Monday, June 09, 2008

Norman Malcolm, "Defending Common Sense"

Moore's reply to the skeptic, to simply claim that he knows that this is a hand, or that he knows he is a human being, is mistaken because it assumes that saying "I know this is a hand" or "I know I am a human being" makes more sense than "I don't know this is a hand" or "I don't know I'm a human being". The proper response to the skeptic is to say that neither the assertion nor the denial that one knows that this is a hand makes sense (in a philosophical context).

Friday, June 06, 2008

John R. Searle, "Austin on Locutionary and Illocutionary Acts"

The distinction between locutionary acts (or, more specifically, rhetic acts) and illocutionary acts cannot be sustained. There are locutionary acts like "I hereby promise to come", which in virtue of meaning what they do, perform an illocutionary act. The locutionary act should be replaced with the propositional act, which is the expression of a certain proposition.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Howard Wettstein, "Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake?"

Frege's criterion of adequacy for semantic theory is that it register differences of cognitive significance. New theories of reference do not meet Frege's criterion of adequacy, and attempts by new theorists like Kaplan and Perry to satisfy the criterion by employing "character" or "role" fail to do justice to Frege's data. The proper response for new theorists of reference is to reject Frege's criterion of adequacy. Belief reports do not favor either Fregeans or new theorists.

Jerry A. Fodor, "On Knowing What We Would Say"

Speaker intuitions in cases where they are asked to imagine cases radically different from what we know to be the case are systematically unreliable, because it isn't possible to predict what other beliefs would change given change in some of our basic beliefs. That means it isn't possible to cite speakers' intuitions to isolate a difference between a mere empirical feature of the meaning of an expression (a "symptom") and a "logical" feature of the meaning of an expression (one the absence of which would entail a change in the meaning of the expression--a "criterion").

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Warren Goldfarb, "I Want You to Bring Me A Slab: Remarks on the Opening Sections of the Philosophical Investigations"

The opening sections of the Investigations aim to reveal a groundless and usually unnoticed move from commonplace observations about meaning to the beginning of philosophical debates about theories of meaning. "Wittgenstein wishes to snap such debates off before they begin by showing at the start that we have misread the facts" (p. 280).