This study addresses a range of central topics in Anglo-American philosophy of language.

Daniel Dennett once invited us to consider super-Martians who were highly advanced scientifically yet lacked all intentional concepts. They spoke the language of austere physics and were capable of perceiving and describing the world at the micro-level. If such beings could accurately report happenings in their environment, make predictions, and generally live out their lives wholly within the scientific image, what would they be missing, Dennett wondered, by virtue of lacking intentional concepts? Dennett’s answer was that they would miss out (...) on various higher level patterns describable by way of mentalistic and semantic vocabulary. (shrink)

The three reviews collectively provide a good deal of engaging and substantial criticism. We shall not undertake to defend the text on each critical point that emerges. Rather, we shall, as fairly as we can, explore the reviews from our current perspective, six or seven years after writing the book, registering ways that we remain convinced of much of the substance of the work, but also ways in which the reviews rightly bring out features of our framework that are improperly (...) handled or else underexplored. (shrink)

A major revision of the animal rights bible, referencing changes from the last 10 years including the rise of social media.

We see things. We also perceptually demonstrate things. There seems to be some sort of link between these two phenomena. Indeed. in the standard case, the former is accompanied by a capacity for the latter. One sees a dog and can, on the basis of one’s perceptual capacities, think thoughts of the form ‘That is F’. But how strong is that link? Does seeing a thing (in the success sense of seeing) inevitably bring with it the capacity for perceptually demonstrating (...) it? In what follows, we argue for a negative answer to this question. In so doing, we hope to shed some light on the phenomenon of perceptual demonstration. After presenting the main argument in section one, we go on in section two to consider a series of objections and replies. (shrink)

We see things. We also perceptually demonstrate things. There seems to be some sort of link between these two phenomena. Indeed. in the standard case, the former is accompanied by a capacity for the latter. One sees a dog and can, on the basis of one’s perceptual capacities, think thoughts of the form ‘That is F’. But how strong is that link? Does seeing a thing inevitably bring with it the capacity for perceptually demonstrating it? In what follows, we argue (...) for a negative answer to this question. In so doing, we hope to shed some light on the phenomenon of perceptual demonstration. After presenting the main argument in section one, we go on in section two to consider a series of objections and replies. (shrink)

Famous results by David Lewis show that plausible-sounding constraints on the probabilities of conditionals or evaluative claims lead to unacceptable results, by standard probabilistic reasoning. Existing presentations of these results rely on stronger assumptions than they really need. When we strip these arguments down to a minimal core, we can see both how certain replies miss the mark, and also how to devise parallel arguments for other domains, including epistemic “might,” probability claims, claims about comparative value, and so on. (...) A popular reply to Lewis's results is to claim that conditional claims, or claims about subjective value, lack truth conditions. For this strategy to have a chance of success, it needs to give up basic structural principles about how epistemic states can be updated—in a way that is strikingly parallel to the commitments of the project of dynamic semantics. (shrink)

Several authors have recently endorsed the thesis that there is what has been called pragmatic encroachment on knowledge—in other words, that two people who are in the same situation with respect to truth-related factors may differ in whether they know something, due to a difference in their practical circumstances. This paper aims not to defend this thesis, but to explore how it could be true. What I aim to do, is to show how practical factors could play a role in (...) defeating knowledge by defeating epistemic rationality—the very kind of rationality that is entailed by knowledge, and in which Pascalian considerations do not play any role—even though epistemic rationality consists in having adequate evidence. (shrink)

While Plato recommended expelling poets from the ideal society, W. H. Auden famously declared that poetry makes nothing happen. The 19 contributions to the present book avoid such polarized views and, responding in different ways to the “ethical turn” in narrative theory, explore the varied ways in which narratives encourage readers to ponder matters of right and wrong. All work from the premise that the analysis of narrative ethics needs to be linked to a sensitivity to esthetic form. The ethical (...) issues are accordingly located on different levels. Some are clearly presented as thematic concerns within the text considered, while others emerge through the presentation of character and event by means of particular narrative techniques. The objects of analysis include such well-known or canonical texts as Biblical Old Testament stories, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones, Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian and Matthew Lewis’s The Monk. Others concentrate on less-well-known texts written in languages other than English. There are also contributions that investigate theoretical issues in relation to a range of different examples. (shrink)

