Works by Kenneth Taylor
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Kenneth A. Taylor [29] Kenneth Taylor [24] Kenneth L. Taylor [18] Kenneth B. Taylor [3]
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Kenneth Taylor
Language and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language.Kenneth A. Taylor, Michael Devitt & Kim Sterelny - 1990 - Philosophical Review 99 (2):260.details
On Singularity.Kenneth Taylor - 2010 - In Robin Jeshion (ed.), New Essays on Singular Thought. Oxford University Press.details
Singular Propositions in Philosophy of Language
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Sex, Breakfast, and Descriptus Interruptus.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2001 - Synthese 128 (1-2):45 - 61.details
Specific Expressions in Philosophy of Language
Toward a Naturalistic Theory of Rational Intentionality.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2003 - In Reference and the Rational Mind. CSLI Publications.details
This essay some first steps toward the naturalization of what I call rational intentionality or alternatively type II intentionality. By rational or type II intentionality, I mean that full combination of rational powers and content-bearing states that is paradigmatically enjoyed by mature intact human beings. The problem I set myself is to determine the extent to which the only currently extant approach to the naturalization of the intentional that has the singular virtue of not being a non-starter can be aggregated (...) up into an account of rational intentionality. I have in mind a broadly defined family of accounts whose main members are the indicator/information-theoretic approach of Dretske (1988), the asymmetric dependence theory of Jerry Fodor (1987, 1990, 1994) and the teleo-semantics of Ruth Millikan (1984, 1993). Somewhat inaccurately, I will call this family of approaches the information-theoretic family. To be sure, there is only a rough family resemblance among the members of the information-theoretic family. Indeed, several intense quarrels divide the members of that family one from another, but the precise outcome of those internecine struggles is not directly relevant to the aims of this essay. 2 Taken collectively, the information-theoretic family yields a compelling picture of the place of at least a crude form of intentionality -- what I call frog-like or type I intentionality -- in the natural order. Though frog-like or type I intentionality is, I think, a genuine species of intentionality, it may subsist in the absence of rational powers. It is that species of intentionality enjoyed by irritable creatures who, following Brandom (1994). (shrink)
Naturalizing Mental Content, Misc in Philosophy of Mind
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Reference and the Rational Mind.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2003 - CSLI Publications.details
Referentialism has underappreciated consequences for our understanding of the ways in which mind, language, and world relate to one another. In exploring these consequences, this book defends a version of referentialism about names, demonstratives, and indexicals, in a manner appropriate for scholars and students in philosophy or the cognitive sciences. To demonstrate his view, Kenneth A. Taylor offers original and provocative accounts of a wide variety of semantic, pragmatic, and psychological phenomena, such as empty names, propositional attitude contexts, the nature (...) of concepts, and the ultimate source and nature of normativity. (shrink)
Attitude Ascriptions in Philosophy of Language
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Misplaced Modification and the Illusion of Opacity.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2007 - In Michael O'Rourke Corey Washington (ed.), Situating Semantics: Essays on the Philosophy of John Perry. pp. 215--250.details
Aspects of Consciousness in Philosophy of Mind
Orienting Response and Apparent Movement Toward or Away From the Observer.Alvin S. Bernstein, Kenneth Taylor, Buron G. Austen, Martin Nathanson & Anthony Scarpelli - 1971 - Journal of Experimental Psychology 87 (1):37.details
Consciousness and Psychology in Philosophy of Cognitive Science
Mental States and Processes in Philosophy of Mind
How to Hume a Hegel‐Kant: A Program for Naturalizing Normative Consciousness1.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2015 - Philosophical Issues 25 (1):1-40.details
Hume and Other Philosophers in 17th/18th Century Philosophy
Hume: Metaphysics and Epistemology in 17th/18th Century Philosophy
Neither a Populist nor a Vanguardist Be! Respecting the Wisdom and Will of the People.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2019 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 45 (9-10):1222-1238.details
In this essay, I consider three different conceptions of 'the people' and what it means to 'respect' their collective will and wisdom: the democratic conception of the people as a sprawling demos, the populist conception of the people as an authentic folk and, finally, the vanguardist conception of the people as the semi-mute masses who stand in need of revolutionary transformation. Although my ultimate aim is to defend the democratic conception of the people over both the populist conception and the (...) vanguardist conception, much of this essay is taken up simply spelling out each of these conceptions of the people and outlining their consequences for the conduct of politics. I begin by contrasting the democratic conception with the populist conception. I then turn briefly to the vanguardist conception. I close with a brief, and admittedly incomplete defence of a particular form of democracy – what I call transformative or ameliorative democracy – which conceives of the people as a self-transformative totality. (shrink)
Names as Devices of Explicit Co-Reference.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (S2):235-262.details
This essay examines the syntax of names. It argues that names are a syntactically and not just semantically distinctive class of expressions. Its central claim is that names are a distinguished type of anaphoric device—devices of explicit co-reference. Finally it argues that appreciating the true syntactic distinctiveness of names is the key to resolving certain long-standing philosophical puzzles that have long been thought to be of a semantic nature.
