A book I have edited, New Essays on Singular Thought, is currently in press and due out in 2010 through Oxford University Press.

I am currently finishing the last chapters of a book, Singular Thought, which brings together and extends my previous work advancing a novel theory of singular thought that I call Cognitivism.

I have lately been doing research on the perceptual representation of objects, including cross-modal representation, the representation of space and directionality and its relation to egocentric anchoring and perspective-taking, and the representation of events and time. I am particularly interested in the ways that we use language in these various types of mental representation.

Selected Publications

Singular Thought: Acquaintance, Semantic Instrumentalism, and Cognitivism
Forthcoming in New Essays on Singular Thought, Robin Jeshion, ed. Oxford University Press (2010).

NOTE: This paper is in press, but not yet published. Please do not cite without permission.

Here I clarify three positions about conditions on singular thought, offering an intuitive but theoretically supported case against Acquaintance theories and Semantic Instrumentalism (the view that one can produce singular thoughts at will by introducing into the language descriptively-fixed directly referential terms). The bulk of the paper is devoted to articulating how my own view, Cognitivism, differs from Semantic Instrumentalism, and what I see as its main problems, which differ from criticisms of others. I begin to underwrite Cognitivism with empirical support from vision science and object file theory.

 

The Significance of Names
Forthcoming in Mind and Language, August 2009, vol. 24, no. 4, 372-405.

NOTE: These are the page proofs, which required numerous not-insignificant changes. Please check with publisher for final version.

I argue in favor of a thesis -- mundane to non-philosophers, neglected by philosophers: as a class of terms and mental representations, proper names and mental names possess an important function that outstrips their semantic and psycho-semantic functions as common, rigid devices of direct reference and singular mental representation of their referents, respectively. They also function as abstract linguistic markers that signal and underscore their referents' individuality. I promote this thesis to explain why we give proper names to certain particulars but not to others; to account for the transfer of singular thought via communication with proper names; and, more generally, to support a cognitivist, not acquaintance or instrumentalist, theory of singular thought.

 

Experience as a Natural Kind
In What Place for the A Priori?, Michael Shaffer and Michael Veber, eds., Open Court (2009).

Are there distinct experiential and non-experiential sources of knowledge about the world? Historically, rationalists have answered affirmatively while empiricists have maintained that there are no non-experiential sources of such knowledge. One way to go about ending the stalemate between empiricists and rationalists is to engage in an empirical investigation tof he nature of experience, understanding "experience" as a natural kind term. Here I offer reasons to be skeptical of this proposal by Casullo.

 

Seeing What is There
In John Searle's Philosophy of Language: Force, Meaning, and Thought, Savas Tsohatzidis, ed. Cambridge University Press (2007), 79-101.
Penultimate Version

When you see an object, you see it as "there", as occupying a certain spatial location. So theories of the content of visual experience ought to incorporate the perceived spatial location of its objects. Here I argue that this simple feature of the content of perceptual experience presents serious problems for Searle's analysis of the intentionality of perception. The overarching problem is that without reliance on direct reference to individuals or locations in the external world, his analysis, aiming to preserve internalism, Fregeanism, and naïve realism, is too weak to solve the particularity objection. I suggest at the end that any single-anchored theory like Searle's will be too weak in just this way. If such a result could be nailed down (and I am currently working at a general argument in its favor), it would constitute a new, very different argument in favor of direct reference. It would show not only that we do, but also that we must, directly refer to the external world.

 

Soames on Descriptive Reference-Fixing
Philosophical Issues, Nous Supplement, 16:1 (2006), 120-140.
Uncorrected proofs: please check published piece.

Here I critically analyze the Soames-Kripke reductio ad absurdum argument against Semantic Instrumentalism. I argue that their argument is unsound because an argument with the same structure, generating the same odd consequences, can be constructed for ostensive names. Their argument reveals no serious problem for the idea that we can think of individuals singularly by thinking of them with descriptive names. It only reveals that odd consequences can ensue when acts of reference-fixing (descriptive or ostensive) are routed through false knowledge-which-beliefs. I also address and present problems for Soames's proposal that descriptive names possess semantic descriptive content.

 

The Identity of Indiscernibles and the Co-location Problem
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 87:2 (2006), 163-176.
Penultimate Draft

The Identity of Indiscernibles is the principle that there cannot be two individual things in nature that are qualitatively identical. The principle is not exactly popular. Michael Della Rocca tries to resurrect it by arguing that we must accept this principle, for otherwise we cannot explain the impossibility of completely overlapping indiscernible objects of the same kind that share all their parts and exist in the same place at the same.  I try to show that his argument goes wrong: we need not embrace the identity of indiscernibles to deal with the co-location problem.

 

Descriptive Descriptive Names
In Descriptions and Beyond, Marga Reimer and Anne Bezuidenhout eds. Oxford University Press (2004), 591-613.
Penultimate Draft

Descriptive names like 'Jack-the-Ripper' and 'Neptune' are names whose reference was fixed exclusively with an attributive use of a definite description. Philosophers typically regard such names as rare in natural language but capable of being introduced at will -- phenomena that we should examine in the interest of completeness, but which can shed no light on a general analysis of how we refer and think with names. Here I argue that this attitude is misguided. I do so by critically examining an influential analysis of descriptive names whereby descriptive names are synonymous with the rigidified descriptions used to fix their reference, arguing that this view is untenable. I suggest that appreciating the prevalence of descriptive names and constraints on their introduction primes us to reject the widely embraced acquaintance condition on de re thought.