Take the following principle (or schema) as the focus of the ensuing discussion (“P” and “Q” are placeholders for propositions): 1 (Closure) If one knows P and competently deduces Q from P, thereby coming to believe Q, while retaining one's knowledge that P, one comes to know that Q. My strategy in outline: first, I want to set out Fred Dretske's classic challenge to (Closure) – a challenge which began in 1970–1971. Then I want to consider a specific, recent counter‐challenge (...) to Dretske's challenge to (Closure) mounted by John Hawthorne, and to defend Dretske's challenge from Hawthorne's counter‐challenge. Doing this is not to invalidate (Closure). In this regard my conclusions are modest: Dretske's challenge to (Closure) is – or, better: can be made – sophisticated and, so far, unmet. (shrink)

John Hawthorne has two forceful arguments in favour of:Single-Premise Closure Necessarily, if S knows p, competently deduces q from p, and thereby comes to believe q, while retaining knowledge of p throughout, then S knows q.Each of Hawthorne's arguments rests on an intuitively appealing principle which Hawthorne calls the Equivalence Principle. I show, however, that the opponents of SPC with whom he's engaging - namely Fred Dretske and Robert Nozick - have independent reason to reject this principle, (...) and resultantly conclude that Hawthorne's arguments in favour of SPC are not knock-down. (shrink)

This special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy is dedicated to Timothy Williamson's work on modality. It consists of a new paper by Williamson followed by papers on Williamson's work on modality, with each followed by a reply by Williamson. -/- Contributors: Andrew Bacon, Kit Fine, Peter Fritz, Jeremy Goodman, John Hawthorne, Øystein Linnebo, Ted Sider, Robert Stalnaker, Meghan Sullivan, Gabriel Uzquiano, Barbara Vetter, Timothy Williamson, Juhani Yli-Vakkuri.

Concerns of ontological parsimony have driven some philosophers to defend the view that there are absolutely no things at all (or, at most one—the World). I examine these (given their counterintuitiveness) surprisingly well-motivated views and diagnose their errors. Both Spinoza’s ‘field metaphysic’ (attributed to him by Bennett), and Cortens and Hawthorne’s feature-placing based ‘ontological nihilism’ surreptitiously re-introduce ‘things’ or ‘substances’ into their systems. Alan Sidelle’s stuff-ontological object nihilism either has to re-admit objects back into his system, or, perhaps incoherently, (...) and certainly counterintuitively, hold that we create objects ex nihilo by a process of conceptualization. (shrink)