Names in Philosophy of Language
Truth and Meaning: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language.Kenneth Taylor - 1991 - Wiley-Blackwell.details
Philosophy of Language, General Works in Philosophy of Language
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Narrow Content Functionalism and the Mind-Body Problem.Kenneth Taylor - 1989 - Noûs 23 (3):355-72.details
Functionalism in Philosophy of Mind
Inferentialist Accounts of Meaning and Content in Philosophy of Mind
Metaphysics of Mind in Philosophy of Mind
Narrow Content in Philosophy of Mind
Belief, Information and Semantic Content: A Naturalist's Lament.Kenneth A. Taylor - 1987 - Synthese 71 (April):97-124.details
Information-Based Accounts of Mental Content in Philosophy of Mind
Selfhood as Self Representation.Kenneth Taylor - manuscriptdetails
This essay In this essay develops and defends the view that a "self " is nothing but a creature that bears the property of selfhood, where bearing selfhood is, in turn, nothing but having the capacity to deploy self-representations. Self-representations, it is argued, are very special things. They are distinguished from other sorts of representations,not by what they represent – mysterious inner entities called selves, say -- but by how they represent what they represent. A self-representation represents nothing but a (...) living human animal but it does do in a special way. It follows that a "self" is not a thing that a living human animals has or contains within, but something a living human animal is. The view defended represents a principled middle ground between Cartesianism and Factionalism or Eliminativism about the self. (shrink)
Intentionality in Philosophy of Mind
Representation in Philosophy of Mind
De Re and De Dicto: Against the Conventional Wisdom.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2002 - Noûs 36 (s16):225 - 265.details
Meaning, Reference and Cognitive Significance.Kenneth A. Taylor - 1995 - Mind and Language 10 (1-2):129-180.details
Meaning in Philosophy of Language
What In Nature Is The Compulsion Of Reason?Kenneth A. Taylor - 2000 - Synthese 122 (1):209-244.details
If reason is a real causal force, operative in some, but not all of our cognition and conation, then it ought to be possible to tell a naturalistic story that distinguishes the mind which is moved by reason from the mind which is moved by forces other than reason. This essay proposes some steps toward that end. I proceed by showing that it is possible to reconcile certain emerging psychological ideas about the causal powers of the mind/brain with a venerable (...) philosophical vision of reason as the faculty of norms. My account of reason is psychologistic, social, and consistent with an evolutionary approach to mind. The account preserves the normativity by deflating it. But I argue that only such deflated normativity has any chance of being made naturalistically respectable. (shrink)
How to Be a Relativist.Kenneth Taylor - manuscriptdetails
Moral relativism is often rejected on grounds that it is either descriptively inadequate, at best, or self-defeating, at worst. In this essay, I swim against the predominant anti-relativistic philosophical tide. My minimal aim is to show that relativism is neither descriptively inadequate nor self-defeating. My maximal aim is to outline the beginnings of an argument that relativism is a truth resting on deep facts about the human normative predicament. And I shall suggest that far from being a source of cultural (...) degeneracy, the fact of relativism has the potential to ground a culture that is deeply life-affirming. My argument against the twin charges of descriptive inadequacy and self- defeat turns on a distinction between tolerant and intolerant relativism. I concede that many of the standard arguments against relativism do have force against tolerant relativism. But against intolerant relativism, those arguments are entirely unavailing. The crucial difference between the tolerant and intolerant relativist is that although the intolerant relativist agrees with the tolerant relativist that norms are relative, she insists that agents are sometimes entitled to hold others to norms by which they are not bound. I shall argue that just because the intolerant relativist allows that we are sometimes entitled to hold others to norms by which we are bound but they are not, she is able to escape both the charge of descriptive inadequacy and the charge of self- defeat. In particular, I shall show that the intolerant relativist has a coherent and satisfying account of the nature of moral disagreement and moral argument. Establishing the ultimate truth of relativism, however, would take more than showing that one form of relativism escapes certain standard arguments against relativism. Though I do not pretend to conclusively discharge the burden of showing that relativism is true in the space of this essay, I do sketch the beginnings of an account of what I call the bindingness of norms that has intolerant relativism as more or less straight-forward downstream consequence. If there are independent grounds for accepting that account of bindingness, then there are independent grounds for accepting intolerant moral relativism. (shrink)
