Recently, von Fintel (2001) and Gillies (2007) have argued that certain sequences of counterfactuals, namely reverse Sobel sequences, should motivate us to abandon standard truth conditional theories of counterfactuals for dynamic semantic theories. I argue that we can give a pragmatic account of our judgments about counterfactuals without giving up the standard semantics. In particular, I introduce a pragmatic principle governing assertability, and I use this principle to explain a variety of subtle data concerning reverse Sobel sequences.

In his famous 1979 article 'A Puzzle About Belief' Saul Kripke presents two puzzles regarding belief attribution, and he uses them to cast doubt on classical substitution arguments against the Millian view that a proper name has a 'denotation' (or reference) but no 'connotation' (or sense). In this article, I present Kripke's puzzles in what I take to be their most revealing form, discuss their relevance to the abovementioned arguments, briefly survey the ways in which philosophers have responded to these (...) puzzles, and call attention to some issues related to the puzzles that have yet to receive the consideration they deserve. (shrink)

This paper presents an approach to truth and the Liar paradox which combines elements of context dependence and hierarchy. This approach is developed formally, using the techniques of model theory in admissible sets. Special attention is paid to showing how starting with some ideas about context drawn from linguistics and philosophy of language, we can see the Liar sentence to be context dependent. Once this context dependence is properly understood, it is argued, a hierarchical structure emerges which is neither ad (...) hoc nor unnatural. (shrink)

Frege's account of opacity is based on two attractive ideas: every meaningful expression has a sense (Sinn) that determines the expression's semantic value (Bedeutung); and the semantic value of a‘that’‐clause is the thought expressed by its embedded sentence. Considerations of compositionality led Frege to a more problematic view: inside ‘that’‐clauses, an expression does not have its customary Bedeutung. But contrary to initial appearances, compositionality does not entail a familiar substitutivity principle. And Fregeans can exploit this point in a way that (...) lets them reject Bedeutung‐shifting. (shrink)