Herman Cappelen and John Hawthorne’s Relativism and Monadic Truth presses a number of worries about relativistic content. It forces one to think carefully about what a relativist should mean by saying that speakers disagree or contradict one another in asserting such content. My focus is on this question, though at points (in particular in Sect. 4) I touch on other issues Cappelen and Hawthorne (CH) raise.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birthmark offers a sharp lens through which to examine power, purity, and personal identity. Scientist and spiritual idealist, Aylmer, is obsessed with “correcting” the only flaw he perceives in his wife Georgina, the imprint of a small red hand on her pale cheek. For Alymer, this one “imperfection” reaches deep into Georgina’s heart, a sign of sin, decay, and mortality. It is the natural that must be overcome with science. Drawing on Hawthorne’s tragic fiction, this (...) paper questions the influence of stigma, power dynamics, and mind-body dualism in constructing disability identity within the framework of medical and spiritual practices of care. Whether in the role of a spiritual leader, chaplain, or medical professional, people providing care must first address ableism and perceptions of normalcy in relation to their own identity and calling before offering professional advice to disabled people seeking guidance or support. It is only as professional fields adopt a posture marked by courageous humility that healing practices will promote the flourishing of all people, including those with disabilities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading the Bloody "Face of Nature":The Persecution of Religion in Hawthorne's The Marble FaunMartin Kevorkian (bio)Perhaps The Marble Faun is a novel which needs to be seen in a certain light to be fully revealed. Although Hawthorne has always had his admirers and defenders among literary critics, this novel has sometimes been selected for unfavorable comparison"; this 1941 assessment by Dorothy Waples (224) still aptly describes the (...) critical terrain and the challenge of reading Hawthorne's last complete novel. In recent scholarship, Nancy Bentley's The Ethnography of Manners (1995) has been influential in marking The Marble Faun for continued unfavorable comparison. Geoffrey Sanborn (1998), in building a case for the postcolonial intelligence of Herman Melville, uses Bentley's argument about the novel's disregard for the "lower orders of creation" to set up Hawthorne as a representative of the typically blinkered "white male writers" against whose limitations Melville shines (18, 214n33). Hawthorne, especially in The Marble Faun, has become a kind of whipping boy for American literary history.Be that as it may, my concern is not to establish Hawthorne's status as a victim of criticism, but rather to seek a recovery of what may be sacrificed in hasty dismissals of The Marble Faun. The present article proposes that this novel arrives at its greatest insights by a consideration of the dynamics of exclusionary violence as such. Henry James lamented the absence of "real psychology" in the novel, and Ludwig Lewisohn complained about its lack of "acceptable intellectual or moral content" (cited in Waples 1941, 224). Yet the novel's achievement may be seen to meet both these criteria, in part because it delivers an analysis of intellectual history as a history of mimetic sacrifice. In response to Waples's terms of challenge—the need for a certain light that reveals—I suggest that mimetic theory's reading of the Enlightenment allows the novel to disclose more critical historical intelligence than has generally been attributed to it. [End Page 133]This reading will focus on the interaction of three characters: the mysterious Miriam, the mysterious Donatello, and the even more mysterious figure known as the Model. In setting up the action of the narrative, the novel divulges little about the backgrounds of any of these characters but places them in a situation with a readily discernible structure: the relationships between the figures may be defined by the element of pursuit. Donatello follows Miriam wherever she goes. But he is not the only one who does so. The hazy figure of the Model likewise shadows Miriam. The Model's pursuit of Miriam may precede Donatello's, or the two pursuits may be somehow coeval; the novel refuses to specify either pursuit as original, focusing instead on the late-stage escalation of resentment between Donatello and the Model.This mimetic pursuit culminates in the central violent event of the novel: Donatello, claiming authorization from Miriam's glance, hurls the Model from a precipice. I have argued elsewhere that when the protagonists thus decisively act to exclude the shadowy character known as the Model, they enact the foundational move of Enlightenment discourse and the ideal of Platonic dialogue upon which that discourse is based.1 Michel Serres summarizes the Platonic-Enlightenment strategy of communicational purity and clarity:To hold a dialogue is to suppose a third man and to seek to exclude him; a successful communication is the exclusion of the third man. The most profound dialectical problem is not the problem of the Other, who is only a variety—or a variation—of the Same, it is the problem of the third man. We might call this third man the demon, the prosopopeia of noise.(1982, 67)Miriam and Donatello, the united protagonists, indeed demonize the Model in these terms. What I would now add to that equation is the value of the Model's vocational identity: he is a Capuchin monk. Within the communicational framework of my earlier analysis, the most telling details were detected in Hawthorne's emphasis on the Model's "noisy" and "hazy" profile. In hurling the Model from the edge of the precipice and thus silencing his interruptions, Donatello secures for... (shrink)