Moral Relativism in Meta-Ethics
Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign!Kenneth A. Taylor - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (3):703-709.details
How Not to Refute Eliminative Materialism.Kenneth A. Taylor - 1994 - Philosophical Psychology 7 (1):101-125.details
This paper examines and rejects some purported refutations of eliminative materialism in the philosophy of mind: a quasi-transcendental argument due to Jackson and Pettit (1990) to the effect that folk psychology is "peculiarly unlikely" to be radically revised or eliminated in light of the developments of cognitive science and neuroscience; and (b) certain straight-out transcendental arguments to the effect that eliminativism is somehow incoherent (Baker, 1987; Boghossian, 1990). It begins by clarifying the exact topology of the dialectical space in which (...) debates between eliminativist and anti-eliminativist ought to be framed. I claim that both proponents and opponents of eliminativism have been insufficiently attentive to the range of dialectical possibilities. Consequently, the debate has not, in fact, been framed within the correct dialectical setting. I then go onto to show how inattentiveness to the range of dialectical possibilities undermines both transcendental and quasi-transcendental arguments against eliminativism. In particular, I argue that the quasi-transcendentalist overestimates the degree to which folk psychology can be insulated from the advance of neuroscience and cognitive science just in virtue of being a functional theory. I argue further that transcendental arguments are fallacious and do not succeed against even the strongest possible form of eliminativism. Finally, I argue that that transcendental arguments are irrelevant. Even if such arguments do succeed against a certain'very strong form of eliminativism, they remain complete non-starters against certain weaker forms of eliminativism. And I argue that if any of these weaker forms is true, folk psychology is in trouble enough to vindicate Paul Ckurchland's claim that our common sense psychological framework is "a radically false and misleading conception of the causes of human behavior and the nature of cognitive activity". (shrink)
Eliminativism about Propositional Attitudes in Philosophy of Mind
Singular Beliefs and Their Ascriptions.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2003 - In Reference and the Rational Mind. CSLI Publications.details
This essay defends three interlocking claims about singular beliefs and their ascriptions. The first is a claim about the nature of such beliefs; the second is a claim about the semantic contents of ascriptions of such beliefs; the third is a claim about the pragmatic significance of such ascriptions. With respect to the nature of singular belief, I claim that the contents of our singular beliefs are a joint product of mind and world, with neither mind nor world enjoying any (...) peculiar priority over the other in the constitution of content. This view amounts to a rejection of the priority of so-called narrow or notional content over wide or referential content for singular beliefs. About the semantics of ascriptions of singular belief, I claim that such ascriptions ascribe what I call predicative doxastic commitments and nothing more. In particular, I will argue that to ascribe a predicative commitment is merely to say what property is being predicated by she who undertakes the relevant commitment to what object. My view has the consequence that ascriptions of singular beliefs typically do not either semantically specify or pragmatically implicate the modes of presentations, notions, or conceptions via which the ascribee cognizes the objects and properties relative to which she undertakes predicative commitments. To be sure, many maintain that at least one class of belief ascriptions -- so called de dicto ascriptions. (shrink)
Review: Accomodationist Neo-Russellianism. [REVIEW]Kenneth A. Taylor - 1997 - Noûs 31 (4):538 - 556.details
Russellian and Direct Reference Theories of Meaning in Philosophy of Language
The Nature of Contents in Philosophy of Mind
How to Vanquish the Lingering Shadow of the Long‐Dead God.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2013 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 37 (1):68-86.details
Judaism in Philosophy of Religion
The Syntax and Pragmatics of The Naming Relation.Kenneth A. Taylor - unknowndetails
