Mark Textor
Biographic Data
| ID | 1027157 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mark Textor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mark |
| FAMILY NAME | Textor |
| SIGNATURE | TEXTOR M |
| AFFILIATIONS | King's College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8419-6949 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Literal and metaphorical meaning: In search of a lost distinction
The distinction between literal and figurative use is well-known and embedded in ‘folk linguistics’. According to folk linguistics, figurative uses deviate from literal ones. But recent work on lexical modulation and polysemy shows that meaning deviation is ubiquitous, even in cases of literal use. Hence, it has been argued, the literal/figurative distinction has no value for theorising about communication. In this paper, we focus on metaphor and…
Mine Before Me: Lotze On Self-Consciousness and Self-Feeling
The philosopher and psychologist Hermann Lotze (1817-1881) developed an original view of self-consciousness. He opposed Kant’s and Fichte’s treatments of self-consciousness as a purely epistemic phenomenon. According to Lotze, self-consciousness constitutively involves feeling. This paper will provide a reconstruction of Lotze’s under-researched affective theory of self-consciousness and address its main problems. I will argue that the modified L…
“How to disappear completely”: Responses to commentators
I am grateful to all symposiasts for their thoughtful contributions which raise fruitful questions and problems. I will not be able to respond to all queries and challenges; I will select those that can be answered within the space assigned for the response
Moods: From diffusiveness to dispositionality
The view that moods are dispositions has recently fallen into disrepute. In this paper, we want to revitalise it by providing a new argument for it and by disarming an important objection against it. A shared assumption of our competitors (intentionalists about moods) is that moods are ‘diffuse’. First, we will provide reasons for thinking that existing intentionalist views do not in fact capture this distinctive feature of moods that distinguish…
Don't Stare, Compare! Lotze on Attention
Nineteenth century treatments of attention often argued that analysis (attention singles out an object) and synthesis (attention unifies some objects) are inseparable aspects of this activity. Subsequent philosophical work on attention concentrated on the analytic aspect and exploited William James's characterisation of attention as focussing on one object among others . The aim of this paper is to give a more balanced account of the history of p…
Acquaintance, presentation and judgement: From Brentano to Russell and back again
The notion of acquaintance is one of the pillars of Russell’s philosophy and it remains at the center of work in the philosophy of mind and language. Russell’s development of his theory of acquaintance was influenced by Brentano and Meinong. In this paper I will trace this Austrian Influence on the development of Russell’s theory of acquaintance through two phases; one before and one after Russell introduced the multiple relation theory of judgem…
Attitudinal evaluation, emotion, and the will
That’s correct! Brentano on intuitive judgement
Philosophers have long tried to articulate the specific epistemic status of judgements that neither need nor admit of justification by drawing on the metaphor of ‘the light of truth’. In contrast, in Brentano's account of intuitive judgement correctness is central: intuitive or immediately evident judgements are ‘characterized as correct (right)’. The aim of my paper is to introduce and explore Brentano’s correctness-based view. I will conclude b…
Deeper into Brentano’s mind: Response to critics
Laura Gow, Uriah Kriegel, Hamid Taieb, and David Woodruff Smith raised help – and insightful points of criticism about my book Brentano’s Mind. In this paper, I will defend and expand on the main claims of the book. My responses are organized around four topics: Psychology without a Soul, Plural Intentionality (and Conceptual Parts), Intentionality and Intentionality Primitivism, Mark of Mental
Tolerating Sense Variation
Frege famously claimed that variations in the sense of a proper name can sometimes be ‘tolerated’. In this paper, we offer a novel explanation of this puzzling claim. Frege, we argue, follows Trendelenburg in holding that we think in language—sometimes individually and sometimes together. Variations in sense can be tolerated in just those cases where we are using language to coordinate our actions but are not engaged in thinking together about an…
Names and Context: A Use-Sensitive Philosophical Account
Dolf Rami contributes to contemporary debates about the meaning and reference of proper names by providing an overview of the main challenges and developing a new contextualist account of names. Questions about the use and semantic features of proper names are at the centre of philosophy of language. How does a single proper name refer to the same thing in different contexts of use? What makes a thing a bearer of a proper name? What is their mean…
