The philosophy papers blog is updated. There wont be any more updates to either blog until Sunday because Im going to the Mardi Gras Ethics Conference. This should be fun, even if I have to get up at 4 in the morning to get there.
Monthly Archives: February 2003
I havent been mentioning it all the time, but the philosophy papers blog has been featuring several new reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. This is already one of the best sources for free philosophy on the internet, and these days seems to updated even more frequently than the Stanford Encyclopaedia. Hopefully in a few years there will be many sources of free philosophy, and in a way the 600 or so personal websites that contain free papers (linked in the sidebar of the philosophy papers blog) should count as extra sources. But for now NDPR and Stanford Encyclopaedia are the best high volume sources of philosophy, with Philosophers Imprint also notable if you want a more upmarket publication.
The philosophy papers blog is
The philosophy papers blog is updated.
I produced yet another version
I produced yet another version of the Truer paper. It is somewhat less polished than previous versions in terms of style, but it is I think an improvement in terms of structure. I prefer to think of it as the tenth first draft of the paper than as the tenth draft, not least because tenth drafts should look more polished than this. My confidence in my theories of vagueness never wavers, but I can never seem to find the right way to express them. Maybe were getting closer to a solution with this draft though.
Comments seem to be down
Comments seem to be down again, which is sad. Since the Haloscan website is also down, this could be a fairly serious problem. If you have anything you particularly want posted, some advice for poor Farrington, email me and Ill try posting it manually.
Matthew Yglesias wants to know
Matthew Yglesias wants to know
Is there any reason at all for me to take G.E. Moore’s “open question”argument seriously in light of the collapse of the analytic/synthetic distinction and the rise of a posteriori necessity? There really doesn’t seem to be, but I have a hard time understanding why I was assigned the paper unless there is.
Against all my better judgement, I left my first thoughts on the matter on his comments board, and you should too.
The philosophy papers blog is
The philosophy papers blog is updated. Two new papers, one on colour and one on two-dimensionalism, straight from someone elses computer to your desktop.
all
How many people think that the following two sentences have different implicatures with respect to Jacks beer drinking?
(1) Jack drank the whiskey or some of the beers
(2) Jack drank the whiskey or all of the beers
Now there is one difference between them in terms of implicature. (1) implicates Jack did not drink both beer and whiskey, while (2) does not. It merely implicates that he did not drink the whiskey and of the beer. But is there a difference thats solely about beer, and in particular about whether Jack drank all of it? If you do think there’s a difference, try saying exactly what it is. And then try deriving it from anything like a plausible theory of implicature generation. And then, if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably need a drink.
Seriously, I would like feedback about whether (1) and (2) produce different implicatures. Unfortunately, last I checked Haloscan was down (again) so unless things improve the feedback will have to be through some of the comments.
For some more detailed thoughts than mine on the puzzle, try this paper by Uli Sauerland.
UPDATE: Its common ground that (3) implicates that Jack did not have both whiskey and gin. What, precisely, does (4) implicate? That he did not have more than one of the drinks? That he had all three?
(3) Jack drank whiskey or gin
(4) Jack drank whiskey, gin or vodka
This may be relevant to Sauerlands proposal for solving the original pizzle, if I understand that solution correctly.
FURTHER UPDATE: I messed up the original description of the case, and Ive now tinkered with it a bit. Thats been happening a lot today.
all
How many people think that the following two sentences have different implicatures with respect to Jacks beer drinking?
(1) Jack drank the whiskey or some of the beers
(2) Jack drank the whiskey or all of the beers
Now there is one difference between them in terms of implicature. (1) implicates Jack did not drink both beer and whiskey, while (2) does not. It merely implicates that he did not drink the whiskey and of the beer. But is there a difference thats solely about beer, and in particular about whether Jack drank all of it? If you do think there’s a difference, try saying exactly what it is. And then try deriving it from anything like a plausible theory of implicature generation. And then, if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably need a drink.
Seriously, I would like feedback about whether (1) and (2) produce different implicatures. Unfortunately, last I checked Haloscan was down (again) so unless things improve the feedback will have to be through some of the comments.
For some more detailed thoughts than mine on the puzzle, try this paper by Uli Sauerland.
UPDATE: Its common ground that (3) implicates that Jack did not have both whiskey and gin. What, precisely, does (4) implicate? That he did not have more than one of the drinks? That he had all three?
(3) Jack drank whiskey or gin
(4) Jack drank whiskey, gin or vodka
This may be relevant to Sauerlands proposal for solving the original pizzle, if I understand that solution correctly.
FURTHER UPDATE: I messed up the original description of the case, and Ive now tinkered with it a bit. Thats been happening a lot today.
80-something% of the hits I
80-something% of the hits I get on this blog are to do with Google searches about the success of France in wartime expeditions. This has so flooded the search engines that I dont get particularly detailed feedback about who else is coming here. But I still see cool Google searches that reach the philosophy papers blog. My favourite is:
I think there is potential in verbing Crispin this way.