Wilbur A Davis
Biographic Data
| ID | 273485 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wilbur A Davis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wilbur A |
| FAMILY NAME | Davis |
| SIGNATURE | DAVIS W A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7545-1031 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 49 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1950 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Indexical shift
“Indexical shift” is said to occur when allegedly “pure” indexicals have referents other than those Kaplan codified. I argue first that indexical shift is even more widespread than has so far been recognized, occurring even in English propositional attitude and speech act reports, and that I , here , and how like he and that can be used anaphorically and demonstratively as well as deictically. I then argue that the leading theories developed to a…
Actuality, indexicality, and knowledge
After summarizing linguistic evidence against the thesis that actuality terms are indexical, I examine conceptual and epistemological arguments offered in favor of an indexical analysis. I argue that an indexical semantics provides no explanation of how we know what is actually the case, and no grounds for postulating a contingent a priori . Truth in every context, or in every model, does not imply knowledge of the fact a sentence expresses nor h…
Epistemic Possibility, Concessive Knowledge Attributions, and Fallibilism
I argue that modal terms have an epistemic interpretation on which concessive knowledge attributions are semantically contradictory. This is compatible with the fallibilist view that the basis on which we know something need not entail it, but not with the view that what is known need not be epistemically certain or necessary. The apparent contradictoriness of concessive knowledge attributions is not due to mere implicature, nor to assertion upda…
Loose talk, the context of assessment, and skeptical invariantism
Russell ([2022]. “Fancy Loose Talk About Knowledge.” Inquiry 65: 789–820.) defends a novel form of skeptical invariantism, according to which knowledge ascriptions are hardly ever true because they are so demanding, but nonetheless are ordinarily used loosely to communicate truths, where the felicity of loose talk is relative to the context of assessment as well as the context of use. I argue that while there is very good reason to believe that ‘…
Quotational reports
Cognitive propositions and semantic expressions
Building on their well-known act theory of propositions, Soames and Hanks have proposed a theory of what it is for sentences to express propositions, thereby answering a central question about the foundations of semantics. The basic idea is that for a sentence to express a proposition in a language is for speakers of the language to use the sentence to perform the act that is the proposition. I argue that this general account of expression fails …
Propositions and attitudinal objects
Propositions as Structured Cognitive Event‐Types
According to act theories, propositions are structured cognitive act‐types. Act theories appear to make propositions inherently representational and truth‐evaluable, and to provide solutions to familiar problems with alternative theories, including Frege’s and Russell’s problems, and the third‐realm and unity problems. Act theories have critical problems of their own, though: acts as opposed to their objects are not truth evaluable, not structure…
Three accounts of propositional relation reports
Peter Hanks and Scott Soames have developed a theory of propositions as structured cognitive event types, as have I in earlier works. They use the theory to offer similar accounts of transparent propositional relation reports, and very different accounts of opaque reports. For both, the sentences used to report propositional attitudes or speech acts are semantically unambiguous. Hanks invokes context-sensitivity, Soames pragmatics, to account for…
Dyadic contextualism and content relativism
The study of indexical expressions like “I,” “here,” and “now” led to the well-known contextualist semantics, in which the content and therefore the extension of a sentence or term varies with the context of utterance. This formal framework has recently been applied to a wide range of terms beyond the set that inspired it, including quantifiers, “knows,” epistemic modals, and relative terms like “tall.” Problems with these applications inspired r…
Meaning, impliciture, and linguistic variability
Metalinguistic' negations, denial, and idioms
Expressing, meaning, showing, and intending to indicate
This paper is a critical examination of the theory of self-expression developed by Green (2007), adjudicating some of the principal differences between it and the theory I have developed (e.g., in Davis 2003). Green seeks to show how self-expression is related to the fundamental linguistic notions of speaker meaning, assertion, and implicature, and how self-expression enables others to know our minds. Green defines self-expression in terms of sho…
How normative is implicature
Concepts and Epistemic Individuation
Christopher Peacocke has presented an original version of the perennial philosophical thesis that we can gain substantive metaphysical and epistemological insight from an analysis of our concepts. Peacocke's innovation is to look at how concepts are individuated by their possession conditions, which he believes can be specified in terms of conditions in which certain propositions containing those concepts are accepted. The ability to provide such…
Psychologism and Humeanism
Meaning, Expression and Thought
This philosophical treatise on the foundations of semantics is a systematic effort to clarify, deepen and defend the classical doctrine that words are conventional signs of mental states, principally thoughts and ideas, and that meaning consists in their expression. This expression theory of meaning is developed by carrying out the Gricean programme, explaining what it is for words to have meaning in terms of speaker meaning, and what it is for a…
