Kyle Blumberg
Biographic Data
| ID | 5911538 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kyle Blumberg |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kyle |
| FAMILY NAME | Blumberg |
| SIGNATURE | BLUMBERG K |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Melbourne |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5047-0313 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
A semantic theory of redundancy
Theorists trying to model natural language have recently sought to explain a range of data by positing covert operators at logical form. For instance, many contemporary semanticists argue that the best way to capture scalar implicatures is through the use of such operators. We take inspiration from this literature by developing a novel operator that can account for a wide range of linguistic effects that until now have not received a uniform trea…
Fictional Reality
This article defends a theory of fictional truth. According to this theory, there is a fact of the matter concerning the number of hairs on Sherlock Holmes’s head, and likewise for any other meaningful question one could ask about what’s true in a work of fiction. This article argues that a theory of this form is needed to account for the patterns in our judgments about attitude reports that embed fictional claims. It contrasts this view with one…
Action Guidance, Accessibility, and Subjective Permission
A popular idea in ethics is that subjective normative concepts play an important role in moral deliberation: They are taken to be action‐guiding . It is generally assumed that in order for these concepts to be able to guide an agent's actions, they need to be “informationally accessible” to the agent in a substantive sense. That is, access holds: access : Subjective normative notions are accessible to agents. access has been spelled out in variou…
Attitudes, Presuppositions, and the Binding Theory
In order to handle presuppositions in the scope of attitude verbs, the binding theory allows presuppositions triggered in a subject's beliefs to be bound at the matrix level; and it allows presuppositions triggered in non-doxastic attitudes to be bound in the subject's beliefs (Geurts, 1999; Maier, 2015). However, we argue that this leads to serious overgeneration, for example it predicts that the unacceptable ‘Sue will come to the party, but Bil…
Attitude verbs’ local context
Schlenker (Semant Pragmat 2(3):1–78, 2009; Philos Stud 151(1):115–142, 2010a; Mind 119(474):377–391, 2010b) provides an algorithm for deriving the presupposition projection properties of an expression from that expression’s classical semantics. In this paper, we consider the predictions of Schlenker’s algorithm as applied to attitude verbs. More specifically, we compare Schlenker’s theory with a prominent view which maintains that attitudes exhib…
Wishing, Decision Theory, and Two-Dimensional Content
This paper is about two requirements on wish reports whose interaction motivates a novel semantics for these ascriptions. The first requirement concerns the ambiguities that arise when determiner phrases, such as definite descriptions, interact with ‘wish’. More specifically, several theorists have recently argued that attitude ascriptions featuring counterfactual attitude verbs license interpretations on which the determiner phrase is interprete…
On preferring
In this paper, I draw attention to comparative preference claims, i.e. sentences of the form $$\ulcorner $$ ⌜ S prefers p to q $$\urcorner $$ ⌝ . I show that preference claims exhibit interesting patterns, and try to develop a semantics that captures them. Then I use my account of preference to provide an analysis of desire. The resulting entry for desire ascriptions is independently motivated, and finds support from a wide range of phenomena
Wanting what’s not best
A New Hope
The analysis of desire ascriptions has been a central topic of research for philosophers of language and mind. This work has mostly focused on providing a theory of want reports, that is, sentences of the form ‘S wants p’. In this paper, we turn from want reports to a closely related but relatively understudied construction, namely hope reports, that is, sentences of the form ‘S hopes p’. We present two contrasts involving hope reports and show t…
Revisionist reporting
Subclausal Local Contexts
One of the central topics in semantic theory over the last few decades concerns the nature of local contexts. Recently, theorists have tried to develop general, non-stipulative accounts of local contexts (Ingason, 2016; Mandelkern & Romoli, 2017a; Schlenker, 2009). In this paper, we contribute to this literature by drawing attention to the local contexts of subclausal expressions. More specifically, we focus on the local contexts of quantificatio…
Inheritance
Inheritance is the principle that deontic ‘ought’ is closed under entailment. This paper is about a tension that arises in connection with Inheritance. More specifically, it is about two observations that pull in opposite directions. One of them raises questions about the validity of Inheritance, while the other appears to provide strong support for it. We argue that existing approaches to deontic modals fail to provide us with an adequate resolu…
Embedded Attitudes
This paper presents a puzzle involving embedded attitude reports. We resolve the puzzle by arguing that attitude verbs take restricted readings: in some environments the denotation of attitude verbs can be restricted by a given proposition. For example, when these verbs are embedded in the consequent of a conditional, they can be restricted by the proposition expressed by the conditional’s antecedent. We formulate and motivate two conditions on t…
Inheritance
