Kenneth Taylor's Overview
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Name:Kenneth TaylorTitle:Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of PhilosophyDepartment:PhilosophyAdditional Appointments:Director, Symbolic Systems ProgramStanford Philosophy Department Member:YesAreas of Specialization:Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language, Pragmatics, NormativityPrimary Phone:650 723-1840Office Number (physical):Building 100, 102NResearch Interests
I am currently working on three books, in various stages of completion. The most nearly complete is a book about reference called Referring to the World: An Opinionated Introduction to the Theory of Reference. It was commissioned by Oxford ages ago and should be finished soon -- any day now. The second book, which is a longer term project is called Toward a Natural History of Normativity. It contains a naturalization of many things normative -- including ethical norms, linguistic norms, epistemic norms, and logical norms. The third book, which is still a bit of a gleam in my eyes, will be called Pragmatics Everywhere. It grows out of my most recent work on the pragmatics of communication -- about which I have written a fair amount, but in somewhat scattered and occasional form. This book will collect my thoughts on pragmatics under one heading.
Additional Information/ LinksIn my spare time, I also co-host a nationally syndicated radio show, called Philosophy Talk We bill ourselves as the Program that Questions Everything --- Except Your Intelligence. I do this with my friend, colleague and collaborator, John Perry. Unbelievably, we've been at it for five years now and are still going strong.
Documents/Papers
| Author | Title | Category | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kenneth Taylor | The Things We Do With Empty Names: Objectual Representations, Non-Veridical Language Games, and Truth Similitude In this paper, I introduce three distinctions: between merely objectual and fully objective representations, between veridical and non-veridical language games, and between genuine truth and mere truth-similitude. I argue that once these distinctions are properly deployed, they help us to make sense of the many things we do with empty names. |
Publication | 1/15/12 |
| Kenneth Taylor | Reference and Jazz Combo Theories of Meaning In this essay, I consider two different approaches to the problem of what I call objective representational content: bottom-up approaches, that take the semantic value of the constituent to be both metaphysically and explanatorily prior to the semantic values of whole sentences and top-down approaches that reverse that order of priority. I call theories of the second sort jazz combo theories of meaning, on the grounds that they take the initial constitution of objective representational content to be ... |
Publication | 3/17/11 |
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