The central question that I address in this dissertation is: how should we explain our connection with the language that we use? I show that the way that one answers the question depends upon the characterization that one gives of the nature of language. ;I argue that philosophers of language who theorize about words as in-the-world entities with a history have largely failed to explain how we use such words. To fill in this gap, I offer a positive account of (...) the cognitive value of language. In particular, I argue that cognitive value must be for a user, and that it allows for the explanation of how distinct individuals use a language held in common. (shrink)

Direct reference theorists tell us that proper names have no semantic value other than their bearers, and that the connection between name and bearer is unmediated by descriptions or descriptive information. And yet, these theorists also acknowledge that we produce our name-containing utterances with descriptions on our minds. After arguing that direct reference proponents have failed to give descriptions their due, I show that appeal to speaker-associated descriptions is required if the direct reference portrayal of speakers wielding and referring with (...) public names is to succeed. (shrink)

Gottlob Frege maintained that two name-containing identity sentences, represented schematically as a=a and a=b,can both be true in virtue of the same object’s self-identity but nonetheless, puzzlingly, differ in their epistemic profiles. Frege eventually resolved his puzzlement by locating the source of the purported epistemic difference between the identity sentences in a difference in the Sinne, or senses, expressed by the names that the sentences contain. -/- Thus, Frege portrayed himself as describing a puzzle that can be posed prior to (...) and independently of any particular theoretical position regarding names, and then resolving that puzzle with his theory of Sinn and Bedeutung. In this paper, I suggest that Frege’s presentation is problematic. If attempt is made to characterize the epistemic status of true identity sentences without appeal to Frege’s theoretical commitments, then what initially seemed puzzling largely dissolves. It turns out that, in order to generate puzzlement, Frege must invoke the theoretical account that he uses the puzzle to establish the purported necessity of. (shrink)

According to Scott Soames, proper names have no descriptive meaning. Nonetheless, Soames maintains that proper names are typically used to make descriptive assertions. In this paper, I challenge Soames’ division between meaning and what is asserted, first by arguing that competent speakers always make descriptive assertions with name-containing sentences, and then by defending an account of proper name meaning that accommodates this fact.

In this paper, I highlight some important implications of a non-individualistic account of derogatory words. I do so by critically examining an intriguing claim of Jennifer Hornsby‘s: that derogatory words – words that, as she puts it, ―apply to people, and that are commonly understood to convey hatred and contempt‖ – are useless for us. In their stead, she maintains, we employ neutral counterparts: words ―that apply to the same people, but whose uses do not convey these things. I argue (...) that Hornsby‘s distinctions – between derogatory words and neutral counterparts, and them (speakers who have use for the former) and us (who do not) – is not sustainable. I begin by considering examples that suggest that some of the words that some of us have use for are indeed derogatory. I then offer reasons for thinking that words that would presumably be identified as acceptable counterparts to derogatory words are not, in general, neutral. (shrink)

Fiction is often characterized by way of a contrast with truth, as, for example, in the familiar couplet “Truth is always strange/ Stranger than fiction" (Byron 1824). And yet, those who would maintain that “we will always learn more about human life and human personality from novels than from scientific psychology” (Chomsky 1988: 159) hold that some truth is best encountered via fiction. The scrupulous novelist points out that her work depicts no actual person, either living or dead; nonetheless, we (...) use names from fiction in ways that suggest that we take these names to refer. Philosophers who investigate fiction aim to reconcile such apparently incompatible phenomena, and, in general, to account for the myriad ways that we talk, think, and feel about fiction. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 2 Seiten: 903-932.

This is a response to Stavroula Glezakos’ commentary on my paper, in which I address three main points: (1) whether Berkeley is entitled to argue via inference to the best explanation, (2) whether Berkeley’s likeness principle might be too strict, and (3) whether the texts support my reading.

Stavroula Glezakos (2009) argues that Frege himself could not pose Frege’s puzzle without relying on the distinction between sense and reference, a distinction that the puzzle was supposed to motivate, not presuppose. In this paper I argue that there are still some puzzling questions about the informativeness of identity sentences, and I discuss a problem generated by the Fregean contention that one and the same proper name can have different senses for different speakers an issue that, in my (...) view, Frege should have puzzled more about. (shrink)

Standard accounts of civil disobedience include nonviolence as a necessary condition. Here I argue that such accounts are mistaken and that civil disobedience can include violence in many aspects, primarily excepting violence directed at other persons. I base this argument on a novel understanding of civil disobedience: the special character of the practice comes from its combination of condemnation of a political practice with an expressed commitment to the political. The commitment to the political is a commitment to engaging with (...) others as co-members in the on-going political project of living together. I show how such an understanding of civil disobedience is superior to the Rawlsian strain of thought, which focuses on fidelity to law. Rawls was concerned with civil disobedience solely in the context of overriding political obligation. The project of characterizing a contestatory political practice that can be distinguished and used in a wider variety of contexts than Rawls is concerned with, including under illegitimate regimes, beyond the nation-state, or on behalf of anarchism, requires a different understanding of civil disobedience. (shrink)

