Professor of Philosophy
University of Connecticut - Storrs
My research interests include logic, the history and philosophy of logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and Kant's ethics.
Semantic Singularities: Paradoxes of Reference, Predication, and Truth is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. Below you'll find a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the book, and links to current drafts of the chapters.
I am also at work on a monograph on the metaphysics of truth, with Dorit Bar-On. If Truth Be Told is about truth and the related notions of meaning, assertion, expression, and truth-aptness. The book contains an extended critique of deflationism and a defense of a form of substantivism about truth.
My book on truth and the liar paradox, Universality and the Liar: An Essay on Truth and the Diagonal Argument appeared in hardback in 1993 and in paperback in 2008, with Cambridge University Press.
I am the co-editor, with Simon Blackburn, of Truth, in the series Oxford Readings in Philosophy, published by Oxford University Press 1999. .
I am at work on a logic text, Logic and Metalogic. This covers sentential and quantificational logic, metalogic, and special topics.
For Selected Articles, with links, see below.
Research
FORTHCOMING BOOK
Semantic Singularities: Paradoxes of Reference, Predication and Truth, Oxford University Press.
Current Drafts of Chapters:
Chapter 1: Semantic Paradox
Chapter 2: Paradox and Context
Chapter 3: Singularities
Chapter 4: Identifying Singularities
Chapter 5: Paradoxes of Definability, Russell's Paradox, the Liar
Chapter 6: A General Theory of Singularities
Chapter 7: The Theory at Work
Chapter 8: Revenge, I
Chapter 9: Revenge, II
Chapter 10: Consequences for Deflationism
SELECTED ARTICLES
“Contextual Theories of Truth”, The Oxford Handbook of Truth, edited by Michael Glanzberg, Oxford University Press 2017
“Three Questions for Minimalism”, Synthese 2016 (Special Issue, for the 25th year anniversary of Paul Horwich’s Truth).
“Paradox, Repetition, Revenge”, Topoi 34 (1): 121-131, 2015.
“Tarski’s Logic: Mathematics, Metamathematics, Logic and Semantics”, in Handbook of the History of Logic, vol. 5, Logic from Russell to Church, edited by John Woods and Dov Gabbay (eds.), Elsevier B.V. 2009, pp.511-616 (45,000 words).
“Revenge and Context”, in The Revenge of the Liar, edited by J.C. Beall, Oxford University Press 2007.
“The Use of Force Against Deflationism: Assertion and Truth” (with Dorit Bar-On), in Truth and Speech Acts: Studies in the Philosophy of Language, D. Greimann and G. Siegwart (eds.), Routledge 2007, pp.61-89.
“Deflationism and the Autonomy of Truth”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LXXII, No. 1, 2006.
“Deflationism” (with Dorit Bar-On), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, edited by Ernest Lepore and Barry Smith, 2006.
“Truth”, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2nd edition), 2005.
“A Berry and a Russell without self-reference”, Philosophical Studies (2005) 126: 253-261.
“A Logico-Philosophical Tour: The Search for Certainty” (critical study of The Search for Certainty by Marcus Giaquinto), Philosophia Mathematica (3) Vol. 12, 2004, pp. 162-175.
“A Critique of Dialetheism” (with Greg Littmann), The Law of Non-Contradiction: New Philosophical Essays, edited by Graham Priest, J.C. Beall and Bradley Armour-Garb, Oxford University Press 2005.
“Reference and Paradox”, in Liars and Heaps: New Essays on Paradox, edited by J.C. Beall, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2003, pp.230-252.
“Semantical and Logical Paradox”, in A Companion to Philosophical Logic, edited by Dale Jacquette, in the series Blackwell Companions to Philosophy, Blackwell, Oxford, 2002, pp.115-130.
"Sets, classes and extensions: A singularity approach to Russell's paradox", Philosophical Studies 100: 2000, pp.109-149.
"Three paradoxes: circles and singularities", in Circularity, Definition and Truth, Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2000, pp.333-354.
"Deflationary Truth and the Liar", Journal of Philosophical Logic 28, 1999, pp.455-488.
"Poincaré and Paradox", in Henri Poincaré: Science and Philosophy, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1996.
"Paradoxes of Denotation", Philosophical Studies 76: 71-106, 1994.
"A Paradox of Definability: Richard's and Poincaré's Ways Out", History and Philosophy of Logic 15: pp.33-44, 1994.
Three entries: (a) "Metaphysics", (b) "Ontology", (c) "Philosophical Logic"
in The Hebrew Encyclopedia, Supplementary Vol. I, Tel Aviv, Israel: Massada, 1994 (with Dorit Bar-On).
"On an argument against omniscience", Noûs, March 1993.
"Outline of a Contextual Theory of Truth", Proceedings of Logica 1991, An International Conference in Logic, pp.43-57.
"The Diagonal Argument and the Liar", Journal of Philosophical Logic 19: pp.277-303, 1990.
"Kant on Moral Worth", History of Philosophy Quarterly, Volume 6/Number 1, January, 1989,
pp.85-100.
"On a Medieval Solution to the Liar Paradox", History and Philosophy of Logic, 8, 1987, pp.121-140.
Teaching
Recent Courses:
Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems
Modal Logic
Symbolic Logic
Kripke's Naming and Necessity
Paradoxes
Truth: Logic and Metaphysics
Contact
University of Connecticut
Department of Philosophy
Manchester Hall
344 Mansfield Road, Unit 1054
Storrs Connecticut 06269-1054
Tel: 860-486-4416