What ought one to do, epistemically speaking, when faced with a disagreement? Faced with this question, one naturally hopes for an answer that is principled, general, and intuitively satisfying. We want to argue that this is a vain hope. Our claim is that a satisfying answer will prove elusive because of non-transparency: that there is no condition such that we are always in a position to know whether it obtains. When we take seriously that there is nothing, including our own (...) minds, to which we have assured access, the familiar project of formulating epistemic norms is destabilized. In this paper, we will show how this plays out in the special case of disagreement. But we believe that a larger lesson can ultimately be extracted from our discussion: namely, that non-transparency threatens our hope for fully satisfying epistemic norms in general. (shrink)

Recent developments in the semantics of natural language seem to lead to a genuine synthesis of ideas from linguistics and logic, producing novel concepts and questions of interest to both parent disciplines. This book is a collection of essays on such new topics, which have arisen over the past few years. Taking a broad view, developments in formal semantics over the past decade can be seen as follows. At the beginning stands Montague's pioneering work, showing how a rigorous semantics can (...) be given for complete fragments of natural language by creating a suitable fit between syntactic categories and semantic types. This very enterprise already dispelled entrenched prejudices concerning the separation of linguistics and logic. Having seen the light, however, there is no reason at all to stick to the letter of Montague's proposals, which are often debatable. Subsequently, then, many improvements have been made upon virtually every aspect of the enterprise. More sophisticated grammars have been inserted (lately, lexical-functional grammar and generalized phrase structure grammar), more sensitive model structures have been developed (lately, 'partial' rather than 'total' in their com position), and even the mechanism of interpretation itself may be fine-tuned more delicately, using various forms of 'representations' mediating between linguistic items and semantic reality. In addition to all these refinements of the semantic format, descriptive coverage has extended considerably. (shrink)

Knowledge and Lotteries is organized around an epistemological puzzle: in many cases, we seem consistently inclined to deny that we know a certain class of propositions, while crediting ourselves with knowledge of propositions that imply them. In its starkest form, the puzzle is this: we do not think we know that a given lottery ticket will be a loser, yet we normally count ourselves as knowing all sorts of ordinary things that entail that its holder will not suddenly acquire a (...) large fortune. After providing a number of specific and general characterizations of the puzzle, Hawthorne carefully examines the competing merits of candidate solutions. In so doing, he explores a number of central questions concerning the nature and importance of knowledge, including the relationship of knowledge to assertion and practical reasoning, the status of epistemic closure principles, the merits of various brands of scepticism, the prospects for a contextualist account of knowledge, and the potential for other sorts of salience-sensitive accounts. Along the way, he offers a careful treatment of pertinent issues at the foundations of semantics. His book will be of interest to anyone working in the field of epistemology, as well as to philosophers of language. (shrink)

On the basis of careful textual exegesis and philosophical analysis, and contrary to the received view, Mark R. Wheeler demonstrates that Aristotle presents and systematically explicates his definition of the essence of the truth in the Metaphysics. Aristotle states the nominal definitions of the terms "truth" and "falsehood" as part of his arguments in defense of the logical axioms. These nominal definitions express conceptions of truth and falsehood his philosophical opponents would have recognized and accepted in the context of (...) dialectical argument. On the basis of these nominal definitions, Aristotle develops his definitions of the essences of truth and falsehood--his "real" definitions of truth and falsehood. Aristotle's methodical exposition of his essential definitions of truth and falsehood in the Metaphysics serves as a well-developed example of how his philosophical inquiry starts with nominal definitions and ends with real definitions. Wheeler also argues for the novel claim that Aristotle defines the most fundamental kind of truth in terms of accurate measurement. Aristotle's metrical conception of truth serves as the theoretical basis for specifying the truth conditions of various assertions, for identifying the sorts of beings implicated in these truth conditions, and for explaining the nature of approximate truth and falsehood. Far from offering us a minimal account of truth, Wheeler shows how Aristotle offers us a sophisticated and metrical theory of truth. (shrink)

