Published papers and reviews
Analysis, 2024
Crispin Wright and Filippo Ferrari have accused relativism of not accounting for "parity" - the i... more Crispin Wright and Filippo Ferrari have accused relativism of not accounting for "parity" - the idea that, when we argue over matters of taste, we take our opponents' opinions to be "as good as ours" from our own, committed perspective. In this paper, I show that i) explaining parity has not been taken to be a desideratum by relativists and thus they cannot be accused of failing to fulfil a promise; ii) Wright's and Ferrari's reasons for claiming that parity should be a desideratum are unconvincing.
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Pragmatics & Cognition, 2023
This is my contribution to a symposium on Bianca Cepollaro's book "Slurs and Thick Terms. When La... more This is my contribution to a symposium on Bianca Cepollaro's book "Slurs and Thick Terms. When Language Encodes Values".
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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2023
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Filozofia Nauki ("Value and Emotions: Talking (and Not Talking) about Morals, Taste, and Art”, special issue edited by Natalia Karczewska), 2022
A recent view about disagreement (Karczewska 2021) takes it to consist in the tension arising fro... more A recent view about disagreement (Karczewska 2021) takes it to consist in the tension arising from proposals and refusals of those proposals to impose certain commitments on the interlocutors in a conversation. The view has been proposed with the aim of solving the problem “faultless disagreement” – a situation in which two interlocutors are intuited to be both in disagreement and not at fault – poses for contextualism about predicates of taste.
In this paper, I consider whether this view applies equally well to disagreements involving aesthetic adjectives. I show, first, that it applies quite straightforwardly to predicates like “beautiful”, which presumably generate faultless disagreement. However, aesthetic adjectives like “beautiful” don’t exhaust the aesthetic sphere. A term like “balanced”, for example, while still perspectival, is said to have a more “objective” feel, and usually doesn’t generate faultless disagreement: when the novice and the expert disagree using such a term, we take it that the expert is right and the novice is wrong. I argue that Karczewska’s view has trouble explaining this difference in the profile of the two types of aesthetic predicates vis-à-vis the generation of disagreement. I also consider possible ways to cope with the problem, reject them, and propose a different one that is suitable for most views in the debate.
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Perspectives on Taste. Aesthetics, Language, Metaphysics, and Experimental Philosophy (edited by Jeremy Wyatt, Julia Zakkou & Dan Zeman), Routledge, 2022
Our everyday lives are suffused with discussions about taste. These happen in a diverse array of ... more Our everyday lives are suffused with discussions about taste. These happen in a diverse array of situations, such as when we are enjoying a new drink at a café, discussing the avant-garde pieces that just arrived at the local gallery, comparing the grandeur of the Dolomites to the austerity of the Sahara, or determining whether an item of clothing is nice enough to warrant the price. A characteristic aim of philosophy is to pinpoint issues that are prominent in our everyday thought and discourse but which, in ordinary contexts, we rarely take care to examine in a systematic way. Taste is a paradigm example of such an issue. We are quick to mouth the familiar platitudes about taste, but we struggle when facing the questions that matter-what taste is, how it is related to subjectivity, what distinguishes good from bad taste, why it is valuable to make and evaluate judgements about matters of taste, and what, exactly, we mean in speaking about these matters. This volume is a sustained, cross-disciplinary examination of these and related questions about taste. In designing and preparing the volume, our central aims have been to work toward unifying the extensive bodies of research on taste, whose major themes intersect in rather interesting ways, and to stimulate further cross-disciplinary research on this topic. Taste is a long-standing occupation of philosophers. The notion of aesthetic taste, with its complex relationship to the notion of gustatory taste, came to the fore in 18th-century aesthetics and has continued to interest aestheticians until the present day. Moreover, during the past 20 years, discourse about taste has been at the heart of lively debates among philosophers of language and linguists. A thorough study of taste discourse has promised illumination in connection with major topics such as the natures of truth and disagreement; the natures of and norms governing assertion, belief, and retraction; linguistic context sensitivity; and the semantics/ pragmatics interface. Additionally, while armchair inquiry has played a dominant role in these aesthetic and linguistic debates, many theorists have come to appreciate the relevance-indeed, the necessity-of experimental investigations into the phenomena that are discussed therein.
