The Nature and Structure of Content is a lucid, stimulating and occasionally frustrating book about the metaphysics of propositions. King is a realist about propositions, and he assumes throughout that a viable theory must individuate them more finely than sets of possible worlds. His aim in the first three chapters is to motivate an account in which propositions have constituent structure, akin to and dependent on the structure of the sentences that express them. The following chapters defend the use of (...) propositions in semantics against a variety of objections, and in the seventh and final chapter King presents a new solution to the old paradox of analysis. With little exception, the arguments in these later chapters are rigorous and compelling, but being largely independent of the account developed in the preceding chapters, the book feels somewhat disjointed. Here I pass over these provocative vignettes to deal with the main action, the account of propositions.According to tradition, propositions are things expressed by declarative sentences, bearers of alethic and modal properties, and objects of belief and other psychological attitudes. The idea that propositions have constituent structure, mirroring somehow the sentences that express them, comes down to us from Frege . More recently, the idea has been adopted by Kaplan and figures prominently in ‘Russellian’ semantic theories of Salmon , Soames and others. The big debate in recent philosophy of language focuses on the identity of propositional constituents: are they senses, as in Frege? Or the things linguistic expressions designate, as in Russellian theories? Though his sympathies plainly lie with the Russellians, King remains officially neutral on this dispute, focusing instead on the question of structure itself.Structured propositions are often represented as …. (shrink)

Millianism is the doctrine according to which the semantic content of a proper name is exhausted by its referent. This article raises and attempts to solve a dilemma for Millians: either a proper name of a truth bearer is in turn a truth bearer ; or having a truth bearer as semantic content is not sufficient for a linguistic expression to be a truth bearer. As it will be shown in the manuscript, the dilemma does not arise with “that”-clauses in (...) the place of proper names, if “that”-clauses are taken to be non-Millian designators whose semantic content is not a truth bearer. An account of “that”-clauses having such features and originating with Salmon, Frege's Puzzle, will be defended. (shrink)

This manuscript focuses on a problem for Millian Russellianism raised by Fine : “[Assuming] that we are in possession of the information that a Fs and the information that a Gs, it appears that we are sometimes justified in putting this information ‘together’ and inferring that a both Fs and Gs. But how?” It will be my goal to determine a Millian-Russellian solution to this problem. I will first examine Nathan Salmon’s Millian-Russellian solution, which appeals to a non-semantic and subjective (...) notion of coordination defined in terms of guises. I will object that in order to convincingly solve a specific version of Fine’s problem, identity conditions for guises must be provided. On the other hand, the most plausible way to individuate guises is by means of the equivalence classes of coordination itself. But, if so, the guise-based strategy to solve Fine’s problem risks being circular; in addition, there are serious doubts that coordination is transitive. An alternative Millian-Russellian solution to Fine’s problem will then be explored, which gives up guises and employs, instead, a non-semantic and subjective relation of coordination not defined in terms of guises, along with occurrences of Russellian propositions of a special sort, for which identity conditions will be provided and via which token attitude states intuitively more fine-grained than guises will be individuated. (shrink)

This paper will critically examine two solutions to Frege’s puzzle: the Millian-Russellian solution proposed by Salmon and Braun, which invokes non-semantic modes of presentation (guises, ways of believing or the like); and Fine’s relationalist solution, which appeals to semantic coordination. Special attention will be devoted to discussing the conception of modes of presentation as mental files and to elucidating the nature of coordination. A third solution to Frege’s puzzle will be explored which, like Salmon’s and Braun’s, adopts the Millian-Russellian semantics (...) but, like Fine’s, involves coordination instead of modes of presentation; however, coordination will not be conceived as a semantic relation but as a cognitive and subjective relation, which provides no contribution to semantic content. This novel Millian-Russellian account involving cognitive coordination will be labelled cognitive relationism. (shrink)