Probabilistic Causality
Technical flaws in the coherence theory
Freedom, Enjoyment, and Happiness: An Essay on Moral Psychology
Miller on Wanting, Intending, and Being Willing
We may not retract our verdict that Jones is to blame for Smith's death simply because he sincerely avows that he did not mean (i.e., intend) to do it (we may hold him culpable in virtue of negligence, for example); but surely there will be a difference between our judgment of Jones in this case and our judgment of the Mafiosi hit man who successfully meets the terms of his contract in disposing of his victim (p. 340)
Indicative and Subjunctive Conditionals
Indicative and subjunctive conditionals have different truth conditions. I seek to account for this difference within the general possible-worlds framework developed by Stalnaker and Lewis. I argue that their truth conditions hold for indicative conditionals, and that similar but different conditions hold for subjunctive conditionals. An indicative conditional is true only if its consequent is true in the antecedent-world that is most similar to …
Archaeological Investigations of Inland and Coastal Sites of Katmai National Monument, Alaska
Cultural Sequences at the Dalles, Oregon: A Contribution to Pacific Northwest Prehistory
Logger and Splinter-Picker Talk
Cultural Sequences at the Dalles, Oregon: A Contribution to Pacific Northwest Prehistory
How normative is implicature
Indicative and Subjunctive Conditionals
Indicative and subjunctive conditionals have different truth conditions. I seek to account for this difference within the general possible-worlds framework developed by Stalnaker and Lewis. I argue that their truth conditions hold for indicative conditionals, and that similar but different conditions hold for subjunctive conditionals. An indicative conditional is true only if its consequent is true in the antecedent-world that is most similar to …
Cognitive propositions and semantic expressions
Building on their well-known act theory of propositions, Soames and Hanks have proposed a theory of what it is for sentences to express propositions, thereby answering a central question about the foundations of semantics. The basic idea is that for a sentence to express a proposition in a language is for speakers of the language to use the sentence to perform the act that is the proposition. I argue that this general account of expression fails …
Propositions as Structured Cognitive Event‐Types
According to act theories, propositions are structured cognitive act‐types. Act theories appear to make propositions inherently representational and truth‐evaluable, and to provide solutions to familiar problems with alternative theories, including Frege’s and Russell’s problems, and the third‐realm and unity problems. Act theories have critical problems of their own, though: acts as opposed to their objects are not truth evaluable, not structure…
Metalinguistic' negations, denial, and idioms
Expressing, meaning, showing, and intending to indicate
This paper is a critical examination of the theory of self-expression developed by Green (2007), adjudicating some of the principal differences between it and the theory I have developed (e.g., in Davis 2003). Green seeks to show how self-expression is related to the fundamental linguistic notions of speaker meaning, assertion, and implicature, and how self-expression enables others to know our minds. Green defines self-expression in terms of sho…
Psychologism and Humeanism
Actuality, indexicality, and knowledge
After summarizing linguistic evidence against the thesis that actuality terms are indexical, I examine conceptual and epistemological arguments offered in favor of an indexical analysis. I argue that an indexical semantics provides no explanation of how we know what is actually the case, and no grounds for postulating a contingent a priori . Truth in every context, or in every model, does not imply knowledge of the fact a sentence expresses nor h…
Concepts and Epistemic Individuation
Christopher Peacocke has presented an original version of the perennial philosophical thesis that we can gain substantive metaphysical and epistemological insight from an analysis of our concepts. Peacocke's innovation is to look at how concepts are individuated by their possession conditions, which he believes can be specified in terms of conditions in which certain propositions containing those concepts are accepted. The ability to provide such…
Freedom, Enjoyment, and Happiness: An Essay on Moral Psychology
Logger and Splinter-Picker Talk
Cultural Sequences at the Dalles, Oregon: A Contribution to Pacific Northwest Prehistory
Archaeological Investigations of Inland and Coastal Sites of Katmai National Monument, Alaska
Indicative and Subjunctive Conditionals
Indicative and subjunctive conditionals have different truth conditions. I seek to account for this difference within the general possible-worlds framework developed by Stalnaker and Lewis. I argue that their truth conditions hold for indicative conditionals, and that similar but different conditions hold for subjunctive conditionals. An indicative conditional is true only if its consequent is true in the antecedent-world that is most similar to …
Miller on Wanting, Intending, and Being Willing
We may not retract our verdict that Jones is to blame for Smith's death simply because he sincerely avows that he did not mean (i.e., intend) to do it (we may hold him culpable in virtue of negligence, for example); but surely there will be a difference between our judgment of Jones in this case and our judgment of the Mafiosi hit man who successfully meets the terms of his contract in disposing of his victim (p. 340)
Technical flaws in the coherence theory
Freedom, Enjoyment, and Happiness: An Essay on Moral Psychology
Probabilistic Causality
