Kenneth A. Taylor

Sex, Breakfast, And Descriptus Interruptus

Utterances of (1) and (2) typically differ in temporal import. An utterance of (1) raises a “this morning” question. An utterance of (2) raises an “ever” question. The difference in felt temporal import clearly has something to do with the difference between our more or less shared breakfast eating practices and our more or less shared sexual practices. People tend to eat breakfast daily – though there are, of course, exceptions. People tend not to have sex daily – though here too there are exceptions. Moreover, people by and large mutually know these facts. The first goal of these remarks is to explain how our mutual knowledge of such shared practices influences the perceived temporal import of utterances like (1) and (2). The explanation is not terribly surprising, but this unsurprising explanation reveals something significant about the nature of the great divide between pragmatics and semantics. In particular, I’m going to argue that Grice got it pretty close to right. The explanation of this phenomenon, and certain others like it, turns out to be roughly, but still deeply Gricean. I say “roughly” Gricean because the account I offer does not entail that the difference in temporal import between (1) and (2) is a difference in conversational implicature strictly so-called. But for reasons that will become clear in due course, the explanation I offer even if not strictly Gricean is nonetheless deeply Gricean. Armed with our roughly but deeply Gricean understanding of this easy case, I turn to the somewhat more challenging and controversial case of incomplete definite descriptions. Imagine an utterance of:

How not to refute eliminative materialism

Abstract This paper examines and rejects some purported refutations of eliminative materialism in the philosophy of mind: a quasi‐transcendental argument due to Jackson and Pettit (1990) to the effect that folk psychology is “peculiarly unlikely” to be radically revised or eliminated in light of the developments of cognitive science and neuroscience; and (b) certain straight‐out transcendental arguments to the effect that eliminativism is somehow incoherent (Baker, 1987; Boghossian, 1990). It begins by clarifying the exact topology of the dialectical space in which debates between eliminativist and anti‐eliminativist ought to be framed. I claim that both proponents and opponents of eliminativism have been insufficiently attentive to the range of dialectical possibilities. Consequently, the debate has not, in fact, been framed within the correct dialectical setting. I then go onto to show how inattentiveness to the range of dialectical possibilities undermines both transcendental and quasi‐transcendental a...

Belief, information and semantic content: A naturalist's lament

Fred Dretske has recently developed what can be called an in formation-based theory of belief contents.1 We can distinguish three distinct components of this view. First, there is his naturalistic account of the information that p. Next, there is his account of the causal properties of the information that p. Finally, there is his argument that for at least simple de re perceptual beliefs what makes the belief that p the belief that p is that it is a structure which is developed to carry the information that p. In this essay, I attack the third component of this theory. In particular, I argue that Dretskes account of semantic content of simple de re perceptual beliefs can be shown to be in adequate.2 For it provides an inadequate explanation, I shall argue, of the possibility of false de re perceptual beliefs. I begin with a brief exposition of Dretskes account of informational content and his account of the causal properties of information. I point out several problems with these notions, but the objections raised at this stage concern matters of detail more than matters of principle. I then give a brief exposition of his account of the semantic content of de re perceptual beliefs and argue that it is inadequate. My argument proceeds as follows. I distinguish two sorts of links that can obtain between two concepts or between a concept and the states of a sensory receptor evidential links and semantic links and argue that any adequate theory of semantic content must provide a principled way of marking this distinction, on pain of providing an inadequate explanation or the possibility of false beliefs. I show that Dretskes theory provides us no principled way of making such a distinction. And I conclude that therefore Dretskes theory cannot adequately explain the possibility of false de re beliefs.

What in nature is the compulsion of reason

If reason is a real causal force,operative in some, but not all ofour cognition and conation, then itought to be possible to tell anaturalistic story that distinguishes themind which is moved byreason from the mind which is movedby forces other than reason.This essay proposes some steps towardthat end. I proceed by showingthat it is possible to reconcile certainemerging psychological ideasabout the causal powers of themind/brain with a venerablephilosophical vision of reason as the facultyof norms. My accountof reason is psychologistic, social, and consistent with anevolutionary approach to mind. The account preserves thenormativity by deflating it. But I argue that onlysuch deflated normativity has any chance of beingmade naturalistically respectable.

Representing Representations: The Priority of the De Re

We glide easily from thought and talk about worldly objects to thought and talk about the contents of our beliefs about such worldly objects all the time. Smith ask Jones about the whereabouts of their pet cat and on the basis of Jones’s assertion that the cat is on the mat, Smith comes to believe that the cat is on the mat. Black in turn may ascribe to Smith the belief that the cat is on the mat. Such transitions from thought and talk about worldly objects to thought and talk about states of mind are so familiar to us as to seem second nature. But there is a long-standing philosophical tradition, originating with Frege, but endorsed by philosophers with otherwise varying philosophical outlooks, which makes the very possibility of such transitions puzzling. That tradition assumes that in making at least certain attitude ascriptions – so-called de dicto or “notionally sensitive” ascriptions -- speakers refer to, describe, quantify over, or somehow pragmatically implicate the notions, representations, or modes of presentations that plausibly figure as constituents of our mental contents -- either to the exclusion of the worldly objects themselves or in addition to those objects. Such attitude ascriptions are widely taken to be the primary or unmarked case of an attitude ascription. But it is seldom acknowledged that twin facts that (a) on this approach worldly objects will relate to the representational items that supposedly serve as ingredients of thought content in a one-many fashion and (b) there is no automatic way “back-up” from worldly objects to modes of presentation thereof together generate a mystery about how possibly we are able execute transitions from thought and talk about worldly objects to thought and talk about representational states of mind. It is argued in this essay that the way around this mystery is to see that de re, rather than de dicto ascriptions are the unmarked form of attitude ascription and that our representations of mental contents are parasitic on our representations of worldly objects. That is, we talk about the contents of our states of mind not by adverting, in the first instance, to talk about peculiarly mental or representational entities like notions or modes of presentations, but primarily by talking about worldly entities themselves. That is, to attribute to another the belief that the cat is on the mat, one need not refer to modes of presentations, or their ilk, of said cat or said mat, but only to the relevant cat and the relevant mat.