Philosophers of language have lavished attention on names and other singular referring expressions. But they have focused primarily on what might be called lexicalsemantic character of names and have largely ignored both what I call the lexicalsyntactic character of names and also what I call the pragmatic significance of the naming relation. Partly as a consequence, explanatory burdens have mistakenly been heaped upon semantics that properly belong elsewhere. This essay takes some steps toward correcting these twin lacunae. When we properly (...) distinguish that which belongs to the lexical-syntactic character of names, from that which belongs to the lexical semantic character of names, from that which rests on the pragmatics of the naming relation, we lay to rest many misbegotten claims about names and their presumed semantic behavior. For example, though many believe that Frege's puzzle about the possibility of informative identity statements motivates a move away from a referentialist semantics for names, I argue that the very possibility of Frege cases has its source not in facts about the lexical-semantic character of names but in facts about the lexical-syntax of the naming relation. If I am right, Frege cases as such are insufficient to justify the introduction of the distinction between sense and reference. In a similar vein, I offer a new diagnosis of the widely misdiagnosed felt invalidity of the substitution of coreferring names within propositional attitude contexts. That felt invalidity has been taken 1 to justify the conclusion that an embedded referring expression must be playing some semantic role either different from or additional to its customary semantic role of standing for its reference. I argue, to the contrary, that failures of substitutivity have their source not in the peculiar semantic behavior of embedded expressions but entirely in certain pragmatic principles. (shrink)
Semantics in Philosophy of Language
Applying Continuous Modelling to Consciousness.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2001 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 8 (2):45-60.details
Much of neuroscience is currently dominated by an information processing metaphor which is largely conceptualized in discrete terms. An alternative metaphor conceptualizes information flow as continuous. A qualitative set of hypotheses based on this metaphor, the energy model, is described here. This model considers information transfer in terms of the flow of an abstract variable, energy, between points in a field comprising the extent of the nervous system. Although extremely simple, it generates some intriguing consequences. In particular, it provides a (...) useful way in which to look at consciousness. Traditional problems of consciousness, such as qualia and the unity of consciousness, are briefly addressed, and outlines are sketched of the answers given by the energy model. (shrink)
Cognitive Models of Consciousness in Philosophy of Cognitive Science
Telliamed in its Time.Kenneth L. Taylor - 2012 - Metascience 21 (3):561-567.details
Telliamed in its time Content Type Journal Article Category Survey Review Pages 1-7 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9638-x Authors Kenneth L. Taylor, Department of the History of Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019-3106, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.
We've Got You Coming and Going.Kenneth A. Taylor - 1988 - Linguistics and Philosophy 11 (4):493 - 513.details
Without the Net of Providence: Atheism and the Human Adventure.Kenneth A. Taylor - 2007 - In Louise M. Antony (ed.), Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 150-164.details
At first glance, it may appear that those who believe in divine providence have a happier lot and are much less prone to despair than those who reject god and divine providence altogether. That alone may seem to give us good reason to prefer belief to non-belief. I shall argue in this essay that there is almost nothing to be said for either the view that belief in providence provides invincible armor against despair or for the view that the atheist (...) who rejects providence need surrender to a paralyzing despair. (shrink)
Atheism in Philosophy of Religion
Hope in Normative Ethics
Religious Skepticism in Philosophy of Religion
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Histoire de la géologie. Gabriel Gohau.Kenneth L. Taylor - 1988 - Isis 79 (2):329-330.details
Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign! [REVIEW]Kenneth A. Taylor - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (3):703–709.details
For Millikan, purpose pervades the biological order, including the genes and genetically encoded traits of every living thing, the unconditioned reflexes and conditioned behavior of every animal, artifacts produced by humans or non-humans. There are also the conscious, explicit purposes and intentions of human beings. These are purposes in "a quite univocal sense," Millikan insists. "In all cases," she says, "the thing's purpose is … what it was selected for doing." Moreover, "…the purposes we attribute to whole persons … are (...) composed of no more than the purposes of [their] parts and aspects, and of the ways these have been designed to work together." (13) The chain of purposes forms a double helix with another great chain -- the great chain of signs. At the bottom of the great chain, sit locally recurrent natural signs. These are wholly natural occurrences or states of affairs that carry "local information." Locally recurrent natural signs are not yet intentional signs but they are the ground on which intentionality ultimately rests. Local natural signs are "basic" representations