Some recent papers
In Progress
I don't usually post papers before they are accepted in journals, but
the practice is different in linguistics. So my paper with Chris
Kennedy on the semantics of "average" is now available on the Semantics
Archive:
On 'Average'
(with Christopher Kennedy)
Forthcoming
Knowledge
and Certainty
Forthcoming in Philosophical Issues
This paper is a companion piece to my earlier paper "Fallibilism and
Concessive Knowledge Attributions". There are two intuitive charges
against fallibilism. One is that it countenances the truth (and
presumably acceptability) of utterances of sentences such as "I know
that Bush is a Republican, though it might be that he is not a
Republican". The second is that it countenances the truth (and
presumably acceptability) of utterances of sentences such as "I know
that Bush is a Republican, even though I'm not certain that he is", or
"I know that Bush it a Republican, even though it isn't certain that he
is." In "Fallibilism and Concessive Knowledge Attributions", I argue
that fallibilism in epistemology does not countenance the truth of
utterances of sentences such as "I know that Bush is a Republican,
though it might be that he is not a Republican". In this paper, I argue
that there are independent reasons for thinking that utterances of
sentences such as "I know that Bush is a Republican, though I'm not
certain that he is" and "I know that Bush is a Republican, though it's
not certain that he is" are unassertible. More specifically, I argue
that these are simply instances of Moore's Paradox, such as "Dogs bark,
but I don't know that they do." The right account of Moore's Paradox
does not involve the falsehood of the semantic content of the relevant
utterances, but rather their pragmatic unacceptability. So the
anti-fallibilist intuitions turn out to have pragmatic, rather than
semantic import, and therefore do not tell against the truth of
fallibilism.
Fallibilism in epistemology is often thought to be theoretically
desirable, but intuitively problematic. My purpose with these two
papers is to show that fallibilism is not intuitively problematic.
Knowledge
and Action
(with John Hawthorne)
Forthcoming in The Journal of
Philosophy
Forthcame
Precis of Knowledge
and Practical Interests and Replies to Critics (Gilbert Harman, Ram
Neta, and Stephen Schiffer)
Forthcoming in Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research
Here is the link to Prof. Harman's contribution
and Prof. Schiffer's contribution is on his website.
Philosophy
of Language in the Twentieth Century
Forthcoming in the Routledge
Guide to Twentieth Century Philosophy
In this paper, I attempt to summarize philosophy of language in the
Twentieth Century. It's a completely absurd task, and I fail miserably.
The way I managed to
complete the paper I wrote was to write a narrative I thought would be
at least helpful for any graduate student in philosophy of language,
philosophy of mind,
metaphysics, epistemology, and meta-ethics to read. Certainly, the
topics I discuss, and the elementary lessons I draw from them, are ones
that I would want
my own graduate students to master in their first year of graduate
school. So if you feel curious about what I think introductory graduate
students in Metaphysics and
Epistemology broadly construed should minimally know about the
philosophy of language, you would be interested in this paper.
This is a first complete draft, and I'm sure there are typos and
mistakes. For the eventual mistake-free version, please purchase the
Routledge guide.
Hornsby on
the Phenomenology of Speech
The Aristotelian Society
Supplementary Volume 79 (2005):
131-46.
This is a reply to Jennifer Hornsby's "Semantic Knowledge and
Practical Knowledge", for the Joint Session in July, 2005. But it can
also
be
read as a free-standing paper criticizing the thesis that knowledge of
meaning is a practical ability.
Fallibilism
and Concessive Knowledge Attributions
Analysis 65.2,
2005: 126-31
Semantics
in Context
Contextualism in Philosophy:
Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth, Preyer and Peter (ed.) (OUP,
2005): 221-54.
On
the Linguistic
Basis for Contextualism
Philosophical Studies 119,
2004: 119-146
Context,
Interest-Relativity,
and the Sorites
Analysis 63.4
(2003): 269-80.
Modality
and What
is Said
Philosophical Perspectives 16: Language and Mind
(2002): 321-44.
Hermeneutic
Fictionalism
Midwest Studies XXV: Figurative Language, French
and Wettstein (ed.) (Blackwell, 2001): 36-71
Knowing How
(with Timothy Williamson)
The Journal of
Philosophy 98.8 2001:
411-44.