One of the central arguments in Strawson (1960) against the possibility of a formal semantics of natural language and of an associated logic was that indexicals cannot be dealt with formally.1 Kaplan’s “Demonstratives” provided a successful semantics and a logic for indexicals, and thus proved Strawson wrong about indexicals, and about context sensitive expressions in general.2 The present pape...

What kind of normative response should one adopt in front resentment? This paper aims at questioning the possible value and legitimacy resentment, against a common trend consisting negatively assessing this affects attitudes. It uses two philosophical traditions (Nietzsche Scheler vs. Smith, Rawls, Strawson) order to show that real question is pathological evolution difficulty then react it.

We think of perceptual experience as a source of propositional knowledge of the world around us. So we think of perceptual experience as a reliable source of true beliefs. Therefore, we must be thinking of perceptual experience as causally dependent on perceived objects. This is a rough sketch of a line of reasoning that plays a significant role in P. F. Strawson’s defence of the causal theory ...

This paper has one main goal, which is a negative one. It aims at showing that the theory of NPI licensing defended in von Fintel (1999) is empirically inadequate. In essence, the theory we’re discussing relies on so-called Strawson-entailment, a device which ensures that weak NPIs are licensed despite the presence of presuppositions. We level two main criticisms against von Fintel’s theory. Fi...

Strawsonian approaches to responsibility, including more recent accounts such as Dennett’s and Wallace’s, face a number of important objections. However, Strawsonian theories can be recast along revisionist lines so as to avoid many of these problems. In this paper, I explain the revisionist approach to moral responsibility, discuss the concessions it makes to incompatibilism (including the poi...

Strawson (1959) described ‘descriptive metaphysics’, Bach (1986a) described ‘natural language metaphysics’, Sapir (1929) and Whorf (1940a,b, 1941) describe, well, SapirWhorfianism. And there are other views concerning the relation between correct semantic analysis of linguistic phenomena and the “reality” that is supposed to be thereby described. I think some considerations from the analyses of...