BOOK:

Necessary Intentionality: A Study in the Metaphysics of Aboutness (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012).

ARTICLES:

"Token-Reflexivity", forthcoming in the Journal of Philosophy.

ABSTRACT: Token-reflexivity is reference of a token to a token of which it is a part, proper or not.  It may be compared with its familiar formal kin – Gödelian reflexivity.  In this paper the possibility of the latter type of construction in a formal setting provides a stark point of contrast with token-reflexivity understood as token self-reference, a purported species of natural phenomena, with the token-reflexives themselves understood as the bearers of self-reference.  I argue that there is no token-reflexivity thus understood, and so, no token-reflexives.  The case provides a particularly useful background against which to discuss the centrality of conditions of production – as opposed to conditions of consumption – in the study of natural language.

"Necessity in Reference", forthcoming in Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O’Rourke, and Harry S. Silverstein (eds.), Reference and Referring (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).

ABSTRACT:  I take up a question raised by David Kaplan at the very end of his 1990 paper "Words": Is it possible for a name that in fact names a given individual to have named a different individual?  I argue for a negative answer to Kaplan's question via the essentialist claims that, first, it is of the nature of a referring token of a name to be produced by a particular referential intention, and, second, that it is of the nature of a referential intention to specify the particular thing it specifies. 

"Polyadic Quantification Via Denoting Concepts", Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 51(2010), 373-381.

ABSTRACT:  The question of the origin of polyadic expressivity is explored and the results are brought to bear on Bertrand Russell’s 1903 theory of denoting concepts, which is the main object of criticism in Russell’s ‘On Denoting’.  It is shown that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the background ontology of the earlier theory of denoting enables the full-blown expressive power of first-order polyadic quantification theory without any syntactic accommodation of scopal differences among denoting phrases such as ‘all Ø’, ‘every Ø’, and ‘any Ø’ on the one hand, and ‘some Ø’ and ‘a Ø’ on the other.  The case provides an especially vivid illustration of the general point that structural (or ideological) austerity can be paid for in the coin of ontological extravagance.

"Metasemantics and Objectivity", Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy 2(2007), 215–234.

ABSTRACT: I argue that the most plausible metasemantics for a typical common noun provides materials for a transcendental argument for objectivity: the very possibility that a typical common noun should have its significance requires that there be an objective measure of similarity among instances of the relevant kind.

"Actualist Essentialism and General Possibilities", Journal of Philosophy 103(2006), 5–26. [Courtesy of JPhil]

ABSTRACT:  Particular possibilities – such as that this particular chair occupy the only vacant corner of my office – are commonly supposed to depend on what actual things there are and what they are like, whereas general possibilities – such as that some chair or other occupy some vacant corner or other of some office or other – are commonly supposed not to be so dependent.  I articulate a different conception whereby general possibilities are no less determined by what actual things there are and what they are like than particular possibilities.  Ramifications of this approach are highlighted and brought to bear on a problem often raised for actualist essentialism.

"On the Impossibility of Nonactual Epistemic Possibilities", Journal of Philosophy 101(2004), 527–54.
[Courtesy of JPhil]

ABSTRACT:  A problem inherited from Kripke is the reconciliation of commitments to various necessities with conflicting intuitions of contingency, intuitions that things ‘might have turned out otherwise’, Kripke’s reconciliation strategy is to say that while it is necessary that X is Y, and so impossible for X not to be Y, it is nevertheless epistemically possible for X not to be Y.  But what are nonactual epistemic possibilities? Several answers are considered and it is concluded that scenarios adduced to explain away the target intuitions are either themselves impossible, or not fully coherent, or not epistemic in the relevant sense.

"Meaningfulness and Contingent Analyticity", Noûs 37(2003), 278–302.

ABSTRACT:  That expressions should have their contents can seem paradigmatically contingent. But it can also seem a priori that expressions in one’s own language should have their contents to the extent that instances of disquotation, such as ‘”Socrates” refers to Socrates’ and ‘”cat” refers to cats’, are trivially true.  I attempt to reconcile these conflicting intuitions about meaningfulness by examining semantic and metasemantic details of linguistic reflexivity.  I argue that instances of disquotation are contingent analytic in Kaplan’s sense, and bring this lesson to bear on semantic strategies for responding to skepticism, such as Putnam’s Brains-in-a-Vat argument.

"'Law'" (with Jules Coleman), Legal Theory 9(2003), 1–41.

"Rules and Mention", Philosophical Quarterly 51(2001), 455–73.

ABSTRACT:  Lewis Carroll’s well-known parable ‘What the Tortoise Said to Achilles’ gives rise to a recalcitrant and general form of normative skepticism.  I argue that the skeptical position inspired by the story is indeed a distinct form of skepticism, engendered by refusal to recognize that any rule reflected upon may possibly retaining its action-guiding force.  I show that the skeptic’s attitude builds upon the familiar fact that our reflection upon sources of psychological influence on us may loosen their grip by affording us reflective distance.  I conclude by showing how the equally familiar phenomenon that reflection upon a rule does not automatically drain it of its force can be exploited in a satisfactory response to the skeptic.

"Quotational Mixing of Use and Mention", Philosophical Quarterly 49(1999), 325–36.

ABSTRACT:  Quotation is employed in mentioning linguistic items with varying degrees of specificity depending upon context, occasionally in the service of multiple purposes. It is also often employed in cases where the mentioned items are simultaneously being used in their ordinary roles.  I argue that against appearances to the contrary, the recently proposed formal disambiguation approach to quotation fails to account for this quotational mixing of use and mention.  I further argue that, given the ubiquity of the mixing in question, the demonstrative theory, in its ability to accommodate such cases, fares better than its rivals.