Do You Take Cognition-Enhancing Drugs?

One of my neuroscience teachers explained to us how wonderful Modafinil is:  it keeps you awake and fully concentrated for hours and hours, without apparent side effects.  Modafinil is ostensively a drug prescribed for narcolepsy, but it’s clear that many people use it simply to stay awake and work.  Given …

Will You Share Your Semantic Intuitions?

I’m working on the semantics of so called ’empty names’ (names without a referent).  I’d like to know your semantic intuitions about the following:(1) Santa Claus brings presents to children.(2) Santa Claus is fat.(3) Santa Claus is skinny.(4) Mickey Mouse is a mouse.(5) Mickey Mouse is a donkey.(6) Santa Claus …

Pragmatic Millianism and the Accessibility of What Is Said

As I explained, “pragmatic Millians” such as Ken Taylor and Fred Adams et al. explains our semantic intuitions about sentences containing empty names by distinguishing between what is said and what is implicated (in Grice’s sense) by such sentences.  In their view, although what is said is a gappy proposition, which is …

Millianism and the Metaphysics of Propositions

The dominant view about the semantics of proper names is probably Millianism.  According to Millianism, the meaning (i.e., semantic value) of proper names is just their referent.  Most Millians cash out their view in terms of singular Russellian propositions.  (A Russellian proposition is an ordered tuple containing the objects and properties …

Italy’s Malaise

The NY Times has an insightful article describing Italians’ current unhappiness with themselves and their country.  They see Italy declining, but they don’t see any way to stop the decline.In the 1990s Italians had an opportunity to go in a different direction.  There were a number of ballot measures (“referendums”) that would have …

Back to Top