Lotze on Comparison and the Unity of Consciousness
Hermann Lotze argued that the fact that consciousness simultaneously “holds objects together as well as apart” such that they can be compared implies (a) that there is a simple thinker and (b) that consciousness is an ‘indivisible unity.’ I offer a reconstruction and evaluation of Lotze’s Argument from Comparison. I contend that it does not deliver (a) but makes a good case for (b). I will relate Lotze’s argument to the contemporary debate betwee…
Saying Something about a Concept: Frege on Statements of Number
The paper gives a historically informed reconstruction of Frege's view of statements of number. The reconstruction supports Frege's claim that a statement can be 'about a concept' although it does not contain a singular term referring to the concept. Hence, Frege's philosophy of number is not subject to the problems Frege sees for singular reference to concepts
‘The Nature of the Question Demands a Separation’: Frege on Distinguishing between Content and Force
Recently, the content/force distinction has had a bad press. It has been argued that the distinction is not properly motivated and that it makes the problem of the unity of the proposition intractable. I will argue that Frege’s version of the content/force distinction is immune from these objections. In order to do so, I will reconstruct his argument that ‘the nature of a question’ requires a distinction between force and content. I will answer t…
Stumpf between criticism and psychologism: Introducing “Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie”
It is well known that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Brentano school interacted fruitfully with early analytic philosophy: the Russell-Meinong debate is a paradigm example
Carl Stumpf, “Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie”
This article is related to:Stumpf between criticism and psychologism: introducing “Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie”
Knowledge and the Philosophy of Number: What Numbers Are and How They Are Known
If numbers were objects, how could there be human knowledge of number? Numbers are not physical objects: must we conclude that we have a mysterious power of perceiving the abstract realm? Or should we instead conclude that numbers are fictions? This book argues that numbers are not objects: they are magnitude properties. Properties are not fictions and we certainly have scientific knowledge of them. Much is already known about magnitude propertie…
Frege’s recognition criterion for thoughts and its problems
According to Frege, we need a criterion for recognising when different sentences express the same thought to make progress in logic. He himself hedged his own equipollence criterion with a number of provisos. In the literature on Frege, little attention has been paid to the problems these provisos raise. In this paper, I will argue that Fregeans have ignored these provisos at their peril. For without these provisos, Frege’s criterion yields wrong…
Brentano's Empiricism and the Philosophy of Intentionality
Brentano's Thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental is central to analytic philosophy of mind as well as phenomenology. The contemporary discussion assumes that it is a formulation of an analytic definition of the mental. I argue that this assumption is mistaken. According to Brentano, many philosophical concepts can only be elucidated by perceiving their instances because these concepts are abstracted from perception. The concept of …
Brentano's Mind
"Mark Textor presents a critical study of the work of Franz Brentano, one of the most important thinkers of the 19th century. His work has influenced analytic philosophers like Russell as well as phenomenologists like Husserl and Sartre, and continues to shape debates in the philosophy of mind. Brentano made intentionality a central topic in the philosophy of mind by proposing that 'directedness' is the distinctive feature of the mental."--Book j…
Vacuous Names in Early Analytic Philosophy: Frege, Russell, and Moore
Empty proper names give rise to intriguing questions. Frege, Moore and Russell stand at the beginning of analytic philosophy's engagement with these questions. In this paper I will therefore introduce and assess their views on the topic of empty names and draw connections to recent work
Truth-values and abstraction
Secondo Frege, ogni asserto denota - se denota qualcosa - uno fra due oggetti: il Vero o il Falso. Ci sono buone ragioni per credere nell’esistenza di questi oggetti, i valori di verita? Queste domande hanno tormentato gli studiosi di Frege per tanto tempo. Una risposta che a prima vista sembra attraente e che i valori di verita sono, come gli altri oggetti logici, introdotti per astrazione. In questo saggio l’autore discute e alla fine refuta qu…
From Logic to Art: Themes from Nelson Goodman
Frege's Concept Paradox and the Mirroring Principle