Inheritance is the principle that deontic ‘ought’ is closed under entailment. This paper is about a tension that arises in connection with Inheritance. More specifically, it is about two observations that pull in opposite directions. One of them raises questions about the validity of Inheritance, while the other appears to provide strong support for it. We argue that existing approaches to deontic modals fail to provide us with an adequate resolu…
Embedded Attitudes
This paper presents a puzzle involving embedded attitude reports. We resolve the puzzle by arguing that attitude verbs take restricted readings: in some environments the denotation of attitude verbs can be restricted by a given proposition. For example, when these verbs are embedded in the consequent of a conditional, they can be restricted by the proposition expressed by the conditional’s antecedent. We formulate and motivate two conditions on t…
Revisionist reporting
Subclausal Local Contexts
One of the central topics in semantic theory over the last few decades concerns the nature of local contexts. Recently, theorists have tried to develop general, non-stipulative accounts of local contexts (Ingason, 2016; Mandelkern & Romoli, 2017a; Schlenker, 2009). In this paper, we contribute to this literature by drawing attention to the local contexts of subclausal expressions. More specifically, we focus on the local contexts of quantificatio…
Inheritance
Inheritance is the principle that deontic ‘ought’ is closed under entailment. This paper is about a tension that arises in connection with Inheritance. More specifically, it is about two observations that pull in opposite directions. One of them raises questions about the validity of Inheritance, while the other appears to provide strong support for it. We argue that existing approaches to deontic modals fail to provide us with an adequate resolu…
On preferring
In this paper, I draw attention to comparative preference claims, i.e. sentences of the form $$\ulcorner $$ ⌜ S prefers p to q $$\urcorner $$ ⌝ . I show that preference claims exhibit interesting patterns, and try to develop a semantics that captures them. Then I use my account of preference to provide an analysis of desire. The resulting entry for desire ascriptions is independently motivated, and finds support from a wide range of phenomena
Wanting what’s not best
A New Hope
The analysis of desire ascriptions has been a central topic of research for philosophers of language and mind. This work has mostly focused on providing a theory of want reports, that is, sentences of the form ‘S wants p’. In this paper, we turn from want reports to a closely related but relatively understudied construction, namely hope reports, that is, sentences of the form ‘S hopes p’. We present two contrasts involving hope reports and show t…
Attitudes, Presuppositions, and the Binding Theory
In order to handle presuppositions in the scope of attitude verbs, the binding theory allows presuppositions triggered in a subject's beliefs to be bound at the matrix level; and it allows presuppositions triggered in non-doxastic attitudes to be bound in the subject's beliefs (Geurts, 1999; Maier, 2015). However, we argue that this leads to serious overgeneration, for example it predicts that the unacceptable ‘Sue will come to the party, but Bil…
Attitude verbs’ local context
Schlenker (Semant Pragmat 2(3):1–78, 2009; Philos Stud 151(1):115–142, 2010a; Mind 119(474):377–391, 2010b) provides an algorithm for deriving the presupposition projection properties of an expression from that expression’s classical semantics. In this paper, we consider the predictions of Schlenker’s algorithm as applied to attitude verbs. More specifically, we compare Schlenker’s theory with a prominent view which maintains that attitudes exhib…
Wishing, Decision Theory, and Two-Dimensional Content
This paper is about two requirements on wish reports whose interaction motivates a novel semantics for these ascriptions. The first requirement concerns the ambiguities that arise when determiner phrases, such as definite descriptions, interact with ‘wish’. More specifically, several theorists have recently argued that attitude ascriptions featuring counterfactual attitude verbs license interpretations on which the determiner phrase is interprete…
Action Guidance, Accessibility, and Subjective Permission
A popular idea in ethics is that subjective normative concepts play an important role in moral deliberation: They are taken to be action‐guiding . It is generally assumed that in order for these concepts to be able to guide an agent's actions, they need to be “informationally accessible” to the agent in a substantive sense. That is, access holds: access : Subjective normative notions are accessible to agents. access has been spelled out in variou…
A semantic theory of redundancy
Theorists trying to model natural language have recently sought to explain a range of data by positing covert operators at logical form. For instance, many contemporary semanticists argue that the best way to capture scalar implicatures is through the use of such operators. We take inspiration from this literature by developing a novel operator that can account for a wide range of linguistic effects that until now have not received a uniform trea…
Fictional Reality
This article defends a theory of fictional truth. According to this theory, there is a fact of the matter concerning the number of hairs on Sherlock Holmes’s head, and likewise for any other meaningful question one could ask about what’s true in a work of fiction. This article argues that a theory of this form is needed to account for the patterns in our judgments about attitude reports that embed fictional claims. It contrasts this view with one…
Philosophy (12 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (7 works) · Linguistics (6 works) · Free Will and Agency (4 works) · Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge (4 works) · Metaphysics (4 works) · Philosophy of language (4 works) · Psychology (4 works)