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 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.
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 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 Project- 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.
(If you are interested, please contact me for a Précis of this work.)
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.
(If you are interested, please contact me for a Précis of this work.)