Frege held that singular terms can refer only to objects, not to concepts. I argue that the counter‐intuitive consequences of this claim (‘the concept paradox’) arise from Frege's mirroring principle that an incomplete expression can only express an incomplete sense and stand for an incomplete reference. This is not, as is sometimes thought, merely because predicates and singular terms cannot be intersubstituted salva veritate (congruitate). The …
Proper Names and Practices: On Reference without Referents 1
Frege’s recognition criterion for thoughts and its problems
According to Frege, we need a criterion for recognising when different sentences express the same thought to make progress in logic. He himself hedged his own equipollence criterion with a number of provisos. In the literature on Frege, little attention has been paid to the problems these provisos raise. In this paper, I will argue that Fregeans have ignored these provisos at their peril. For without these provisos, Frege’s criterion yields wrong…
A repair of Frege’s theory of thoughts
Portraying’ a Proposition 1
Hector‐Neri Castaüeda claimed in several papers that a proposition expressed by an indexical sentence (in a context of utterance) can be re‐expressed by means of an oratio obliqua clause (in a sentential context) that contains a quasi‐indicator. Robert M. Adams and Rogers Albritton have presented a counter‐argument that is accepted by Castaüeda himself. I will argue that the Adams/Albritton argument is not convincing: The argument uses several as…
Portraying' a Proposition
Truth via Sentential Quantification
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A repair of Frege’s theory of thoughts
Frege's Concept Paradox and the Mirroring Principle
Frege held that singular terms can refer only to objects, not to concepts. I argue that the counter‐intuitive consequences of this claim (‘the concept paradox’) arise from Frege's mirroring principle that an incomplete expression can only express an incomplete sense and stand for an incomplete reference. This is not, as is sometimes thought, merely because predicates and singular terms cannot be intersubstituted salva veritate (congruitate). The …
Proper Names and Practices: On Reference without Referents 1
From Logic to Art: Themes from Nelson Goodman
Truth-values and abstraction
Secondo Frege, ogni asserto denota - se denota qualcosa - uno fra due oggetti: il Vero o il Falso. Ci sono buone ragioni per credere nell’esistenza di questi oggetti, i valori di verita? Queste domande hanno tormentato gli studiosi di Frege per tanto tempo. Una risposta che a prima vista sembra attraente e che i valori di verita sono, come gli altri oggetti logici, introdotti per astrazione. In questo saggio l’autore discute e alla fine refuta qu…
Vacuous Names in Early Analytic Philosophy: Frege, Russell, and Moore
Empty proper names give rise to intriguing questions. Frege, Moore and Russell stand at the beginning of analytic philosophy's engagement with these questions. In this paper I will therefore introduce and assess their views on the topic of empty names and draw connections to recent work
Brentano's Empiricism and the Philosophy of Intentionality
Brentano's Thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental is central to analytic philosophy of mind as well as phenomenology. The contemporary discussion assumes that it is a formulation of an analytic definition of the mental. I argue that this assumption is mistaken. According to Brentano, many philosophical concepts can only be elucidated by perceiving their instances because these concepts are abstracted from perception. The concept of …
Brentano's Mind
"Mark Textor presents a critical study of the work of Franz Brentano, one of the most important thinkers of the 19th century. His work has influenced analytic philosophers like Russell as well as phenomenologists like Husserl and Sartre, and continues to shape debates in the philosophy of mind. Brentano made intentionality a central topic in the philosophy of mind by proposing that 'directedness' is the distinctive feature of the mental."--Book j…
Frege’s recognition criterion for thoughts and its problems
According to Frege, we need a criterion for recognising when different sentences express the same thought to make progress in logic. He himself hedged his own equipollence criterion with a number of provisos. In the literature on Frege, little attention has been paid to the problems these provisos raise. In this paper, I will argue that Fregeans have ignored these provisos at their peril. For without these provisos, Frege’s criterion yields wrong…
Stumpf between criticism and psychologism: Introducing “Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie”
It is well known that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Brentano school interacted fruitfully with early analytic philosophy: the Russell-Meinong debate is a paradigm example
Carl Stumpf, “Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie”
This article is related to:Stumpf between criticism and psychologism: introducing “Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie”
