Conference Agenda

Kripke (1980) argues that the reference of a name gets fixed to an entity by a baptism and can then be transmitted via chains of communication, provided that the speaker has the intention of preserving reference. An influential problem with this view is that there seem to be cases, such as the famous “Madagascar” case, where all of Kripke's requirements for reference-preservation are met, and yet the name switches its referent. Evans (1973) argues that such cases force us to move from a causal to a hybrid view of reference. Similarly, Michaelson (2021) proposes temporal externalism as a solution. We argue that the relevant cases can be dealt with without abandoning or modifying the Kripkean view. All we need is (i) the familiar distinction, due to Kripke (1977), between semantic reference and speaker reference (and the intentions that underlie them) and (ii) a counterfactual test that allows us to establish which of them has priority for the relevant speakers. This solution develops Kripke’s (1980: 163) idea that a present intention to refer can “override” an intention to preserve a distant link to the original usage of the name.

It is commonly held that Davidson’s truth-conditional theory of meaning cannot serve to characterize the concept of truth. The thought is that such a theory of meaning presupposes the concept of truth and, taking it as given, explains meaning in terms of it. This point is then used to argue further that one cannot be both a deflationist about truth and a truth-conditional theorist of meaning (Dummett, 1959; see also Horwich 1990, Gupta 1993, Brandom 2009).

I will argue that the commonly held view I have just sketched is radically misguided. Properly understood, a Davidsonian theory of meaning is equally explanatory of both truth and meaning, insofar as it makes precise the claim that neither notion is intelligible independently of the other. I will show that Dummett’s influential argument fails. And I will suggest that Davidsonian deflationism is not only possible, but also more promising than its deflationist alternatives.

Some philosophers argue that pure quotations can refer to different kinds of objects, including expressions, signs, pronunciations, concepts, and meanings (Washington 1992; Saka 1998; García-Carpintero 2003, 2017, 2018). In this paper, I criticise extant accounts of this feature of quotations (García-Carpintero 2017, 2018; Saka 1998, 2006; Gómez-Torrente 2011) and propose an original version of Davidson’s (1979) theory that accounts for it.

My proposal consists of two claims. First, a quotation is made up of (i) a demonstrative pronoun (surfacing as the quotation marks) and (ii) a truth-conditionally inert expression that is displayed to make itself, or an entity related to it, available for being referred to by the pronoun. Second, a quotation has a referent only relative to a linguistic context: the appropriate object of demonstration, and hence the referent of a quotation, is selected by the predicate in whose argument position the quotation occurs. I formally represent the predicate’s capacity of selecting a referent as a contextual restriction imposed by the predicate.

Additionally, I argue that my proposal allows me to defend a preliminary account of reports containing the so-called ‘quotative ‘be like’’, thus filling a significant gap in the philosophical and semantic literature on quotational contexts.

In this paper I argue that views according to which 'able' to is a gradable notion like 'tall' or 'open' face a dilemma. I argue further that the dilemma motivates an alternative view. According to this alternative, judgments involving the comparative 'more able' are better understood as judgments expressing comparative uncertainty about what we are able to do.