This is a new edition, revised and expanded, of a seminal work in the logic and philosophy of time, originally published in 1968. Arthur N. Prior was the founding father of temporal logic. His work has attracted increased attention in the decades since his death: its influence stretches beyond philosophy and logic to computer science and formal linguistics. Prior's fundamental ideas about the logic of time are presented here along with his investigations into the formal properties of time and tense. (...) Already in 1969 Prior had been planning a new edition of Papers on Time and Tense, to incorporate his more recent work. Because of his untimely death this plan was never followed through--till now. Seven important papers have been added to the original selection, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of his work and an illuminating interview with his widow, Mary Prior, about his life and work. In addition, the Polish logic which made the original book difficult for many readers has been replaced by standard logical notation. This new edition will secure the classic status of the book. (shrink)

On one way of talking about a traditional metaethical topic, realists accept that some items appear on the list of what exists in the moral or more broadly normative domain of inquiry. They then divide over whether those items are like what science and experience suggest that all other items on the list of what exists across all domains are like – naturalistic and secular. Reductive naturalists answer this further question affirmatively. Why don’t nonnaturalists? I explore the answer that it’s (...) because normative entities are “just too different” in the sense that they are countably different things. However, I argue that this answer rests on the subtle presupposition that the normative domain doesn’t also contain uncountable entities of the sort that analytic metaphysicians call “stuff”. Taking intuitions of difference seriously points the way to a novel form of metaethical reductive naturalism. The key is to identify the stuff that matters. (shrink)

El siglo XVIII está considerado como una época en la que el método de investigación newtoniano está bien establecido y su uso no se cuestiona, según autores como Kuhn. Sin embargo, como veremos, esto está muy alejado de la realidad, ya que aquí planteamos los dos objetivos siguientes: por un lado, observaremos como dentro de los propios llamados newtonianos no hay un uso uniforme del método newtoniano y que algunos de ellos incluso lo modifican en sus obras donde exponen la (...) doctrina de Newton. Por otro lado, expondremos el método de Émilie du Châtelet, quien, habiendo leído a Newton y a estos pensadores, siente rechazo hacia la metodología que proponen y se dispone a elaborar lo que se puede considerar un precedente del método hipotético-deductivo utilizado hoy día. Lo que se persigue con el presente estudio, en definitiva, es arrojar luz sobre la situación del newtonianismo del siglo XVIII y mostrar el trabajo de du Châtelet como un puente entre dos épocas en relación a la metodología. (shrink)

This article discusses the 2005 OUP biography of Michael Polanyi by William T. Scott and Martin X. Moleski S.J., Michael Polanyi, Scientist and Philosopher . The discussants are N. E. Wetherick, Brian G Gowenlock, and John Puddefoot; Martin X. Moleski, S. J. briefly responds, providing a previously unpulished letter from Polanyi to Reverend Dr. Knox, a Presbyterian mininster.

Comprehensive work on history and philosophy of Nātha sect in India.

On Yoga; based on various texts on yoga philosophy.

Censurado durante la última década, sale finalmente a la luz Biografía de las ideas, de Isaiah Berlin. El libro pone de relieve el modo en que el sector liberal-conservador más poderoso, con sede en Oxford, ha construido la ficción en torno a la figura de Isaiah Berlin. Sir Isaiah Berlin es conocido como una lumbrera del pensamiento político del siglo XX, uno de los máximos exponentes intelectuales del liberalismo democrático, un pensador moralmente comprometido con la causa de la libertad y (...) la lucha contra el totalitarismo. El lector podrá comprobar que la imagen que se atribuye a Isaiah Berlin es una mitificación, una ficción forjada con el propósito de defender una serie de intereses académicos (y reforzar así la marca Oxford), políticos (en torno al sector liberal-conservador anglosajón) y nacionales (al objeto de cantar la leyenda de una Corona británica comprometida –así dicen– por la defensa de la democracia Occidental). Como Research Fellow en la Universidad de Oxford, el autor ha tenido oportunidad de examinar esta realidad y ver con sus propios ojos cómo los liberal-conservadores fabrican sus mitos. Las conclusiones de este estudio no dejarán indiferentes ni a académicos –principalmente, del área de Historia de las Ideas, y Teoría Política y Moral–, ni a escritores y políticos como el Premio Nobel Mario Vargas Llosa o la marquesa Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, auto-denominados liberal-conservadores, porque derrumba un pilar de su religión. (shrink)

Contributed research papers chiefly on various aspects of Indic philosophy, Vedic literature, etc.