(These are in pdf format, and can be viewed with the Acrobat Reader.)
Metaphor and Lexical Semantics, to appear in The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication.
Abstract
This paper shows that several sorts of expressions cannot be interpreted metaphorically, including determiners, tenses, etc. Generally, functional categories cannot be interpreted metaphorically, while lexical categories can. This reveals a semantic property of functional categories, and it shows that metaphor can be used as a probe for investigating them. It also reveals an important linguistic constraint on metaphor. The paper argues this constraint applies to the interface between the cognitive systems for language and metaphor. However, the constraint does not completely prevent structural elements of language from being available to the metaphor system. The paper shows that linguistic structure within the lexicon, specifically, aspectual structure, is available to the metaphor system.
Two papers on truth and the Liar, both joint work with Jc Beall.
The Liar Paradox (for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
A survey paper on the Liar paradox.
Where the Paths Meet: Remarks on Truth and Paradox (forthcoming in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume XXXII: Truth and Its Deformities).
The philosophical lessons learned from the survey.
Abstract
The study of truth is often seen as running on two separate paths: the nature path and the logic path. The former concerns metaphysical questions about the `nature', if any, of truth. The latter concerns logic and the paradoxes. It is often assumed that these two paths do not meet, and the two concerns are independent of each-other. In this paper, we argue that the paths do in fact meet; in particular, that the nature path impacts the logic path. We argue that what one can and must say about the logic of truth and the Liar paradox is influenced, or even in some cases determined, by what one says about the metaphysical nature of truth.
Descriptions, Negation, and Focus (forthcoming in Compositionality, Context, and Semantic Values, ed. R. Stainton and C. Viger, Springer-Verlag).
Abstract
This paper argues that some familiar cases of interaction between definite descriptions and negation are not best analyzed as scope interactions. Attention to the role of focus, and a number of related semantic and pragmatic factors, show that the cases give no evidence of scope interaction. However, these factors can generate an illusion of scope. In particular, focus can generate illusions of scope, which may lead us to think sentences display scope ambiguities they do not. These conclusions offer limited support to non-quantificational treatments of definite descriptions.
Semantics and Truth Relative to a World (forthcoming in Synthese).
Abstract
This paper argues that relativity of truth to a world plays no significant role in empirical semantic theory, even as it is done in the model-theoretic tradition relying on intensional type theory. Some philosophical views of content provide an important notion of truth at a world, but they do not constrain the empirical domain of semantic theory in a way that makes this notion empirically significant. As an application of this conclusion, this paper shows that a potential motivation for relativism based on the relativity of truth to a world fails.
Context, Content, and Relativism, Philosophical Studies 136 (2007): 1-29. Available from Springer. The penultimate version is available here.
Abstract
This paper argues against relativism, focusing on relativism based on the semantics of predicates of personal taste. It presents and defends a contextualist semantics for these predicates, derived from current work on gradable adjectives. It then considers metasemantic questions about the kinds of contextual parameters this semantics requires. It argues they are not metasemantically different from those in other gradable adjectives, and that contextual parameters of this sort are widespread in natural language. Furthermore, this paper shows that if such parameters are rejected, it leads to an unacceptably rampant form of relativism, that relativizes truth to an open-ended list of parameters.
Definite Descriptions and Quantifier Scope: Some Mates Cases Reconsidered, European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 3 (2007): 133-158 (special issue on descriptions). Available at the journal's web site here, but the typesetting got somewhat messed up, and you are better off reading the penultimate version available here.
Abstract
This paper reexamines some examples, discussed by Mates and others, of sentences containing both definite descriptions and quantifiers. It has frequently been claimed that these sentences provide evidence for the view that definite descriptions themselves are quantifiers. The main goal of this paper is to argue this is not so. Though the examples are compatible with quantificational approaches to definite descriptions, they are also compatible with views that treat definite descriptions as basically scopeless. They thus provide no reason to see definite descriptions as quantifiers. Even so, this paper shows that the examples do raise a surprising range of complex issues about how quantifier scope works, and where it occurs. Thus, a clear picture of how these examples work will help us to understand better where definite descriptions fit into the larger picture of quantifiers and related phenomena.
Context and Unrestricted Quantification, in Absolute Generality, ed. A. Rayo and G. Uzquiano, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 45-74. Penultimate version available here.
Presupposition and Policing in Complex Demonstratives (with Susanna Siegel), Nous 40 (2006): 1-42. Available from Blackwell. The penultimate version is available here.
Quantifiers, in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, ed. E. Lepore and B. Smith, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 794-821. The penultimate version is available here.
Truth, entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2006.
Focus: A Case Study on the Semantics-Pragmatics Boundary, in Semantics versus Pragmatics, ed. Z. G. Szabo, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 72-110. Penultimate version available here.
Minimalism, Deflationism, and Paradoxes (revised and expanded version of "Minimalism and Paradoxes") in Deflationism and Paradoxes, ed. JC Beall and B. Armour-Garb, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 107-132. Penultimate version available here.Presuppositions, Truth Values, and Expressing Propositions, in Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth, ed. G. Preyer and G. Peter, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 349-396. Penultimate version available here.
Against Truth-Value Gaps, in Liars and Heaps: New Essays on Paradox, ed. J. C. Beall, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 151-194. Penultimate version available here.
A Contextual-Hierarchical Approach to Truth and the Liar Paradox, Journal of Philosophical Logic 33 (2004): 27-88. Available from Kluwer. The penultimate version is available here.
Quantification and Realism, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69 (2004): 541-572. Available from Ingenta. The penultimate version is available here.
Truth, Disquotation, and Expression (On McGinn's Theory of Truth), Philosophical Studies 118 (2004): 413-423. Available from Kluwer. The penultimate version is available here.
Truth, Reflection, and Hierarchies, Synthese 142 (2004): 289-315. Available from Kluwer. The penultimate version is available here.
Minimalism and Paradoxes, Synthese 135 (2003): 13-36. Available from Kluwer. The penultimate version is available here.
Context and Discourse, Mind and Language 17 (2002): 333-375. Available from Blackwell. The penultimate version is available here.
The Liar in Context, Philosophical Studies 103 (2001): 217-251. Available from Kluwer. The penultimate version is available here.
Supervenience and Infinitary Logic, Nous 35 (2001): 419-439. Available from Blackwell. The penultimate version is available here.