I teach at Rutgers
University, as a Distinguished Professor in the Department
of Philosophy and Center for Cognitive Science.
My primary research interests lie at the intersection of
philosophy, linguistics, and psychology.
Much of my work has been about how grammatical structure is
related to linguistic meaning, how words are related to
concepts, and how language is related to thought. Events
and Semantic Architecture (OUP 2005) was an initial
progress report. In various papers,
often collaborative, I have defended a nativist approach to the
study of human languages, a mentalistic conception of what
these languages are, and an internalistic account of
the meanings that human linguistic expressions
exhibit. In Conjoining Meanings: Semantics without Truth
Values (OUP 2018), I argue that meanings are
instructions for how to build concepts of a special kind. A précis and some
links to reviews can be found here. A sequel, The Vocabulary
of Meanings, is in
the works. A recurring theme is that with regard to how
words are used and understood, representational format matters a
lot.
Here are
links to some interviews that cover these topics,
along with some slideshow talks, and a
series of papers reporting on some experimental studies of
how quantificational words like 'most' and 'every' are
understood. For a sampler, see these two
videos.
I received
my B.A. from Rutgers College in 1986, did my graduate work at
MIT, and joined the department of philosophy at McGill
University in 1990. Causing Actions (OUP, 2000)
reflected my early interests in philosophy of mind and
philosophy of science. From 1998 to 2017, I taught in the
departments of linguistics and philosophy
at the University
of Maryland, where I am now a professor emeritus. In
moving from Maryland to Rutgers, I returned to my alma mater and
moved from one of the fourteen Big Ten schools to another, even
though my college no longer exists, I hadn't previously attended
or been hired by any Big Ten school, and there are now more than
fourteen. Seems appropriate for a philosopher
who thinks about language.
When time
permits, I spend a lot of it here,
sometimes doing other things.
Talks, Recent and Upcoming
If you find the slides useful, feel free to use them.
2024
"Simple Negation without
Variables, " Philosophy of
Linguistics Workshop
(September 9-13), Dubrovnik
"SMPL
Meanings, Conjunctive Concepts" CUNY Linguistics
Colloquium, UMD Linguistics Colloquium
(April 11, 12)
2023
"Quantifier Meanings and Human Minds" (slides)
Logic Seminar, Stanford University, Logic and Foundations
of Mathematics (Nov. 8, 2023)
"Linguistically Expressible Concepts" (slides) (video)
Philosophy Colloquium (March 31),
University of Southern California
Philosophy of Linguistics
workshop
(September 4-8), Dubrovnik
"SMPL
Meanings: Towards Explanatory Adequacy"
(slides)
Philosophy of Linguistics
workshop, satellite session to SALT
2023 (May 14-15), Yale University
Older Talks