Several theorists have observed that attitude reports have what we call “revisionist” uses. For example, even if Pete has never met Ann and has no idea that she exists, Jane can still say to Jim ‘Pete believes Ann can learn to play tennis in ten lessons’ if Pete believes all 6-year-olds can learn to play tennis in ten lessons and it is part of Jane and Jim’s background knowledge that Ann is a 6-year-old. Jane’s assertion seems acceptable because the claim (...) she reports Pete as believing is entailed by Pete’s beliefs if they are revised in light of Jane and Jim’s background knowledge. We provide a semantic theory of revisionist reports based on this idea. We observe that the admissible “revisions” are limited in a striking way. Jane cannot say ‘Pete thinks Ann is a 6-year-old and can play tennis in ten lessons’ in the same context that she can say ‘Pete believes Ann can learn to play tennis ten lessons’, even though this too follows from Jane and Jim’s background knowledge together with what Pete believes. Our theory predicts the infelicity of these latter reports. It also has the resources to predict the truth of “exported” attitude reports and casts the relationship between these reports and “singular thought” in a new light. We conclude by discussing how revisionist reports make trouble for a simplistic view of the connection between the relations expressed by attitude verbs in natural language and the relations of most interest to philosophers of mind and cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper argues for a possible worlds theory of the content of pictures, with three complications: depictive content is centred, two-dimensional and structured. The paper argues that this theory supports a strong analogy between depictive and other kinds of representation and the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance.

A hyperintensional epistemic logic would take the contents which can be known or believed as more fine-grained than sets of possible worlds. I consider one objection to the idea: Williamson’s Objection from Overfitting. I propose a hyperintensional account of propositions as sets of worlds enriched with topics: what those propositions, and so the attitudes having them as contents, are about. I show that the account captures the conditions under which sentences express the same content; that it can be pervasively applied (...) in formal and mainstream epistemology; and that it is left unscathed by the objection. (shrink)

Philosophers tend to presuppose a close relationship between language and thought. They express and defend this conviction in different ways. I shall focus on the relation between the thinkable and the expressible, as stated in the Inexpressibility Thesis.

RésuméConsidérons la «thèse d'inexprimabilité» : un locuteur incapable de formuler dans ses propres mots la pensée que p est incapable d'avoir cette pensée. On peut remettre en question la TI, puisqu'un locuteur peut se servir des mots d'autrui pour exprimer des pensées qu'il serait sinon incapable d'exprimer. La première partie de cet article montre qu'en faisant ressortir la pratique jusque-lè négligée consistant à utiliser les mots d'autrui, on met au jour une ambiguïte fondamentale de la théorie causale de la référence. (...) Dans la seconde partie, je me sers de cette ambiguïte pour démontrer que les craintes sceptiques traditionnelles face à la théorie causale de la référence peuvent être reformulées et que le scepticisme implicite dans le réalisme métaphysique résiste à l'argument de bon sens de Putnam selon lequel nous ne sommes pas des cerveaux dans une cuve. (shrink)

In this paper the logic of broad necessity is explored. Definitions of what it means for one modality to be broader than another are formulated, and it is proven, in the context of higher-order logic, that there is a broadest necessity, settling one of the central questions of this investigation. It is shown, moreover, that it is possible to give a reductive analysis of this necessity in extensional language. This relates more generally to a conjecture that it is not possible (...) to define intensional connectives from extensional notions. This conjecture is formulated precisely in higher-order logic, and concrete cases in which it fails are examined. The paper ends with a discussion of the logic of broad necessity. It is shown that the logic of broad necessity is a normal modal logic between S4 and Triv, and that it is consistent with a natural axiomatic system of higher-order logic that it is exactly S4. Some philosophical reasons to think that the logic of broad necessity does not include the S5 principle are given. (shrink)

The traditional puzzles about belief reports puzzles rest on a certain seemingly innocuous assumption, that 'that'-clauses specify belief contents. The main theories of belief reports also rest on this "Specification Assumption", that for a belief report of the form 'A believes that p' to be true,' the proposition that p must be among the things A believes. I use Kripke's Paderewski case to call the Specification Assumption into question. Giving up that assumption offers prospects for an intuitively more plausible approach (...) to the semantics of belief reports. But this approach must confront a puzzle of its own: it turns out that every case is a Paderewski case, at least potentially. (shrink)

