Description
Book SynopsisIllustrates the significance of linguistic concerns for a broad range of philosophical topics - including the relationship between language and thought; the objects of belief, assertion, and other propositional attitudes; the distinction between metaphysical and epistemic possibility; and, the nature of necessity, actuality, and possible worlds.
Trade Review"The wealth of ideas contained within this volume moves the philosophical conversation well forward with originality, high-level criticism, and exhaustive thoroughness. This work is so thick with detail that only a thin layer of the surface could be presented here; yet, hopefully, these samples paint an accurate picture of what is a precise, technical, and surgery-like analysis contribution to the contemporary conversation about the philosophical significance of language."--Austin Ward, Dialogue
Table of ContentsThe Origins of These Essays ix Introduction 1 Part One: Reference, Propositions, and Propositional Attitudes 31 Essay One: Direct Reference, Propositional Attitudes, and Semantic Content 33 Essay Two: Why Propositions Can't Be Sets of Truth-Supporting Circumstances 72 Essay Three: Belief and Mental Representation 81 Essay Four: Attitudes and Anaphora 111 Part Two: Modality 137 Essay Five: The Modal Argument: Wide Scope and Rigidified Descriptions 139 Essay Six: The Philosophical Significance of the Kripkean Necessary A Posteriori 165 Essay Seven: Knowledge of Manifest Natural Kinds 189 Essay Eight: Understanding Assertion 211 Essay Nine: Ambitious Two-Dimensionalism 243 Essay Ten: Actually 277 Part Three: Truth and Vagueness 301 Essay Eleven: What Is a Theory of Truth? 303 Essay Twelve: Understanding Deflationism 323 Essay Thirteen: Higher-Order Vagueness for Partially Defined Predicates 340 Essay Fourteen: The Possibility of Partial Definition 362 Part Four: Kripke, Wittgenstein, and Following a Rule 383 Essay Fifteen: Skepticism about Meaning: Indeterminacy, Normativity, and the Rule-Following Paradox 385 Essay Sixteen: Facts, Truth Conditions, and the Skeptical Solution to the Rule-Following Paradox 416 Index 457