Meaning, Expression and Thought
This philosophical treatise on the foundations of semantics is a systematic effort to clarify, deepen and defend the classical doctrine that words are conventional signs of mental states, principally thoughts and ideas, and that meaning consists in their expression. This expression theory of meaning is developed by carrying out the Gricean programme, explaining what it is for words to have meaning in terms of speaker meaning, and what it is for a…
Psychologism and Humeanism
Concepts and Epistemic Individuation
Christopher Peacocke has presented an original version of the perennial philosophical thesis that we can gain substantive metaphysical and epistemological insight from an analysis of our concepts. Peacocke's innovation is to look at how concepts are individuated by their possession conditions, which he believes can be specified in terms of conditions in which certain propositions containing those concepts are accepted. The ability to provide such…
How normative is implicature
Expressing, meaning, showing, and intending to indicate
This paper is a critical examination of the theory of self-expression developed by Green (2007), adjudicating some of the principal differences between it and the theory I have developed (e.g., in Davis 2003). Green seeks to show how self-expression is related to the fundamental linguistic notions of speaker meaning, assertion, and implicature, and how self-expression enables others to know our minds. Green defines self-expression in terms of sho…
Metalinguistic' negations, denial, and idioms
Meaning, impliciture, and linguistic variability
Dyadic contextualism and content relativism
The study of indexical expressions like “I,” “here,” and “now” led to the well-known contextualist semantics, in which the content and therefore the extension of a sentence or term varies with the context of utterance. This formal framework has recently been applied to a wide range of terms beyond the set that inspired it, including quantifiers, “knows,” epistemic modals, and relative terms like “tall.” Problems with these applications inspired r…
Three accounts of propositional relation reports
Peter Hanks and Scott Soames have developed a theory of propositions as structured cognitive event types, as have I in earlier works. They use the theory to offer similar accounts of transparent propositional relation reports, and very different accounts of opaque reports. For both, the sentences used to report propositional attitudes or speech acts are semantically unambiguous. Hanks invokes context-sensitivity, Soames pragmatics, to account for…
Propositions and attitudinal objects
Propositions as Structured Cognitive Event‐Types
According to act theories, propositions are structured cognitive act‐types. Act theories appear to make propositions inherently representational and truth‐evaluable, and to provide solutions to familiar problems with alternative theories, including Frege’s and Russell’s problems, and the third‐realm and unity problems. Act theories have critical problems of their own, though: acts as opposed to their objects are not truth evaluable, not structure…
Cognitive propositions and semantic expressions
Building on their well-known act theory of propositions, Soames and Hanks have proposed a theory of what it is for sentences to express propositions, thereby answering a central question about the foundations of semantics. The basic idea is that for a sentence to express a proposition in a language is for speakers of the language to use the sentence to perform the act that is the proposition. I argue that this general account of expression fails …
Quotational reports
Epistemic Possibility, Concessive Knowledge Attributions, and Fallibilism
I argue that modal terms have an epistemic interpretation on which concessive knowledge attributions are semantically contradictory. This is compatible with the fallibilist view that the basis on which we know something need not entail it, but not with the view that what is known need not be epistemically certain or necessary. The apparent contradictoriness of concessive knowledge attributions is not due to mere implicature, nor to assertion upda…
Loose talk, the context of assessment, and skeptical invariantism
Russell ([2022]. “Fancy Loose Talk About Knowledge.” Inquiry 65: 789–820.) defends a novel form of skeptical invariantism, according to which knowledge ascriptions are hardly ever true because they are so demanding, but nonetheless are ordinarily used loosely to communicate truths, where the felicity of loose talk is relative to the context of assessment as well as the context of use. I argue that while there is very good reason to believe that ‘…
Actuality, indexicality, and knowledge
After summarizing linguistic evidence against the thesis that actuality terms are indexical, I examine conceptual and epistemological arguments offered in favor of an indexical analysis. I argue that an indexical semantics provides no explanation of how we know what is actually the case, and no grounds for postulating a contingent a priori . Truth in every context, or in every model, does not imply knowledge of the fact a sentence expresses nor h…
Indexical shift
“Indexical shift” is said to occur when allegedly “pure” indexicals have referents other than those Kaplan codified. I argue first that indexical shift is even more widespread than has so far been recognized, occurring even in English propositional attitude and speech act reports, and that I , here , and how like he and that can be used anaphorically and demonstratively as well as deictically. I then argue that the leading theories developed to a…
Philosophy (20 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Epistemology (14 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (12 works) · Linguistics (11 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Pragmatics (7 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (7 works)