, Responsibility and the Meaning of
Life
with B. Smith, Philosophical Papers 34 (2005), 443-58, special issue
edited by Thad Metz, featuring solicited papers on the meaning of life. We argue that final value can contribute to the meaning of your life.
- “Fitch's
Paradox of Knowability,”
with J.
Salerno, in E. Zalta
(ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2002 and Summer
2004 Editions. Survey of proposals to resolve the knowability paradox.
- “Contextualism,
Skepticism, and the Gettier
Problem,” Synthese 139 (2004), 367-86. Reflections on contextualism, sensitivity, safety, and all that.
- “Epistemological Contextualism
and the Problem of Moral Luck,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 84 (2003), 371-83. The paper argues that a form of moral contextualism solves the problem of moral
luck.
- “Clues to the Paradoxes of Knowability: Reply to Dummett and Tennant,”
with J.
Salerno, Analysis 62 (2002), 143-150. The paper develops some
new paradoxes of knowability that, unlike Fitch's original paradox, are
not blocked by the restricted brands of semantic anti-realism advocated
by Dummett and Tennant.
- “Presentist
Four-Dimensionalism,” The Monist 83, Achille Varzi, ed. (2000), 341-356. An attempt to combine two theses I rather liked back in 1999, viz. presentism
and perdurantism. I still find presentism exceedingly intuitive and have spent
some of my time defending it in print and elsewhere.
- “A Unified Theory of Truth and
Reference,”
with B. Smith, Logique et Analyse 169-170 (2003), 49-93, special issue edited by Peter Forrest, featuring solicited papers
on truth. The paper deals with the problem of the many and other issues which threaten to
undermine substantial theories of truth and reference. When I co-authored the
paper with Barrry in 2000, I was rather sympathetic to substantial theories of
truth. Since then I have been more sympathetic to less substantial theories.
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Short Notes
- “Williamson on Counterpossibles”, with Joe Salerno, The Reasoner vol. 1, no. 3 (2007).
- “Why Counterpossibles are Non-Trivial”, with Joe Salerno, The Reasoner vol. 1, no. 1 (2007). Jon Williamson, ed. Subjunctive conditionals with
impossible antecedents (or counterpossibles) are standardly treated as vacuously
true, the lore being that if an impossibility were to obtain, anything would
follow. Daniel Nolan (1997) and others have argued that there are several good
reasons to steer clear of the standard reading. In this note we provide further
reasons. Official Published Version.
Some recent or upcoming
talks (and other related activities)
- TBA, with Joe Salerno, Arizona Ontology Conference, January 2008. Organizer: L.
A. Paul.
- TBA, The Eastern Meeting of the APA, Dec 27-30, 2007. Commentator: Stanley.
- Commentator on Thony Gillies' paper, Rutgers Semantics Workshop, Oct. 5-6,
2007. Organizers: Lepore and Stanley.
- “What Mary Did Yesterday: Reflections on Knowledge-wh”, Copenhagen Epistemology Workshop, May 25-26, 2007, organizer: Klemens Kappel and Danish Epistemology Network. Speakers: Duncan
Pritchard, Erik Olsson, Nikolaj Nottelman, Erik Carsson, Kristoffer Ahlstrom,
Berit Brogaard, and Esben Nedenskov. Discussants (among others): Lars Bo
Gundersen, Eline Busck Gundersen, Jesper Kallestrup, Klemens Kappel, and Anders
Schoubye.
- Public Lecture, A Critical Analysis of the Notion of Freedom, literary lecture
series organized by Henrik Gade Jensen. Place and time: 17:00-18:30, May 23,
2007, Palace Hotel, Raadhuspladsen, City, Copenhagen.
- Adjectives Conference, May 19-20, St. Andrews, invited participant. Organizers: Herman Cappelen and Jason Stanley. Keynote addresses: Delia Graff
Fara, John Hawthorne, Chris Kennedy, Peter Ludlow, Paul Pietoski, Daniel
Rothschild, Jonathan Schaffer, Gabriel Segal, and Jason Stanley.
- “Remarks on counterpossibles”, with Joe Salerno, University of Edinburgh, May 22,
2007. Organizers: Jesper Kallestrup and Matthew Chrisman. Speakers: Berit Brogaard,
Ram Neta, Duncan Pritchard, Joe Salerno and Jonathan Schaffer. Abstract: On David Lewis' theory of subjunctive conditionals, subjunctives with
impossible antecedents are familiarly treated as vacuously true. But as Daniel
Nolan and others have argued, there are several good reasons to steer clear of a
vacuity treatment of counterpossibles. In this essay we provide further reasons
in support of the thesis. We then raise a problem for Nolan's treatment and
argue that the problem requires for its solution a theory of subjunctives that
treats subjunctive contexts as opaque. We conclude by offering such a theory.