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Inquiry, 65(7), 942-966 ("Semantic Variability", special issue edited by Alexander Dinges, Erik Stei and Julia Zakkou), 2022
In this paper, I present data involving the use of the Romanian slur "țigan", consideration of wh... more In this paper, I present data involving the use of the Romanian slur "țigan", consideration of which leads to the postulation of a sui-generis, irreducible type of use of slurs ("identificatory"). This type of use is potentially problematic for extant theories of slurs. In addition, together with other well-established uses (derogatory, appropriated etc.), it shows that there is more variation in the use of slurs than previously acknowledged. I explain this variation by construing slurs as polysemous. To implement this idea, I appeal to a rich-lexicon account of polysemy. I show how such a theory can be applied to slurs and discuss several important issues that arise.
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Theoria, 87(5), 1322-1341, 2021
In this critical paper, we engage with a recent absolutist proposal to account for faultless disa... more In this critical paper, we engage with a recent absolutist proposal to account for faultless disagreement: that of Jeremy Wyatt (2018). We first introduce the phenomenon to be explained and briefly present Wyatt's account. The bulk of the paper is dedicated to spelling out objections to various aspects of the view, related to his adherence to semantic minimalism, to the interpretation of the empirical data he relies on, and to his construal of both faultlessness and disagreement. We end with a comparison of the proposal with other views on the market from the point of view of theoretical economy.
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Organon F, 28(3), 498-504 ("Value in Language", special issue edited by Dan Zeman), 2021
This is the introduction to the "Value in Language' special issue, which I guest-edited for Organ... more This is the introduction to the "Value in Language' special issue, which I guest-edited for Organon F.
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EurAmerica, 50(4), 737-778 ("Social Meaning and Reality", special issue edited by Hsiang-Yun Chen and Sally Haslanger), 2020
In this paper, I explore a range of existent and possible ameliorative semantic theories of gende... more In this paper, I explore a range of existent and possible ameliorative semantic theories of gender terms: invariantism, according to which gender terms are not context-sensitive, contextualism, according to which the meaning of gender terms is established in the context of use, and relativism, according to which the meaning of gender terms is established in the context of assessment. I show that none of these views is adequate with respect to the plight of trans people to use their term of choice to self-identify and be referred to accordingly. I then consider an invariantist view based on self-identification and explore some of its challenges.
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Journal of Social Ontology, 6(1), 69-83, 2020
In this reply paper, I engage with a recent contextualist account of gender terms (particularly, ... more In this reply paper, I engage with a recent contextualist account of gender terms (particularly, 'woman') proposed by Esa Díaz-León 2016. Díaz-León's main aim is to improve both on previous contextualist and non-contextualist views and solve a certain puzzle for feminists. Central to this task is putting forward a view that allows trans women who didn't have gender affirming surgery to use the gender terms of their choice to self-identify. My goal is to investigate Díaz-León's proposal, point out (what I take to be) several shortcomings of the view and discuss possible replies on her part.
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Philosophia, 48(14), 1649-1670, 2020
In the recent debate about the semantics of perspectival expressions (predicates of taste, aesthe... more In the recent debate about the semantics of perspectival expressions (predicates of taste, aesthetic adjectives, moral terms, epistemic modals, epistemic terms etc.), disagreement has played a crucial role. In a nutshell, what I call "the challenge from disagreement" is the objection that certain views on the market (i.e., contextualism) cannot account for the intuition of disagreement present in ordinary exchanges involving perspectival expressions like "Licorice is tasty./No, it's not." Various contextualist answers to this challenge have been proposed, and this has led to a proliferation of notions of disagreement. It is now accepted in the debate that there are many notions of disagreement and that the search for a common, basic notion is misguided. In this paper I attempt to find such a basic notion underneath this diversity. The main aim of the paper is to motivate, forge and defend a notion of "minimal disagreement" that has beneficial effects for the debate over the semantics of perspectival expressions.
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Grazer Philosophische Studien, 97(10), 1-10 ("Non-derogatory Uses of Slurs", special issue edited by Bianca Cepollaro and Dan Zeman), 2020
Editors' Introduction to a special issue of Grazer Philosophische Studien on "Non-Derogatory Uses... more Editors' Introduction to a special issue of Grazer Philosophische Studien on "Non-Derogatory Uses of Slurs".
