Kenneth Black
@kennethblack.bsky.social
PhD candidate at MIT philosophy, doing philosophy of: mind/cog sci, language/linguistics, science; metaphysics as needed. (he/him)
kennethblackphi.com
kennethblackphi.com
Solution 1: Go in for a notion of objective naturalness. There’s a fact about the right, natural way to write the rule.
Greenberg seems to favor this, as brought out in the discussion of natural dependency:
(4/8)
Greenberg seems to favor this, as brought out in the discussion of natural dependency:
(4/8)
November 5, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Solution 1: Go in for a notion of objective naturalness. There’s a fact about the right, natural way to write the rule.
Greenberg seems to favor this, as brought out in the discussion of natural dependency:
(4/8)
Greenberg seems to favor this, as brought out in the discussion of natural dependency:
(4/8)
The idea: semantic rules describing an iconic system are sign-dependent and not very conditional, while semantic rules describing a symbolic system are very conditional and not sign dependent. (There’s also natural dependence, on which more in a moment.) E.g. his two tank meter systems:
(2/8)
(2/8)
November 5, 2025 at 4:56 PM
The idea: semantic rules describing an iconic system are sign-dependent and not very conditional, while semantic rules describing a symbolic system are very conditional and not sign dependent. (There’s also natural dependence, on which more in a moment.) E.g. his two tank meter systems:
(2/8)
(2/8)
Every lit needs its Thesis
October 6, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Every lit needs its Thesis
Learned today that I’m a “comfortable muddlehead.” Thanks, Jerry
October 6, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Learned today that I’m a “comfortable muddlehead.” Thanks, Jerry
Not certain but I think it’s the fiction-factive idea? Fictional events are real on the view
September 16, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Not certain but I think it’s the fiction-factive idea? Fictional events are real on the view
I think I only really started hearing numbers attached to “credence” in grad school. Here’s some hits for credence in the corpus of contemporary American English—I couldn’t find any with numerical measurements, although I definitely didn’t look at everything (1/2)
August 1, 2025 at 6:31 PM
I think I only really started hearing numbers attached to “credence” in grad school. Here’s some hits for credence in the corpus of contemporary American English—I couldn’t find any with numerical measurements, although I definitely didn’t look at everything (1/2)
Paper skygest thought this was real lol
July 30, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Paper skygest thought this was real lol
In “Structural equations and causation,” Ned Hall makes frequent reference to an “extended version,” but with no indication of how to read it
July 21, 2025 at 1:17 PM
In “Structural equations and causation,” Ned Hall makes frequent reference to an “extended version,” but with no indication of how to read it
Remarkable, for analytic philosophers it’s a term of abuse
July 11, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Remarkable, for analytic philosophers it’s a term of abuse
Remember folks, it’s not hard to be more empirically informed than Hilary Putnam
June 7, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Remember folks, it’s not hard to be more empirically informed than Hilary Putnam
Would that all slips of the keyboard were this good
June 6, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Would that all slips of the keyboard were this good
Mm doesn’t work that way
June 6, 2025 at 12:50 AM
Mm doesn’t work that way
Reminds me of my favorite Fodor line
April 23, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reminds me of my favorite Fodor line
Totally sympathize with the concern here, but ‘performative’ was in use before philosophers and linguists gave it a technical meaning, and the earlier meaning arguably fits the usage being complained about in this post
April 20, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Totally sympathize with the concern here, but ‘performative’ was in use before philosophers and linguists gave it a technical meaning, and the earlier meaning arguably fits the usage being complained about in this post
As a philosopher of language, I can say that this is a bad policy to follow
March 19, 2025 at 11:34 PM
As a philosopher of language, I can say that this is a bad policy to follow
Don’t multiply riffs beyond necessity
March 8, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Don’t multiply riffs beyond necessity
Cool instances of @devinsanchezcurry.com’s claim that scientific psychology is R&D for folk psychology. The notion of a psychological threshold is so ubiquitous nowadays I was pretty taken aback to see it reported by William James as a (then) recent development in psychology.
February 16, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Cool instances of @devinsanchezcurry.com’s claim that scientific psychology is R&D for folk psychology. The notion of a psychological threshold is so ubiquitous nowadays I was pretty taken aback to see it reported by William James as a (then) recent development in psychology.
Another stab at this: seems like people in the grounding literature take themselves to be explaining different enough relations (between facts? sentences?) that an outsider might worry that not everyone is talking about the same thing, and thus not know what grounding folks are talking about
January 23, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Another stab at this: seems like people in the grounding literature take themselves to be explaining different enough relations (between facts? sentences?) that an outsider might worry that not everyone is talking about the same thing, and thus not know what grounding folks are talking about
Maybe just as an example to show how teleosemantics works in general?
January 21, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Maybe just as an example to show how teleosemantics works in general?