- “What Mary Did Yesterday: Reflections on Knowledge-wh”, The
Linguistics and Epistemology Conference, organized by Martijn Blaauw, Aberdeen,
Scotland, May 12-13, 2007. Keynote speakers:
Kent Bach, Peter Ludlow, Jonathan Schaffer, Jason Stanley. Reductionists about knowledge-wh hold that 's
knows-wh' (e.g. 'John knows who stole his car') is reducible to
'there is a proposition p such that s knows that p,
and p answers the indirect question of the wh-clause'.
Anti-reductionists hold that 's knows-wh' is reducible to
's knows that p, as the true answer to the indirect
question of the wh-clause'. I argue that both of these positions are
defective. I then offer a new analysis of knowledge-wh as a special
kind of de re knowledge.
- “Donkey Sentences and Quantifier Variability,”
the Central Division of the APA in Chicago, April 19-21 2007.
Commentator: Jessica Rett, Department of Linguistics, Rutgers
University. The
paper proposes an account of conditional donkey sentences, such as 'if
a farmer buys a donkey, he usually vaccinates it', which accommodates
the fact that the adverb of quantification seems to affect the
interpretation of pronouns that are not within its syntactic scope.
The analysis defended takes donkey pronouns to go proxy for
partitive noun phrases with varying quantificational force. The
variation in the interpretation of donkey pronouns, it is argued, is
determined by the linguistic environment in which the pronouns occur.
A longer version of this paper can be found in the works in
progress section below.
- “Sea Battle Semantics,”
the Pacific Meeting of the APA in San Francisco, April 3-8, 2007.
Commentator: Peter Ludlow, University of Michigan. MacFarlane
has argued that our intuitions about future contingents motivate a
shift from standard semantics to relativistic semantics. In this
paper I defend standard semantics against MacFarlane's
criticism. A longer version of the paper can be found in the
works in progress section below.
- “What Mary Did Yesterday. Reflections on Knowledge-wh”, Philosophy Department Colloquium. St. Louis University. March 30, 2007.
- “What Mary Did Yesterday. Remarks on Knowledge-wh”, Knowledge and Questions Workshop, 15-16 March 2007 at the Archives
H.-Poincare, Nancy France. Keynote
speakers: Brit Brogaard, Maria Aloni, Paul Egre, Pascal Engel, Christopher
Hookway, Ian Rumfitt, Jonathan Schaffer, Claudine Tiercelin. Reductionists about knowledge-wh hold that 's
knows-wh' (e.g. 'John knows who stole his car') is reducible to
'there is a proposition p such that s knows that p,
and p answers the indirect question of the wh-clause'.
Anti-reductionists hold that 's knows-wh' is reducible to
's knows that p, as the true answer to the indirect
question of the wh-clause'. I argue that both of these positions are
defective. I then offer a new analysis of knowledge-wh as a special
kind of de re knowledge.
- Commentator on Graff's paper at the 2007 Arizona Ontology Conference. Comments on Fara's paper. Jan 18-21, 2007.
Speakers: Ted Sider, Carolina Sartorio, David Chalmers, Delia
Graff Fara, Mike Rea, Cian Dorr, John Hawthorne, Sarah McGrath, and Ned Hall.
- “The But not All: A New Account
of Plural Definite Descriptions,” the
Eastern Division of the APA in Washington D.C., December, 2006.
Commentator: Zoltan Szabo.
The paper argues against the view that the semantic import of
plural descriptions is existential quantification. Then it
argues
that plural descriptions
have the semantic import of partitive
constructions with
variable quantificational force. You can find
a longer
version of the paper in the works in progress section below.
- Rutgers
Semantics Workshop, Sep 29-30, 2006, invited participant.
- “In Defense of a
Perspectival Semantics for 'Know' ”, Philosophy Department Colloquium. Syracuse. September 22, 2006
- “In Defense of a
Perspectival Semantics for 'Know' ”, NAMICONA
Epistemology Workshop, University of Copenhagen, August 22, 2006.
- “The
Trivial Argument for Epistemic Value Pluralism.
Or How I Learned to Stop Caring about Truth”,
Stirling
Conference on Epistemic Value, August 2006.
Commentator: Mikkel Gerken. Invited speakers: Jason
Baehr, Berit Brogaard, Pascal Engel, Stephen Grimm, Ward Jones, Mark Kaplan,
Martin Kusch, Alan Millar, Christian Piller, Wayne Riggs, Matt Weiner, W. Jay
Wood.
- “Moral Contextualism and
Moral Relativism”, Aberdeen
Conference on Moral Contextualism, July 2006.
Commentator: Lars
Binderup.
The paper argues that a version of non-indexical
contextualism
is preferable to genuine moral relativism. Keynote speakers: Berit
Brogaard, John Greco, John Hawthorne, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Alan Thomas,
Ralph Wedgwood. Carrie
Jenkins
took a number of pictures at the conference. They are
available here.