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The Architecture of Context and Context-Sensitivity (edited by Tadeusz Ciecierski & Pawel Grabarczyk), Springer, 2020
In this paper, we offer a novel solution to the much discussed " answering machine puzzle " and s... more In this paper, we offer a novel solution to the much discussed " answering machine puzzle " and similarly problematic cases for the Kaplanian view of temporal indexicals. The solution we propose consists in an appeal to a well-established and (for many still) useful framework: Reichenbach's theory of tense and aspect. Starting from some more recent articulations of the theory in its application to temporal adverbials, we show how it can be applied to 'now' so that to provide an easy and intuitive solution to the puzzle. In addition, the proposed solution, while departing in several important respects from the Kaplanian orthodoxy, it remains conservative in that it preserves some of Kaplan's central tenets about 'now', thus making it less radical than many of the alternative solutions found in literature.
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The Routledge Handbook to the Philosophy of Relativism (edited by Martin Kusch), Routledge, 2020
In this entry, I tackle the phenomenon known as "faultless disagreement", considered by many auth... more In this entry, I tackle the phenomenon known as "faultless disagreement", considered by many authors to pose a challenge to the main views on the semantics of subjective expressions. I first present the phenomenon and the challenge, then review the main answers given by contextualist, absolutist and relativist approaches to the expressions in question. I end with signaling two issues that might shape future discussions about the role played by faultless disagreement in semantics.
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Critica. Revista Hispanoamericana de Filosofia, 51(151), 5-34, 2019
Focusing on predicates of taste, this paper puts forward a novel version of relativism, motivated... more Focusing on predicates of taste, this paper puts forward a novel version of relativism, motivated by a recently discussed phenomenon: perspectival plurality. After showing that the phenomenon is problematic for at least some versions of relativism and discussing several possible answers on behalf of the relativist, I put forward my own version. The main feature of the proposal is the introduction in the index not of a single parameter for perspectives, but of a (possibly infinite) sequence of such parameters. In the last part of the paper, I defend the view from three objections.
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Disputatio, X(51), 275-288 (book symposium on Jason Stanley, "How Propaganda Works", edited by Dan Zeman), 2018
This is the editor's introduction to the book symposium on Jason Stanley's influential book How P... more This is the editor's introduction to the book symposium on Jason Stanley's influential book How Propaganda Words (Oxford University Press, 2015). After a few brief remarks situating the book in the landscape of current analytic philosophy, I offer a detailed presentation of each chapter of the book, in order to familiarize the reader with its main tenets and with the author's argumentative strategy. I flag the issues that the contributors to the symposium discuss, and describe their main points. I end with expressing hope that the symposium will help continue the conversation around ideology and propaganda within analytic philosophy.
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Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 21 (edited by Robert Truswell, Chris Cummins, Caroline Heycock, Brian Rabern & Hannah Rohde), 2018
In this paper I focus on a recently discussed phenomenon illustrated by sentences containing pred... more In this paper I focus on a recently discussed phenomenon illustrated by sentences containing predicates of taste: the phenomenon of " perspectival plurality " , whereby sentences containing two or more predicates of taste have readings according to which each predicate pertains to a different perspective. This phenomenon has been shown to be problematic for (at least certain versions of) relativism. My main aim is to further the discussion by showing that the phenomenon extends to other perspectival expressions than predicates of taste and by proposing a general solution to the problem raised by it on behalf of the relativist. The core claim of the solution (" multiple indexing ") is that utterances of sentences containing perspectival expressions should be evaluated with respect to (possibly infinite) sequences of perspective parameters.
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Firu'n 4, 2018
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Meaning, Context and Methodology (edited by Sarah-Jane Conrad and Klaus Petrus), Mouton de Gruyter, 2017
In this paper I inquire into the methodological status of one of the arguments that have figured ... more In this paper I inquire into the methodological status of one of the arguments that have figured prominently in contemporary debates about the semantics of a variety of expressions, the so-called “Binding Argument”. My inquiry is limited to the case of meteorological sentences like “It is raining”, but my conclusion can be extended to other types of sentences as well. Following Jason Stanley, I distinguish between three interpretations of the argument. My focus is on the third, weakest interpretation, according to which postulating variables for locations in the logical form of meteorological sentences is the best available explanation of the binding phenomena that such sentences give rise to. My aim is to show that even in this weak interpretation, the argument cannot be reasonably taken to hold. I accomplish this by showcasing several alternative ways to account for the binding data that have not been, as of yet, ruled out as flawed.