We develop a theory of necessity operators within a version of higher-order logic that is neutral about how fine-grained reality is. The theory is axiomatized in terms of the primitive of *being a necessity*, and we show how the central notions in the philosophy of modality can be recovered from it. Various questions are formulated and settled within the framework, including questions about the ordering of necessities under strength, the existence of broadest necessities satisfying various logical conditions, and questions about (...) their logical behaviour. We also wield the framework to probe the conditions under which a logicist account of necessities is possible, in which the theory is completely reducible to logic. (shrink)

The topic of this article is the ontology of practical reasons. We draw a critical comparison between two views. According to the first, practical reasons are states of affairs; according to the second, they are propositions. We first isolate and spell out in detail certain objections to the second view that can be found only in embryonic form in the literature – in particular, in the work of Jonathan Dancy. Next, we sketch possible ways in which one might respond to (...) each one of these objections. A careful evaluation of these complaints and responses, we argue, shows that the first view is not as obviously compelling as it is thought by Dancy. Indeed, it turns out that the view that practical reasons are propositions is by no means unworkable and in fact, at least under certain assumptions, explicit considerations can be made in favour of a propositional construal of reasons. (shrink)

Abstract Stephen Schiffer, in his recent book, Remnants of Meaning, argues against the possibility of any compositional theory of meaning for natural language. Because the argument depends on the premise that there is no possible naturalistic reduction of the intentional to the physical, Schiffer's attack on theories of meaning is of central importance for theorists of mind. I respond to Schiffer's argument by showing that there is at least one reductive account of the mental that he has neglected to consider?the (...) computationalist account known as the Representational Theory of Mind. Not only is this view immune from the criticisms Schiffer mounts against other reductivist theories, but it solves problems that arise on Schiffer's own non?reductive account of the relation between the intentional and the physical. (shrink)

RésuméRécemment, Indrek Reiland a proposé une nouvelle version de la théorie des propositions comme type d'actes (ATT) dans laquelle la prédication demeure un acte d'engagement. Cependant, le problème Frege-Geach peut être abordé sans recourir à la manœuvre d'annulation de Peter Hanks. Dans cet article, je soutiens que si nous considérons la prédication comme un acte d'engagement, nous devrons alors nous attaquer à un autre problème : celui des actes représentationnels qui n'ont pas de dimension d'engagement. Je soutiens que Reiland a (...) encore besoin d'une notion d'annulation pour traiter ce dernier problème. De ce fait, il ne peut éviter le défaut majeur qu'il attribue à la version de Hanks. (shrink)

Social ontology is the study of the nature and properties of the social world. It is concerned with analyzing the various entities in the world that arise from social interaction. -/- A prominent topic in social ontology is the analysis of social groups. Do social groups exist at all? If so, what sorts of entities are they, and how are they created? Is a social group distinct from the collection of people who are its members, and if so, how is (...) it different? What sorts of properties do social groups have? Can they have beliefs or intentions? Can they perform actions? And if so, what does it take for a group to believe, intend, or act? -/- Other entities investigated in social ontology include money, corporations, institutions, property, social classes, races, genders, artifacts, artworks, language, and law. It is difficult to delineate a precise scope for the field (see section 2.1). In general, though, the entities explored in social ontology largely overlap with those that social scientists work on. A good deal of the work in social ontology takes place within the social sciences (see sections 5.1–5.8). -/- Social ontology also addresses more basic questions about the nature of the social world. One set of questions pertains to the constituents, or building blocks, of social things in general. For instance, some theories argue that social entities are built out of the psychological states of individual people, while others argue that they are built out of actions, and yet others that they are built out of practices. Still other theories deny that a distinction can even be made between the social and the non-social. -/- A different set of questions pertains to how social categories are constructed or set up. Are social categories and kinds produced by our attitudes? By our language? Are they produced by causal patterns? And is there just one way social categories are set up, or are there many varieties of social construction? -/- The term ‘social ontology’ has only come into wide currency in recent years, but the nature of the social has been a topic of inquiry since ancient Greece. As a whole, the field can be understood as a branch of metaphysics, the general inquiry into the nature of entities. (shrink)

A first-person proposition is a proposition that only a single subject can assert or believe. When I assert ‘I am on fire’ I assert a first-person proposition that only I have access to, in the sense that no one else can assert or believe this proposition. This is in contrast to third-person propositions, which can be asserted or believed by anyone.