 

Frege: Evidence for Self-evidence
Mind, 113:449 (2004), 131-138.
Reprinted in Michael Beaney and Erich H. Reck, eds. Gottlob Frege: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, volume II, New York: Routledge, (2005).
A follow-up to "Frege's Notions of Self-Evidence", clarifying some of its theses and responding to criticism from Joan Weiner in her "What Was Frege Trying to Prove: A Response to Jeshion" in Mind, 113, 2004.

 

The Epistemological Argument Against Descriptivism
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 64: 2 (2002), 325-345.

The epistemological argument against descriptivism about proper names is extremely simple. For a proper name 'N' and definite description 'F', the proposition expressed by 'If N exists, then N is F' is not normally known a priori. Descriptivism about proper names entails otherwise. So descriptivism is false. The argument is widely regarded as sound, and it is important to the direct reference theorist because the modal argument is impotent against rigidified descriptive theories and the semantic argument runs into difficulties with causal rigidified descriptive theories. Here I argue that the epistemological argument is highly unstable. The fundamental problem with the argument is that there seems to be no convincing rationale for the first premise that is independent of a view about the nature of the proposition expressed by the sentence 'If N exists, then N is F'.

 

Acquaintanceless De Re Belief
In Meaning and Truth: Investigations in Philosophical Semantics, Campbell, O'Rourke, and Shier eds., Seven Bridges Press (2002), 53-78.

At least since Russell, there is widespread consensus that for an agent to have a de re belief about some object, that agent must be acquainted with that object. Here I start to make the case for rejecting the acquaintance condition on de re belief, by offering a rudimentary analysis of how it is possible to have a de re belief about a concrete object with which one is unacquainted. The key idea is that acquaintanceless cases are parasitic on canonical perceptual acquaintance cases, and can be de re precisely because they play the same role in cognition as the canonical perceptual de re beliefs. What ties them together is the function of proper names in thought. Mentally tokening a name is sufficient for having a de re belief about the named object.

 

Frege's Notions of Self-Evidence
Mind, 110:440 (2001), 937-976.
Reprinted in Michael Beaney and Erich H. Reck, eds. Gottlob Frege: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, volume II, Routledge, 2005.

Here I address the historical question of why Frege was motivated to establish logicism. I argue  that an adequate answer needs to take seriously Frege's claims that axioms must be self-evident. I offer an interpretation of his appeals to self-evidence and use it to show that Frege had a motivation for establishing logicism that has roots in the Euclidean rationalist tradition. My view is that there are two distinct notions translated "self-evident". One notion is that of a truth being foundationally secure yet not grounded on any other truth. The second notion is that of a truth that requires only clearly grasping it for rational a priori justified recognition of its truth. Both are needed to understand how Frege construes ultimate foundational truths, why he thought the propositions of arithmetic required proof, and his methodology for discovering and identifying such proofs. More specifically, Frege required that axioms be self-evident in both senses and that he relied on judging propositions to be self-evident as part of his fallibilist rationalist method for identifying a foundation of arithmetic.

 

Donnellan on Neptune
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 63:1 (2001), 111-135.

In an influential paper, Donnellan argued that while one can fix the reference of a name with a definite description, one cannot thereby have a de re belief about the named object. All that is generated is meta-linguistic knowledge that the sentence "If there is a unique F, then N is the F" is true. Here I argue that his argument is unsound and that his position about the reference-fixer's lack of de re belief is unstable insofar as it conflicts with a compelling thesis about the relationship between semantic content and linguistic understanding.

 

Ways of Taking a Meter
Philosophical Studies, 99:3 (2000), 297-318.

Here I address the so-called problem of the contingent a priori. I offer a general characterization of the problem, arguing that it is not in fact about the possibility of knowing contingent truths apriori, but rather concerns whether descriptive reference-fixing puts the reference-fixer in a special epistemic position to attain non-inferential, experiential knowledge of the relevant proposition. I offer a partial solution to it addressing the epistemological question of how a reference-fixer whose belief is de re can be non-inferentially a priori justified in that belief.

 

On the Obvious
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60:2 (2000), 333-355.

Infallibilism about a priori justification is the thesis that for one to be a priori justified in believing p, that which justifies one belief that p must guarantee the truth of p. Historically, rationalists and empiricists alike embraced the thesis. It enjoys considerable, though less universal support today. Here I argue that the most promising contemporary arguments against infallibilism fail because they underestimate its strength and prima facie plausibility. I then present an argument that infallibilism is not merely overly strong but rather unsustainable. My argument attempts to provide a theoretical understanding why we must be a priori justified in believing some false propositions. By developing notions of obviousness and conceptual understanding, I try to show that infallibilism fails because it regards as unjustified the very reasoning with one's best conceptual understanding that is necessary for attaining correct conceptual knowledge.

 

Proof Checking and Knowledge by Intellection
Philosophical Studies 92, (1998), 85-112.

Hume argued that in order to rationally accept the conclusion of a demonstrative proof, each step in the proof must be checked.  He used this checking requirement to try to establish that knowledge based on proof is epistemically no different from all other knowledge.  Several contemporary philosophers have developed the Humean checking requirement in attempting to establish that knowledge based on proof must be empirical. Here I explicate the epistemic function of proof checking and argue that it contributes to showing why these empiricist arguments are unsound and, moreover, why demonstrative reasoning through a proof normally provides a priori justification sufficient for knowing the derived theorem. The argument concludes with commentary on the significance of self-knowledge to demonstrative reasoning.