Research

ERIC V. TRACY

Areas of Specialization: Areas of Competence:
Philosophy of Language Early Modern Philosophy
Philosophy of Mind History of Analytic Philosophy
Ethics Feminist Philosophy

Dissertation Description:

I argue that content-bearing relations ought to be explained in normative terms. I develop a particular view about the normative explanans of the content of concepts and the meanings of linguistic items, according to which the notion of a rule plays no critical role. Rather, the account centers around an objective notion of a norm which is not automatically coextensive with any social or psychological phenomenon. According to this view, general normative principles of inquiry, interest-grounded norms of communication, and moral norms are all potentially relevant to the determination of content. The central advantage of this approach is that it can explain anti-individualist data about the relevance of external, worldly and social factors to the determination of an agent's mental contents and linguistic meanings. I respond to recent challenges to the coupling of a normative theory of content and a truth-theoretic or reference-oriented semantics. I argue that my norm-based metasemantics avoids the kind of subjectivism at play in Brandom's and Gibbard's normative theories of meaning, and that it avoids the regress of rules lurking in rule-oriented treatments of the normativity of meaning. I further address the problem for a normative metasemantics that we seem to deploy bad meanings and concepts with bad essential inferences, conceptual connections, implications, etc., particularly slur terms. I show that there are viable strategies to bring to bear in explaining the sources of otherwise perverse content-determining norms like those distinctive of slur terms and principled ways of treating the apparent conflict with, for example, moral and epistemic norms. The required picture of the norms needed for an adequate metasemantic treatment of slurs shows the best way to develop the details of an objective norm-based metasemantic theory, involving an imperfect duties rather than perfect duties model of the relevant norms.

Berkeley and Wittgenstein - Skepticism, Language, and Metaphilosophy:

I have an ongoing secondary research project in the history of philosophy, concerning one relatively neglected history of views like expressivism in metaethics, particularly as they serve to assuage metaphysical and skeptical worries. Berkeley likely anticipated certain 'anti-realist' linguistic maneuvers from the 20th century, offering a more Wittgensteinian philosophy of language, metaphilosophy, and treatment of skepticism even than Hume's. Berkeley may also have anticipated the cognitivist strain of expressivism in philosophy of language, in his treatment of terms like algebraic terms and spiritual terms non-referentially, but none the worse for that with respect to truth, belief, or value. In that respect and others, Berkeley may offer a more plausible version of an anti-philosophical linguistic philosophy than Wittgenstein or the ordinary language philosophers.

(Please contact me for a Précis of this work.)

Publications

Unfollowed Rules and the Normativity of Content (Analytic Philosophy, 2019)
Kathrin Gluer-Pagin and Asa Wikforss argue that what they call content-determining normativism must be false, because any theory that holds that norms determine content is subject to a dilemma of regress and idleness. I argue that this dilemma does not show that content-determining normativism is false, but rather shows that it must reject a match between norms that apply to a thinker's usage and rules that the thinker follows. In essence, content-determining normativism is idle in the way that Gluer-Pagin and Wikforss contend, but in a way that is harmless for the theory, suitably developed in an objective direction.

Works in Progress (please e-mail to request a draft copy)

Unconventional Meanings (Under Review)
I argue that the core condition of conventionalism about meaning, that there be a regularity in the use of any meaningful expression, is false for a range of natural language expressions. This is true under a variety of interpretations of the regularities cited in the core conventionalist condition. If none of these regularities are necessary for meaningful language use, then conventionalism about meaning cannot be true.

Anti-Individualism and Metasemantics
I explain the problems that anti-individualism poses for constructing an adequate metasemantics for conceptual representation. I argue that a normative metasemantics can succeed where non-normative metasemantics fail in the light of anti-individualism. I explain how the resulting approach differs from more common arguments for the normativity of meaning and content associated with Kripke and Wittgenstein. I then take stock of the advantages and disadvantages of what I call an objective norm-based metasemantics over the rivals.