Joseph Raz argues that legal authority includes a claim by the law to replace subjects’ contrary reasons. I reply that this cannot be squared with the existence of choice-of-evils defenses to criminal prosecutions, nor with the view that the law has gaps (which Raz shares). If the function of authority is to get individuals to comply better with reason than they would do if left to their own devices, it would not make sense for law to claim both to pre-empt (...) our contrary reasons and to leave open spaces or catch-all exceptions which we must use our own devices to fill. (shrink)

In response to Kripke's modal argument contemporary descriptivists suggest that referring terms, e.g., ‘water’, are synonymous with actually-rigidified definite descriptions, e.g., ‘the actual watery stuff’. Following Scott Soames, this strategy has the counterintuitive consequence that possible speakers on Perfect Earth cannot be ascribed water-beliefs without beliefs about the actual world. Co-indexing the actuality and possibility operators has the equally untoward result that possible speakers on Twin Earth are ascribed water-beliefs. So, Soames's dilemma is that the descriptivist can account for either (...) Twin Earth or Perfect Earth but not both. In response, this paper argues that since ‘actual’ is an indexical, the content of water-beliefs is egocentric, and so if the descriptivist avails herself of relativized propositions as the content of such beliefs, she is able to account for both Twin Earth and Perfect Earth. The lesson is that we have to tread carefully when making inferences about the contents of beliefs from the semantics of belief-reporting sentences that contain actually-rigidified expressions. (shrink)

I provide a theory of the metaphysical foundations of identity: an account what grounds facts of the form a=b. In particular, I defend the claim that indiscernibility grounds identity. This is typically rejected because it is viciously circular; plausible assumptions about the logic of ground entail that the fact that a=b partially grounds itself. The theory I defend is immune to this circularity.

In this paper, I support a hybrid view regarding the metaphysics of worlds. I endorse Lewisian Modal Realism for possible worlds (LMR). My aim is to come up with a hybrid account of impossible worlds that provides all the plenitude of impossibilities for all fine-grained intentional contents. I raise several challenges for such a plenitudinous hybrid theory. My version of hybrid modal realism builds impossible worlds as set-theoretic constructions out of genuine individuals and sets of them, that is, as set-theoretic (...) constructions from parts and sets of parts of genuine Lewisian worlds. _Structured worlds_ are defined as sets of tuples: structured entities built out of Lewisian ‘raw material’. These structured worlds are ersatz worlds, some of which are impossible. I claim that propositions must be sets of worlds rather than members of sets. Once the construction is in place, I evaluate the proposal and show that my hybrid account is able to supply a plenitude of impossibilities and thus giving the resources to make all the hyperintensional distinctions we are looking for, whilst remaining Lewisian-conservative. (shrink)

This paper defends the claim that although ‘Superman is Clark Kent and some people who believe that Superman flies do not believe that Clark Kent flies’ is a logically inconsistent sentence, we can still utter this sentence, while speaking literally, without asserting anything false. The key idea is that the context-sensitivity of attitude reports can be - and often is - resolved in different ways within a single sentence.

Attempts to characterize unarticulated constituents (henceforth: UCs) by means of quantification over the parts of a sentence and the constituents of the proposition it expresses come to grief in more complicated cases than are commonly considered. In particular, UC definitions are inadequate when we consider cases in which the same constituent appears more than once in a proposition that only has one word with the constituent as its semantic value. This article explores some consequences of trying to repair the formal (...) definitions. (shrink)

Varios filósofos han propuesto un enfoque “algebraico” de los universales de acuerdo con el cual hay operaciones de universales a universales. No es obvio, sin embargo, cómo estas operaciones deban ser interpretadas y qué impacto tengan para las condiciones de identidad de los universales. Hay dos interpretaciones principales del álgebra de universales. Por una parte, se ha interpretado como formas de “construir” universales complejos. Por otra, ha sido interpretada como “morfismos” o “mapeos” entre universales, pero no como algo que “construye” (...) universales complejos desde otros más básicos. En este trabajo se evalúan las ventajas comparativas de las dos concepciones, y se ofrecen razones para preferir la segunda. (shrink)