Knowledge and the Philosophy of Number: What Numbers Are and How They Are Known
If numbers were objects, how could there be human knowledge of number? Numbers are not physical objects: must we conclude that we have a mysterious power of perceiving the abstract realm? Or should we instead conclude that numbers are fictions? This book argues that numbers are not objects: they are magnitude properties. Properties are not fictions and we certainly have scientific knowledge of them. Much is already known about magnitude propertie…
Saying Something about a Concept: Frege on Statements of Number
The paper gives a historically informed reconstruction of Frege's view of statements of number. The reconstruction supports Frege's claim that a statement can be 'about a concept' although it does not contain a singular term referring to the concept. Hence, Frege's philosophy of number is not subject to the problems Frege sees for singular reference to concepts
‘The Nature of the Question Demands a Separation’: Frege on Distinguishing between Content and Force
Recently, the content/force distinction has had a bad press. It has been argued that the distinction is not properly motivated and that it makes the problem of the unity of the proposition intractable. I will argue that Frege’s version of the content/force distinction is immune from these objections. In order to do so, I will reconstruct his argument that ‘the nature of a question’ requires a distinction between force and content. I will answer t…
Names and Context: A Use-Sensitive Philosophical Account
Dolf Rami contributes to contemporary debates about the meaning and reference of proper names by providing an overview of the main challenges and developing a new contextualist account of names. Questions about the use and semantic features of proper names are at the centre of philosophy of language. How does a single proper name refer to the same thing in different contexts of use? What makes a thing a bearer of a proper name? What is their mean…
Lotze on Comparison and the Unity of Consciousness
Hermann Lotze argued that the fact that consciousness simultaneously “holds objects together as well as apart” such that they can be compared implies (a) that there is a simple thinker and (b) that consciousness is an ‘indivisible unity.’ I offer a reconstruction and evaluation of Lotze’s Argument from Comparison. I contend that it does not deliver (a) but makes a good case for (b). I will relate Lotze’s argument to the contemporary debate betwee…
Attitudinal evaluation, emotion, and the will
That’s correct! Brentano on intuitive judgement
Philosophers have long tried to articulate the specific epistemic status of judgements that neither need nor admit of justification by drawing on the metaphor of ‘the light of truth’. In contrast, in Brentano's account of intuitive judgement correctness is central: intuitive or immediately evident judgements are ‘characterized as correct (right)’. The aim of my paper is to introduce and explore Brentano’s correctness-based view. I will conclude b…
Deeper into Brentano’s mind: Response to critics
Laura Gow, Uriah Kriegel, Hamid Taieb, and David Woodruff Smith raised help – and insightful points of criticism about my book Brentano’s Mind. In this paper, I will defend and expand on the main claims of the book. My responses are organized around four topics: Psychology without a Soul, Plural Intentionality (and Conceptual Parts), Intentionality and Intentionality Primitivism, Mark of Mental
Tolerating Sense Variation
Frege famously claimed that variations in the sense of a proper name can sometimes be ‘tolerated’. In this paper, we offer a novel explanation of this puzzling claim. Frege, we argue, follows Trendelenburg in holding that we think in language—sometimes individually and sometimes together. Variations in sense can be tolerated in just those cases where we are using language to coordinate our actions but are not engaged in thinking together about an…
Acquaintance, presentation and judgement: From Brentano to Russell and back again
The notion of acquaintance is one of the pillars of Russell’s philosophy and it remains at the center of work in the philosophy of mind and language. Russell’s development of his theory of acquaintance was influenced by Brentano and Meinong. In this paper I will trace this Austrian Influence on the development of Russell’s theory of acquaintance through two phases; one before and one after Russell introduced the multiple relation theory of judgem…
“How to disappear completely”: Responses to commentators
I am grateful to all symposiasts for their thoughtful contributions which raise fruitful questions and problems. I will not be able to respond to all queries and challenges; I will select those that can be answered within the space assigned for the response
Philosophy (26 works) · Epistemology (23 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (20 works) · Linguistics (13 works) · Philosophy, Science, and History (13 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (7 works) · History (6 works) · Metaphysics (6 works)