The Slur Problem for Normative Theories of Content
A normative theory of content, as it is usually conceived, requires that for any concept's individuating profile, there is a corresponding package of normative facts prescribing conformity with that profile for any thinker who possesses the concept. The clearest potential counterexample to this requirement is posed by slur terms and, on certain accounts, the concepts they express. I argue that even an objective norm-based metasemantics for concepts has the resources to explain slur concepts, despite the moral and epistemic badness of their canonical patterns of use.

Gibbard's Metatheory of Meaning
Allan Gibbard has recently developed a fascinating normative theory of meaning and content. He proposes a novel way of understanding and explaining the normative insights to be taken from Kripke's Wittgenstein. However, as I argue, Gibbard's own normative theory, to the extent that it can be interpreted as a genuine norm-based theory of content (and not, in Gibbard's terms, a "mere metatheory"), cannot fully explain the sorts of underdetermination of content by a thinker's internal states noted by Kripke and others. This is so both because of how Gibbard reframes the Kripkean data and because he relies on the subjective oughts of rationality to explain content in normative terms.

Isn't Ought Enough? Duties, Norms, and the Theory of Content
I argue that the model of content normativity given by the discussion resulting from what's become known as Kripke's "Simple Argument" from content to normativity is overly narrow. I show that there are other ways of construing the normative facts relevant to the constitution of intentional facts and content-bearing relations that are more plausible, chiefly what I call a "directed dispositions" model, which takes more the shape of imperfect rather than perfect duties. The model shows that we are not committed to the implausible construal of content normativity given by the standard universally quantified, detachable prescriptions directing particular types of behavior.

Intrusion and Interlocution: Oppression in Conceptual Structure
If there are moral facts about which concepts we ought to deploy, then we plausibly have obligations to manage our own conceptual repertoires. We do not seem to have much negative influence over our store of concepts. However, most foundational theories of content are designed, in part, to explain the dependence of one thinker's conceptual repertoires on others. This paper explores some of the normative issues that arise in light of our ability to influence others' conceptual repertoires, identifying this kind of influence as one element of what makes certain forms of hateful speech and propaganda peculiarly perverse.

Berkeley and Wittgenstein on Skepticism
I focus on Berkeley's discussion of skepticism as it related to his ideas concerning matter, bodies, and ordinary ontological categories in the Principles. Using Wittgenstein's treatment of Moorean anti-skepticism in On Certainty, along with Austin's and Stroud's discussions of linguistic responses to skepticism, as points of comparison, I argue that Berkeley both anticipated key aspects of their central moves and articulated a more plausible version than either. In doing so, I show how Berkeley's philosophy of language and mind led to a principled defense of common sense, but without relying on any particular theory of the meaning of epistemic terms.

Berkeley's Linguistic Philosophy
I construct an interpretation of Berkeley's critical metaphilosophy as it arises from his views about representation and his philosophy of language. I draw particular connections to Wittgenstein's metaphilosophy, though I argue that Berkeley's metaphysical emphasis signals the relative plausibility of his linguistic metaphilosophy as compared with Wittgenstein's. I focus on his discussion of "body" and "sameness" in the Principles and the Dialogues, respectively, to develop and refine these connections.

Anti-Realism, Expressivism, and Berkeley
As Flew observed, Berkeley's treatment of algebraic terms anticipates Wittgenstein's use theory of meaning. From this starting point, I build a case that Berkeley's thinking about language, philosophy, and metaphysics prefigured central moves in twentieth century philosophy of language, particularly those associated with expressivism and quasi-realism in metaethics, including those influenced by minimalism about truth. I contend that we ought to credit Berkeley alongside Wittgenstein as the originator of some of these central insights and theoretical possibilities inspiring anti-representationalist or anti-realist theories in the philosophy of language. This challenges the standard narrative according to which Hume is the primary originator of these moves in the philosophy of language.