Let us begin with the simple observation that applied mathematics can be very tough! It is a common occurrence that basic physical principle instructs us to construct some syntactically simple set of differential equations, but it then proves almost impossible to extract salient information from them. As Charles Peirce once remarked, you can’t get a set of such equations to divulge their secrets by simply tilting at them like Don Quixote. As a consequence, applied mathematicians are often forced to pursue (...) roundabout and shakily rationalized expedients if any useful progress is to be made. Often these provisional and quasi-empirical procedures within applied mathematics loom large in motivating the “anti-realist” or “anti-unificationist” conclusions of Nancy Cartwright and allied authors. (shrink)

It is tempting to posit an intimate relationship between belief and assertion. The speech act of assertion seems like a way of transferring the speaker’s belief to his or her audience. If this is right, then you might think that the evidential warrant required for asserting a proposition is just the same as the warrant for believing it. We call this thesis entitlement equality. We argue here that entitlement equality is false, because our everyday notion of belief is unambiguously a (...) weak one. Believing something is true, we argue, is compatible with having relatively little confidence in it. Asserting something requires something closer to complete confidence. Specifically, we argue that believing a proposition merely requires thinking it likely, but that thinking that a proposition is likely does not entitle one to assert it. This conclusion conflict with a standard view that ‘full belief’ is the central commonsense non-factive attitude. (shrink)

David Lewis has recently deployed a contextualist strategy for defending ordinary claims to know.1 In this paper, I wish to extend that strategy to ordinary claims about freedom.2 The result is a species of compatibilism that, while foreign to current debates, has a good deal going for it.

This paper engages with two compelling challenges to physicalism, each designed to show that the nature of experience is elusive from the standpoint of physical science. It is argued that the physicalist is ultimately well placed to meet both challenges.

This is one of those cases to which Dr. 8 oodhouse's remark applies with all its force, that a method which leads to true results must have its logic — H.S Smith (" On Some of the Methods at Present in Use in Pure Geometry," p. 6) A goodly amount of modern metaphysics has concerned itself, in one form or another, with the question: what attitude should we take in regard to a language whose semantic underpinnings seem less than certain? (...) Since much of standard English is surely of this type, many philosophers have felt driven to extreme and unpalatable resolutions — wholesale rejection of attractive logical rules, radical "antirealism", "minimalism" about truth, and so forth, Scientists, however, have long dealt with analogous foundational insecurities and, under the duress of practicality, have framed a set of shifting attitudes towards language and reasoning that seem far more commonsensical than the extreme positions to which pure philosophy has often been led. Following this lead, this essay will recommend a more nuanced approach to linguistic insecurity that is neither naively optimistic nor mired in the gloomy sloughs of antirealism. (shrink)

There is considerable likelihood that Gottlob Frege began writing his Foundations of Arithmetic with the expectation that he could introduce his numbers, not with sets, but through some algebraic techniques borrowed from earlier writers of the Gottingen school. These rewriting techniques, had they worked, would have required strong philosophical justification provided by Frege's celebrated "context principle," which otherwise serves little evident purpose in the published Foundations.

Can there be 'narrow' mental content, that is entirely determined by the goings-on inside the head of the thinker? This book argues not, and defends instead a thoroughgoing externalism: the entanglement of our minds with the external world runs so deep that no internal component of mentality can easily be cordoned off.

Most of us, tacitly or explicitly, embrace a more or less Cartesian conception of our epistemic condition. According to such a conception, “what we have to go on”in learning about the world is, on the one hand, that which is a priori accessible to us, and, on the other, the inner experiences—visual imagery, tactile sensations, recollective episodes and so on—that pop into our Cartesian theaters. One of the central themes of Knowledge and its Limits is that this picture is fundamentally (...) wrong. Williamson suggests that we should embrace the thesis that our body of evidence at a given time is all and only that which we know. Call this the “E=K thesis.”If the E=K thesis is correct, then what we have to go on is both more and less than the Cartesian picture would suggest: more because its domain extends outwards in space, and forwards and backwards in time; less because that which is unknown about our experiential life is excluded. In what follows, I shall identify and briefly discuss a number of themes connected to the E=K thesis. (shrink)