Check out the spoons!
- “Adverbs
and Quantifier Domain Restriction,” the
Central Division of the APA in Chicago, April, 2006.
Commentator: Andy Egan, University of Michigan.
- “Knowability, Possibility and Paradox”,
with J.
Salerno. Book launch event for V. Hendricks and D.
Pritchard's New
Waves in Epistemology. Pacific Division of the APA.
March 24, 2006.
- “Russell’s
Theory of Descriptions vs. the Predicative Analysis: a Reply to Graff,” the
Eastern Division of the APA in NY,
December, 2005. Commentator: Delia Graff Fara, Princeton University.
A longer version of this paper has been accepted for
publication in Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
- “Anti-Realism,
Theism and the Conditional Fallacy,”
with J.
Salerno, the
Central Division of the APA in Chicago, April, 2003.
Commentator: Michael
Rea, Notre Dame. A longer version of this paper appeared in
Nous 2005.
Works
in progress (any comments are most appreciated!)
- Transient Truths: an Essay in
the Metaphysics of Propositions (monograph).
As you might have guessed, I am here defending temporalism, the
view that propositions can have different truth-values at different
times.
- Monograph in progress, defending epistemic two-dimensionalism. Table of contents available upon request.
- Impossible Thoughts (monograph), with Joe Salerno. Sample chapters available upon request.
- “The Missing Dimension”
- “I
know. Therefore, I
understand”
- “On
Keeping Blue Swans and Unknowable Facts at
Bay. A Case Study
on Fitch’s Paradox”
- “Moral Contextualism and
Moral Relativism”
- “The
Trivial Argument for Epistemic Value Pluralism.
Or How I Learned to Stop Caring about Truth”
- “In
Defense of a Non-Indexical Contextual Semantics for 'Know' ”
- “Knowledge-wh”. Reductionists
about knowledge-wh hold that ‘S knows-wh’ (e.g. ‘John knows who
stole his car’) is reducible to ‘there is a proposition p such that s
knows that p, and p answers the indirect question of the wh-clause’. Anti-reductionists hold that ‘s knows-wh’
is reducible to ‘s knows that p, as the true answer to the
indirect question of the wh-clause’.
I argue that both of these positions are defective. I then offer a new analysis of knowledge-wh
as a special kind of de re knowledge. A version of this paper will appear in a special issue of Grazer Philosophische Studien.
- “The Missing Dimension”
- “Subjunctive Conditionals”
- “Indicative Conditionals”
- “The Slingshot Argument”
- “Donkey Sentences and Quantifier Variability”
- “Situation Semantics Revived”
- “The But not All: A New Account
of Plural Definite Descriptions,”
- Book
Review for Notre Dame
Philosophical Reviews. Thomas Sattig, The
Language and Reality of Time, Oxford UP, 2006.
- Special
Issue of Synthese on
Relative Truth. Scheduled to appear in the spring of 2008
(Contributors include: Paul Boghossian, David Capps, Andy Egan, Michael Glanzberg, Steven Hales, Max
Kolbel, Peter Lasersohn, Michael Lynch, John MacFarlane, Daniel Massey,
Sebastiano Morruzzi, Stephen Neale, Duncan Pritchard, Brian Weatherson and
Crispin Wright).
- Book Review for Notre Dame Philosophical Review: Andrea Bottani and
Richard Davies (eds.), Modes of Existence: Papers in Ontology and
Philosophical Logic, Ontos, 2006, 237 pp. Contributors: Mulligan, Raspa,
Kroon, van Inwagen, Varzi, Reicher, Barbero, Orillo, Spolaore.
Some blogs I read
Fun summer
readings!
- Kent
Bach, Regressions
in Pragmatics (and Semantics)
- Herman
Cappelen and Ernie Lepore, A Tall
Tale
- Dave
Chalmers, Two-Dimensional
Semantics
- Keith
DeRose, Gradable
Adjectives: A Defense of Pluralism
- Andy
Egan, John Hawthorne, and Brian Weatherson, Epistemic
Modals in Context
- Matti
Eklund, Fiction,
Indifference and Ontology
- Delia
Graff Fara, Descriptions
with Adverbs of Quantification
- Thomas
Hofweber, A
Puzzle about Ontology
- Jeffrey
C. King, Singular
Terms, Reference, and Methodology in Semantics
- Peter
Ludlow, Contextualism
and the New Linguistic Turn in Epistemology
- Ted
Sider, Reducing
Modality
- Jason
Stanley, Philosophy
of language in the Twentieth Century
- Zoltan
Szabo, Counting
Across Times
- Achille
Varzi, Beth
Too, But Only If
Miscellaneous Links
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