in the following sense: … when the systems that produce and/or use intentional representations perform the tasks they were designed to perform and perform these tasks by means of their normal mechanism … then the intentional representations are basic representations. (69) When an intentional sign producing/consuming system is functioning "normally" its intentional signs will just be local natural signs. Systems don't always function normally; So we can't quite say that intentional signs are built out of locally recurrent natural signs. Still, without such signs subsisting at the ground level, there apparently could not be intentional signs. But it is far from clear whether locally recurrent natural sign can really carry the load Millikan needs them to carry. Locality seems designed to exorcise the ghost of disjunction that haunts many correlational theories of content.. (shrink)
Eloge: Thomas Malcolm Smith, Jr., 1921–2005.Kenneth L. Taylor - 2005 - Isis 96 (4):612-614.details
Sciences of the Earth: An Encyclopedia of Events, People, and Phenomena. Gregory A. Good.Kenneth L. Taylor - 2000 - Isis 91 (4):842-843.details
Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time. Stephen Jay Gould.Kenneth L. Taylor - 1987 - Isis 78 (4):608-609.details
Aspects of Time in Metaphysics
Histoire des sciences de la terre entre 1790 et 1815 vue à travers les documents inédits de la Société de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Genève: Trois grands protagonistes: Marc-Auguste Pictet, Guillaume-Antoine Deluc et Jean Tollot. Albert V. CarozziLes sciences de la terre aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles: Naissance de la géologie. Gabriel Gohau. [REVIEW]Kenneth L. Taylor - 1992 - Isis 83 (3):497-499.details
The Establishment of GeohistoryMartin J. S. Rudwick. Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform. Xxiv + 614 Pp., Illus., Bibl., Index. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2008. $49. [REVIEW]Kenneth L. Taylor - 2009 - Isis 100 (4):872-880.details
Voltaire's Attitude Toward Geology. Marguerite Carozzi.Kenneth L. Taylor - 1983 - Isis 74 (4):614-614.details
17th/18th Century French Philosophy in 17th/18th Century Philosophy
New Light on Geological Mapping in Auvergne During the Eighteenth Century: The Pasumot-Desmarest Collaboration.Kenneth L. Taylor - 1994 - Revue d'Histoire des Sciences 47 (1):129-136.details
17th/18th Century British Philosophy in 17th/18th Century Philosophy
Framework for Understanding Fair Trade Disintermediation.Jonathan Doh & Kenneth Taylor - 2012 - Business and Society Review 117 (4):443-475.details
British Quakerism, 1860-1920: The Transformation of a Religious Community. [REVIEW]Kenneth B. Taylor - 2002 - Journal for Peace and Justice Studies 12 (2):255-261.details
International Ethics in Applied Ethics
Eloge: Rhoda Rappaport, 1935–2009.Kenneth L. Taylor & Alice Stroup - 2010 - Isis 101 (4):833-837.details
Davidson's Theory of Meaning: Some Questions. [REVIEW]Kenneth A. Taylor - 1985 - Philosophical Studies 48 (1):91 - 105.details
Donald Davidson in 20th Century Philosophy
The Earth Generated and Anatomized: An Early Eighteenth Century Theory of the EarthWilliam Hobbs Roy Porter.Kenneth L. Taylor - 1982 - Isis 73 (2):313-314.details
On the Pragmatics of Mode of Reference Selection.Kenneth A. Taylor - 1993 - Communication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 26 (1):97-127.details
Four Hitherto Unpublished Geological Lectures Given by Sir Humphry Davy in 1805Humphry DavyHumphry Davy on Geology: The 1805 Lectures for the General AudienceHumphry Davy Robert Siegfried Robert H. Dott, Jr. [REVIEW]Kenneth L. Taylor - 1981 - Isis 72 (2):303-304.details
Grégory Quenet. Les Tremblements de Terre aux XVIIe Et XVIIIe Siècles: La Naissance d'Un Risque. . 590 Pp., Illus., Figs., Tables, Apps., Bibl., Indexes. Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2005. €32. [REVIEW]Kenneth L. Taylor - 2009 - Isis 100 (1):164-165.details
La mutation de l'enseignement scientifique en France et le rôle des écoles centrales: L'exemple de Nantes. Pierre Lamandé.Kenneth L. Taylor - 1991 - Isis 82 (3):570-570.details
Hugh Torrens,The Practice of British Geology, 1750–1850. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002. [REVIEW]Kenneth L. Taylor - 2003 - Metascience 12 (3):438-442.details
Four Hitherto Unpublished Geological Lectures Given by Sir Humphry Davy in 1805 by Humphry Davy; Humphry Davy on Geology: The 1805 Lectures for the General Audience by Humphry Davy; Robert Siegfried; Robert H. Dott. [REVIEW]Kenneth Taylor - 1981 - Isis: A Journal of the History of Science 72:303-304.details
History of Science in General Philosophy of Science
Supervenience and Levels of Meaning.Kenneth A. Taylor - 1989 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 27 (3):443-58.details
Supervenience in Metaphysics
21st Century Economics: A Synthesis of Progressive Economic Thought.William E. Halal & Kenneth B. Taylor - 2002 - Business and Society Review 107 (2):255-274.details
Issues in the Philosophy of Economics in Philosophy of Social Science
Philosophy of Economics in Philosophy of Social Science