This book critically examines some widespread views about the semantic phenomenon of reference and the cognitive phenomenon of singular thought. It begins with a defense of the view that neither is tied to a special relation of causal or epistemic acquaintance. It then challenges the alleged semantic rift between definite and indefinite descriptions on the one hand, and names and demonstratives on the other—a division that has been motivated in part by appeals to considerations of acquaintance. Drawing on recent work (...) in semantics, the book explores a more unified account of all four types of expression, according to which none of them paradigmatically fits the profile of a referential term. On the proposed framework, all four involve existential quantification but admit of uses that exhibit many of the traits associated with reference—a phenomenon that is due to the presence of what we call a ‘singular restriction’ on the existentially quantified domain. The book concludes by drawing out some implications of the proposed semantic picture for the traditional categories of reference and singular thought. (shrink)

The argument is not, however, problem-free. First: while the meaning of s might not guarantee a verifying state of affairs, mightn’t the fact of one’s believing that s is true guarantee a verifying state of affairs? And mightn’t this fact be exploited to secure knowledge of truths that are deeply contingent? Second: the argument seems to rely on the principle that if I can conceive that not P is actually the case, then I do not know that P. But it (...) is generally agreed that a knowledge-conferring warrant for some P need not offer a watertight guarantee of P and thus need not render it inconceivable that the actual world falsifies P. Why then require such a guarantee when it comes to priori warrant? The first objection is that a guarantee of truth need not come from semantics. The second is that no such guarantee is required for a priori knowledge. I shall be exploring both of these ideas in what follows. (shrink)

Diagnosable individuals, caregivers, and clinicians typically embrace a biological conception of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), finding that medical treatment is beneficial. Scientists study ADHD phenomenology, interventions to ease symptoms, and underlying mechanisms, often with an aim of helping diagnosed people. Yet current understanding of ADHD, jointly influenced by science and society, has an unintended downside. Scientific and social influences have embedded negative values in the ADHD concept, and have simultaneously dichotomized ADHD diagnosable from non-diagnosable individuals. In social settings insistent on certain (...) types of success, the negative values associated with the diagnostic category are attributed to people in the dichotomized "ADHD" group. Devaluation, institutional restrictions on "success" definitions and endpoints, and limited options for achieving success jointly constitute institutionalized intolerance of ADHD. (shrink)

A very simple contextualist treatment of a sentence containing an epistemic modal, e.g. a might be F, is that it is true iff for all the contextually salient community knows, a is F. It is widely agreed that the simple theory will not work in some cases, but the counterexamples produced so far seem amenable to a more complicated contextualist theory. We argue, however, that no contextualist theory can capture the evaluations speakers naturally make of sentences containing epistemic modals. If (...) we want to respect these evaluations, our best option is a relativist theory of epistemic modals. On a relativist theory, an utterance of a might be F can be true relative to one context of evaluation and false relative to another. We argue that such a theory does better than any rival approach at capturing all the behaviour of epistemic modals. (shrink)

The ability to engage in reflexive thought—in thought about thought or about other mental states more generally—is regarded as a complex intellectual achievement that is beyond the capacities of most nonhuman animals. To the extent that reflexive thought capacities are believed necessary for the possession of many other psychological states or capacities, including consciousness, belief, emotion, and empathy, the inability of animals to engage in reflexive thought calls into question their other psychological abilities. This chapter attacks the idea that reflexive (...) thought is required in this pervasive way and holds that supposing that it is derives from a tendency among philosophers and scientists toward overcomplication. Against this tendency, it recommends an aponoian framework, from apó, “away from” and noûs, “intelligence” or “thought,” arguing that seemingly complex psychological abilities are often not as complex as they seem, and do not require the ability to engage in reflexive thought. (shrink)