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Phenomenology and Mind, 12, 62-73, 2017
In this short paper I survey recent contextualist answers to the challenge from disagreement rais... more In this short paper I survey recent contextualist answers to the challenge from disagreement raised by contemporary relativists. After making the challenge vivid by means of a working example, I specify the notion of disagreement lying at the heart of the challenge. The answers are grouped in three categories, the first characterized by rejecting the intuition of disagreement in certain cases, the second by conceiving disagreement as a clash of non-cognitive attitudes and the third by relegating disagreement at the pragmatic level. For each category I present several important variants and raise some (general) criticisms. The paper is meant to offer a quick introduction to the current contextualist literature on disagreement and thus a useful tool for further research.
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In this paper, I consider whether this view applies equally well to disagreements involving aesthetic adjectives. I show, first, that it applies quite straightforwardly to predicates like “beautiful”, which presumably generate faultless disagreement. However, aesthetic adjectives like “beautiful” don’t exhaust the aesthetic sphere. A term like “balanced”, for example, while still perspectival, is said to have a more “objective” feel, and usually doesn’t generate faultless disagreement: when the novice and the expert disagree using such a term, we take it that the expert is right and the novice is wrong. I argue that Karczewska’s view has trouble explaining this difference in the profile of the two types of aesthetic predicates vis-à-vis the generation of disagreement. I also consider possible ways to cope with the problem, reject them, and propose a different one that is suitable for most views in the debate.
In this paper, I consider whether this view applies equally well to disagreements involving aesthetic adjectives. I show, first, that it applies quite straightforwardly to predicates like “beautiful”, which presumably generate faultless disagreement. However, aesthetic adjectives like “beautiful” don’t exhaust the aesthetic sphere. A term like “balanced”, for example, while still perspectival, is said to have a more “objective” feel, and usually doesn’t generate faultless disagreement: when the novice and the expert disagree using such a term, we take it that the expert is right and the novice is wrong. I argue that Karczewska’s view has trouble explaining this difference in the profile of the two types of aesthetic predicates vis-à-vis the generation of disagreement. I also consider possible ways to cope with the problem, reject them, and propose a different one that is suitable for most views in the debate.
A particular instance of this latter phenomenon is when someone changes their perspective and doesn't find their previous assertions true anymore. For example, imagine that you used to like licorice as a child, and that you went around saying things like "Licorice is tasty." But, growing up, you find licorice too strong and quite boring; your tastes have changed. While the taste of licorice itself has not changed, you are not going around anymore uttering "Licorice is tasty." In fact, in certain cases, you might even think that what you said in your childhood was wrongat least in light of your present preferences.
Sometimes we "take back" the assertions we made when we realize they are no longer true. Such speech acts of taking back can be performed in various ways: more formally, as effected in a court of law or when an official speaks to the press, or more informally in our day-by-day interactions. These acts of taking back are known as retraction. Retraction is usually achieved by employing certain linguistic markers ('I was wrong', 'I was mistaken', 'I retract', "Scratch that' etc.) that signal that the retractor takes their previous speech act to be faulty in a certain way.
This phenomenon has formed the basis for a popular argument used by relativists about a variety of natural language expressions (predicates of taste, epistemic modals, moral and aesthetic claims etc.) in support of their view. Recently, several considerations (mostly from contextualists about the same expressions)both from the armchair and based on empirical studies have been offered to undercut the support retraction has been taken to provide for relativism. In this paper, I consider and re-evaluate that support in light of both types of considerations, showing that neither of them decisively undermines it. However, to survive the contextualist counterattack, the relativist needs to pay a price: that is, she will be forced to make some concessions or rethink certain claims. I show what I think those concessions should be and what needs to be rethought (and how). The upshot is that, while the support retraction offers relativism is not as strong as initially believed, appeal to retraction remains a legitimate move in the debate. In section 1, I introduce the views in the debate and clarify the phenomenon of retraction and its dialectical role. Armchair data are investigated in section 2 and proper experimental studies in section 3, while section 4 summarizes and concludes.