Hyperlogic is a hyperintensional system designed to regiment metalogical claims (e.g., “Intuitionistic logic is correct” or “The law of excluded middle holds”) into the object language, including within embedded environments such as attitude reports and counterfactuals. This paper is the first of a two-part series exploring the logic of hyperlogic. This part presents a minimal logic of hyperlogic and proves its completeness. It consists of two interdefined axiomatic systems: one for classical consequence (truth preservation under a classical interpretation of the (...) connectives) and one for “universal” consequence (truth preservation under any interpretation). The sequel to this paper explores stronger logics that are sound and complete over various restricted classes of models as well as languages with hyperintensional operators. (shrink)

Frege's Puzzle is a founding problem in analytic philosophy. It lies at the intersection of central topics in the philosophy of language and mind: the theory of reference, the nature of propositional attitudes, the nature of semantic theorizing, the relation between semantics and pragmatics, etc. This chapter is an overview of the puzzle and of the space of contemporary approaches to it.

The notions of belief and truth frequently interact in philosophical discourse but, surprisingly, a coherent semantics for such discourse is still wanting. Indeed, a number of puzzles stand in way of a satisfactory semantic account of the notion of truth in doxastic contexts. In this paper we discuss these puzzles and develop a more satisfactory semantic account that combines ideas from contextualist theories of attitude reports and Awareness semantics for non-idealized belief.

When some P implies some Q, this should have some impact on what attitudes we take to P and Q. In other words: logical consequence has a normative import. I use this idea, recently explored by a number of scholars, as a stepping stone to a bolder view: that relations of logical consequence can be identified with norms on our propositional attitudes, or at least that our talk of logical consequence can be explained in terms of such norms. I investigate (...) the prospects of such a cognitive norm account of logical consequence. I go over the challenges involved in finding a plausible bridge principle connecting logical consequence to cognitive norms, in particular a biconditional principle that gives us not only necessary but sufficient conditions for logical consequence in terms of norms on propositional attitudes. Then, on the assumption that an adequate norm can be found, I consider what the philosophical merits of such a cognitive norm account would be, and what theoretical commitments it would generate. (shrink)

1. The primary evidence and motivation for externalism in the philosophy of mind is provided by the semantic facts that support direct reference theories of names, indexi- cal pronouns, and natural kind terms. But many externalists have forgotten their sem- antic roots, or so I shall contend here. I have become convinced of this by a common reaction among externalists to the main argument of my 1991 paper AAnti-Individual- ism and Privileged Access.@ In that argument, I concluded that externalism is (...) incompat- ible with the principle that we can have privileged, non-empirical knowledge of the contents of our own thoughts. The reaction in question amounts to a dismissive denial of one of my argument=s main premises. This premise, which I defended at length in the paper, is that an externalist thesis regarding a cognitive property should hold that possession of the property by a person _logically_, or _conceptually_, implies the existence of objects external to that person. (shrink)

This is a prepublication version of my book Objects and Attitudes. The book develops a novel semantics of attitude reports, modal sentences, and quotation based on the view that sentences semantically act as predicates of various attitudinal and modal objects, entities like claims, requests, promises, obligations, and permissions, rather than standing for abstract propositions playing the role of objects. The approach develops truthmaker semantics for attitudinal and modal objects and has a wide range of applications to issues in philosophy of (...) language, semantics, and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

I propose a version of the act‐type theory of propositions, following Hanks and Soames. According to the theory, propositions are types of act of predication. The content of a sentence is the type of such act performed when that sentence is uttered. A consequence of this theory is that the structure of the content of a sentence will mirror the structure of that sentence. I defend this consequence of the theory from two important objections. I then argue that this theory (...) is well motivated because it can be part of a theory of what is said. (shrink)