The argument is not, however, problem-free. First: while the meaning of s might not guarantee a verifying state of affairs, mightn’t the fact of one’s believing that s is true guarantee a verifying state of affairs? And mightn’t this fact be exploited to secure knowledge of truths that are deeply contingent? Second: the argument seems to rely on the principle that if I can conceive that not P is actually the case, then I do not know that P. But it (...) is generally agreed that a knowledge-conferring warrant for some P need not offer a watertight guarantee of P and thus need not render it inconceivable that the actual world falsifies P. Why then require such a guarantee when it comes to priori warrant? The first objection is that a guarantee of truth need not come from semantics. The second is that no such guarantee is required for a priori knowledge. I shall be exploring both of these ideas in what follows. (shrink)

Judging by our folk appraisals, then, knowledge and action are intimately related. The theories of rational action with which we are familiar leave this unexplained. Moreover, discussions of knowledge are frequently silent about this connection. This is a shame, since if there is such a connection it would seem to constitute one of the most fundamental roles for knowledge. Our purpose in this paper is to rectify this lacuna, by exploring ways in which knowing something is related to rationally acting (...) upon it, defending one particular proposal against anticipated objections. (shrink)

It is time to bring the rich resources of these traditions into the contemporary debate about the nature of self. This volume is the first of its kind.

Under what conditions are two utterances utterances of the same word? What are words? That these questions have not received much attention is rather surprising: after all, philosophers and linguists frequently appeal to considerations about word and sentence identity in connection with a variety of puzzles and problems that are foundational to the very subject matter of philosophy of language and linguistics.1 Kaplan’s attention to words is thus to be applauded. And there is no doubt that his discussion contains many (...) useful insights. Nevertheless, we find his picture deeply flawed for a variety of crosscutting reasons. Our aim in this paper is to further advance an understanding of the nature of words, both by remedying the problems with Kaplan’s account, and also by achieving a suitable perspective on what the metaphysical investigation of word identity can hope to achieve. Our discussion divides into four parts. In Part One, we examine and critique Kaplan’s discussion of a contrast integral to his own account: that between the type-token and the stage-continuant conceptions of words. In Part Two, we present three constraints on any account of words and two further themes in Kaplan’s discussion central to his conception of words – the role of repetition and the constitutive authority of intentions. While these ideas have laudable motivations, we argue they are far from the best way of making good on the insights that drive them. The final two sections take a skeptical turn. In Part Three, we express doubt about Kaplan’s presumption of the importance of what he calls ‘common currency names’, thus raising a suspicion that he may be in pursuit of chimera. Finally, in Part Four, we express pessimism about whether interesting answers to question above will be forthcoming, and suggest that the legitimacy of our word ontology need not depend on the availability of such answers. Along the way, we tease apart a number of metaphysical questions in the vicinity of the topic of word individuation – questions that are often not disentangled – and consider how the discussion of the previous parts bears on them.. (shrink)

How much context-sensitivity is there in English? Cappelen and Lepore’s answer: Not very much. On their view, context-sensitivity is confined to a ‘Basic List’, ‘plus or minus a bit’, that includes pronouns, demonstratives, temporal and spatial adverbs like ‘here’, ‘now’, and ‘yesterday’, and a short list of context dependent nouns and adjectives. Shockingly, the authors claim that ‘Lepore is ready’, ‘Cappelen has had enough’, and ‘Cappelen is quite tall,’ have a context-invariant meaning. Nor is that meaning incomplete, in the sense (...) of being something that can only be given a truth value relative to an enrichment. No, simultaneous utterances of ‘Lepore is ready’ always express the same proposition—that Lepore is ready—one that is true or false. When is it true? Cagily, the authors inform us that it is true if and only if Lepore is ready. One might wish to inquire further as to when Lepore is ready. For example: ‘If Lepore is ready for breakfast but not ready to learn to play golf, is Lepore ready?’ and ‘Given that I am always ready for a fulfilling relationship, am I ever not ready?’ Whenever they are faced with questions such as these, the authors defer to the arena of metaphysics, where they admit to being ‘rank amateurs’. (shrink)