Normativism in the theory of meaning and content is the view that linguistic meaning and/or intentional content are essentially normative. As both normativity and its essentiality to meaning/content can be interpreted in a number of different ways, there is now a whole family of views laying claim to the slogan “meaning/content is normative”. In this essay, we discuss a number of central normativist theses, and we begin by identifying different versions of meaning normativism, presenting the arguments that have been put (...) forth for and against them. (shrink)

In his recent paper ‘Analyticity: An Unfinished Business in Possible-World Semantics’ (Rabinowicz 2006), Wlodek Rabinowicz takes on the task of providing a satisfactory definition of analyticity in the framework of possible-worlds semantics. As usual, what Wlodek proposes is technically well-motivated and very elegant. Moreover, his proposal does deliver an interesting analytic/synthetic distinction when applied to sentences with natural kind terms. However, the longer we thought and talked about it, the more questions we had, questions of both philosophical and technical nature. (...) Hence the idea of this little paper – for how better to honor a philosopher than by trying very hard to criticize him? After quickly running over some background in possible worlds semantics and setting out Wlodek's proposal against that background, we shall bring up and discuss our questions in sections 3 – 5. In the final section, we shall also make a stab at a different solution to the problem, making use of our own earlier idea of relational modality. (shrink)

In a series of very influential papers, Dan Kahan argues for “the identity protective cognition thesis”: the claim that politically motivated reasoning is a major factor explaining current levels of polarization over matters of fact, especially in the US. An important part of his case consists of experimental data supporting the claim that ideological polarization is more extreme amongst more numerate individuals. In this paper, we take a close look at how precisely this “numeracy effect” is supposed to come about. (...) Working with Kahan’s own notion of motivated reasoning, we reconstruct the mechanism that according to him produces the effect. Surprisingly, it turns out to involve plenty of motivation to reason, but no motivated reasoning. This undermines the support he takes the numeracy effect to provide for the identity protective cognition hypothesis. (shrink)

in What Detemines Content? The Internalism/Externalism Dispute, ed. T. Marvan, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press 2006.

b> Some theories of linguistic meaning, such as those of Paul Grice and David Lewis, make appeal to higher order thoughts: thoughts about thoughts. Because of this, such theories run the risk of being empirically refuted by the existence of speakers who lack, completely or to a high degree, the capacity of thinking about thoughts. Research on autism during the past 15 years provides strong evidence for the existence of such speakers. Some persons with autism have linguistic abilities that qualify (...) them as speakers, but manifest a severely impaired capacity to understand what it is to have beliefs. (shrink)

The project of this chapter is to explore some relations between the rule-following considerations and radical interpretation. I spell out the sense in which the rule-following considerations are about meaning determination, and investigate whether the principle of meaning determination used in the early Davidson's account of meaning determination - the principle of charity - provides an answer to what I shall call "Wittgenstein's paradox". More precisely, I am interested in one aspect of the paradox: the "problem of objectivity". My question (...) then is whether meaning, as determined by charity, is such that the correctness of the applications of meaningful expressions is an objective matter. After running us through the basics of the radical interpretation account of meaning determination I argue that the principle of charity does seem to fall prey to the problem of objectivity. After unsuccessfully trying to rescue objectivity by means of Lewisian natural properties, this is the verdict I in the end endorse. (shrink)

in International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14, 2006: 337-359 (special issue on Donald Davidson ed. M. Baghramian/J. Malpas).