The paper challenges Williamson’s safety based explanation for why we cannot know the cut-off point of vague expressions. We assume throughout (most of) the paper that Williamson is correct in saying that vague expressions have sharp cut-off points, but we argue that Williamson’s explanation for why we do not and cannot know these cut-off points is unsatisfactory. -/- In sect 2 we present Williamson's position in some detail. In particular, we note that Williamson's explanation relies on taking a particular safety (...) principle ('Meta-linguistic belief safety' or 'MBS') as a necessary condition on knowledge. In section 3, we show that even if MBS were a necessary condition on knowledge, that would not be sufficient to show that we cannot know the cut-off points of vague expressions. In section 4, we present our main case against Williamson's explanation: we argue that MBS is not a necessary condition on knowledge, by presenting a series of cases where one's belief violates MBS but nevertheless constitutes knowledge. In section 5, we present and respond to an objection to our view. And in section 6, we briefly discuss the possible directions a theory of vagueness can take, if our objection to Williamson's theory is taken on board. (shrink)

Logical form has always been a prime concern for philosophers belonging to the analytic tradition. For at least one century, the study of logical form has been widely adopted as a method of investigation, relying on its capacity to reveal the structure of thoughts or the constitution of facts. This book focuses on the very idea of logical form, which is directly relevant to any principled reflection on that method. Its central thesis is that there is no such thing as (...) a correct answer to the question of what is logical form: two significantly different notions of logical form are needed to fulfil two major theoretical roles that pertain respectively to logic and to semantics. This thesis has a negative and a positive side. The negative side is that a deeply rooted presumption about logical form turns out to be overly optimistic: there is no unique notion of logical form that can play both roles. The positive side is that the distinction between two notions of logical form, once properly spelled out, sheds light on some fundamental issues concerning the relation between logic and language. (shrink)

The paper presents an argument against referential treatment of definite descriptions' semantics. Referentialism with respect to semantics of definite descriptions claims that when descriptions are used referentially, then they are semantically referring expressions. It is argued that this picture does not lead to a satisfactory representation of propositions expressed by utterances involving definite descriptions. For if propositions are what primarily enters the relation of entailment, then referentialism is commited to the view that (i) some inferences usually taken as valid are (...) claimed to be invalid; (ii) some inferences usually taken as invalid are claimed to be valid; (iii) some inferences that are by no means trivially valid must be taken to be such. It is argued that Russellian‐ism with respect to definite descriptions gives us a better representation of propositions expressed by utterances involving descriptions. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to outline a conceptual framework for a type of philosophy (or approach to philosophy) to be herein called “non-sentential philosophy.” Although I will primarily concern myself with the conceptual coherence of the framework in this essay, illustrations will be provided to show that the notion has rich implications for comparative studies. In particular, I believe this theoretical framework will be of interest to those looking for a way to capture the differences between certain non-Western (...) philosophical traditions—such as Chinese philosophy—and Western philosophy, a tradition in which the sentential approach is dominant. (shrink)

In this paper, I motivate a modal account of propositions on the basis of an iterative conception of propositions. As an application, I suggest that the account provides a satisfying solution to the Russell-Myhill paradox. The account is in the spirit of recently developed modal accounts of sets motivated on the basis of the iterative conception of sets.

A sentence of the formEither Jones or Smith entered the room, and he saw the Maltese Falcon,has some notable properties due largely to the sprightly behavior of the pronoun in its second conjunct. For instance, that pronoun can not be a pronoun of laziness for the disjunctive noun phrase, ‘Jones or Smith,’ since patently does not express the thought that Either Jones or Smith entered the room, and either Jones or Smith saw the Maltese Falcon., but not, would be true (...) if Jones entered the room but didn't see the Maltese Falcon, and Smith saw the Maltese Falcon but never entered the room. (shrink)

This paper is about the relations between the contents of our beliefs and the contents of the sentences used in the that‐clauses of our belief ascriptions. Loar has argued that any inference from sameness or difference of correct belief ascription to sameness or difference of belief content is illegitimate. In contrast, I defend a requirement (the Logic Requirement) that the logical properties of the sentence embedded in a belief ascription should, on that occasion of use, match the logical properties of (...) the belief content ascribed. (shrink)

Are there ‘self-referential’ propositions? That is, propositions that say of themselves that they have a certain property, such as that of being false. There can seem reason to doubt that there are. At the same time, there are a number of reasons why it matters. For suppose that there are indeed no such propositions. One might then hope that while paradoxes such as the Liar show that many plausible principles about sentences must be given up, no such fate will befall (...) principles about propositions. But the existence of self-referential propositions would dash such hopes. Further, the existence of such propositions would also seem to challenge the widespread claim that Liar sentences fail to express propositions. The aim of this paper is thus to settle the question–at least given an assumption. In particular, I argue that if propositions are structured, then self-referential propositions exist. (shrink)

The notion of a proposition is central to philosophy. But it is subject to paradoxes. A natural response is a hierarchical account and, ever since Russell proposed his theory of types in 1908, this has been the strategy of choice. But in this paper I raise a problem for such accounts. While this does not seem to have been recognized before, it would seem to render existing such accounts inadequate. The main purpose of the paper, however, is to provide a (...) new hierarchical account that solves the problem. (shrink)

Fine (2007) argues that Frege’s puzzle and its relatives demonstrate a need for a basic reorientation of the field of semantics. According to this reorientation, the domain of semantic facts would be closed not under the classical consequence relation but only under a stronger relation Fine calls “manifest consequence.” I examine Fine’s informally sketched analyses of manifest consequence, showing that each can be amended to determine a class of strong consequence relations. A best candidate relation emerges from each of the (...) two classes, and I prove that the two candidates extensionally coincide. The resulting consequence relation is of independent interest, for it might be held to constitute a cogent standard of reasoning that proceeds under a deficient grasp on the identity of objects. (shrink)

The apparently obviously true doctrine of opacity has been thought to be inconsistent with two others, to which many philosophers of language are also attracted: the referentialist account of the semantics of proper names and indexicals, on the one hand, and the principle of semantic innocence, on the other. I discuss here one of the most popular strategies for resolving the apparent inconsistency, namely Mark Richard’s theory of belief ascriptions, and raise three problems for it. Finally, I propose an alternative (...) theory of the semantics of belief-ascribing sentences that clearly avoids the three problems that trouble Richard’s theory, and advocate it as the best available strategy for resolving the apparent inconsistency between the doctrine of opacity, referentialism, and the principle of semantic innocence. (shrink)

The apparently obviously true doctrine of opacity has been thought to be inconsistent with two others, to which many philosophers of language are also attracted: the referentialist account of the semantics of proper names and indexicals, on the one hand, and the principle of semantic innocence, on the other. I discuss here one of the most popular strategies for resolving the apparent inconsistency, namely Mark Richard’s theory of belief ascriptions, and raise three problems for it. Finally, I propose an alternative (...) theory of the semantics of belief-ascribing sentences that clearly avoids the three problems that trouble Richard’s theory, and advocate it as the best available strategy for resolving the apparent inconsistency between the doctrine of opacity, referentialism, and the principle of semantic innocence. (shrink)

According to the Dependency Theory, truth asymmetrically depends on the world, in the following sense: true propositions are true because the world makes them true. The Dependency Theory strikes many philosophers as incontrovertible, but in this paper I reject it. I begin by presenting a problem for the Dependency Theory. I then develop an alternative to the Dependency Theory which avoids that problem. This alternative is an immodest Identity Theory of Truth, and I end the paper by responding to Dodd’s (...) charge that immodest Identity Theories are incoherent. (shrink)

What is the relationship between Frege’s puzzle and the puzzle of the de se? An increasingly influential view claims that the de se puzzle is merely an instance of Frege’s puzzle and that the idea that de se attitudes pose a distinctive theoretical challenge rests on a myth. Here we argue that this view is misguided. There are important differences between the two puzzles. First, unlike Frege puzzle cases, de se puzzle cases involve unshareable Fregean senses. Second, unlike Frege puzzle (...) cases, de se puzzle cases cannot be resolved by objective information alone. Further, there seem to be pure cases of each puzzle: instances of the de se puzzle which do not have a Fregean structure, and instances of Frege’s puzzle, which do not involve de se attitudes. We conclude that the two puzzles are fundamentally different and that the traditional theory of attitudes needs to be amended. (shrink)