Van McGee Bibliography

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE

DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

COLLOQUIUM

"The Maiasaur Problem"
Abstract: Two conceptions of truth are currently prominent. The deflationary conception regards "'Snow is white' is true" and "Snow is white" as analytically equivalent. The alternative attempts to explain the connections between a community's utterances and the things their utterances are about by seeing how the practices of the community establish truth conditions for their sentences. The conception that treats truth conditions as a causally explanatory notion runs into serious obstacles, in the form of paradoxes that would tend to collapse the causal explanatory notion into the deflationary notion. I attempt to remove a couple of the obstacles.

Vann McGee

MIT

Friday, May 18, 2001

3:00 p.m.

SST 777

Vann McGee

A Bibliography
Compiled by
Eddie Yeghiayan

1981

"Finite Matrices and the Logic of Conditionals." Journal of Philosophical Logic (August 1981), 10(3):349-351.

1985

"A Counterexample to Modus Ponens." Journal of Philosophy (September 1985), 82(9):462-471.
"How Truthlike Can a Predicate Be: A Negative Result." Journal of Philosophical Logic (November 1985), 14(4):399-410.
"Truth and Necessity in Partially Interpreted Languages." Ph.D. Dissertation in Logic and Methodology of Science, University of California, Berkeley, 1985.
Abstract in Dissertation Abstracts International (September 1986), 47(3A):935-A.
Abstract: Tarski showed how to give satisfactory theories of truth for a wide variety of languages, but he required that the theory of truth for a language be formulated in an essentially richer metalanguage. Since there is no human language essentially richer than a natural language and since we would like to develop consistent theories of truth for natural languages, we would like to learn how to formulate a theory of truth for a language within that very language. Toward this end, I consider a class of formalized languages called partially interpreted languages, derived from the work of Carnap, in which sentences are classified as definitely true, definitely false, and intermediate. I give a condition of adequacy, analogus to Tarski's Convension T, requiring that (phi) is true be definitely true (definitely false) iff (phi) is definitely true (definitely false), and show that it is possible to give, effectively and explicity, a theory of truth that meets the condition. Theories of truth that meet the condition are shown to have various pleasant properties. The construction depends heavily upon the work of Saul Kripke. In addition to the work of Tarski and Kripke, the 'naive semantics' of Gupta and Herzberger is discussed. Of the paradoxes other than the liar, only Montague's paradox about necessity is discussed in any detail. To solve this paradox, I recommend a provability interpretation of modal logic of the type studied by Solovay. Prospects for extending Solovay's results into quantified modal logic are discussed. The work is entirely concerned with formal languages, although it is hoped that the tools developed can be usefully applied to natural languages.

1987

(with George Boolos.) "The Degree of the Set of Sentences of Predicate Provability Logic That are True Under Every Interpretation." Journal of Symbolic Logic (March 1987), 52(1):165-171.

1989

"Applying Kripke's Theory of Truth." Journal of Philosophy (October 1989), 86(10):530-539.
Eighty-sixth Annual Meeting American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division Symposium: Kripke's Theory of Truth.
"Conditional Probabilities and Compounds of Conditionals." Philosophical Review (October 1989), 98(4) [508]:485-541.

1990

Truth, Vagueness, and Paradox: An Essay on the Logic of Truth. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1990.
Awarded the Johnsonian Prize in Philosophy, 1988.

1991

"Comments on Nute and Sanford." Nous (April 1991), 25(2):212-213.
On Donald Nute's "Historical Necessity and Conditionals," pp. 161-178, and David H. Sanford's "Coulds, Mights, Ifs and Cans, Revisited," pp. 208-211.
(with Keith Lehrer.) "An Epistemic Principle Which Solves Newcomb's Paradox." Grazer Philosophische Studien (1991), 40:197-220.
"Reply to Christian Piller." Grazer Philosophische Studien (1991), 40:229-232.
On Piller's "Comment on Keith Lehrer and Vann McGee's Solution of Newcomb's Problem," pp. 221-228.
Review of Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy's The Liar: An Essay on Truth and Circularity. Philosophical Review (July 1991), 100(3) [515]:472-474.
"We Turing Machines Aren't Expected-Utility Maximizers (Even Ideally)." Philosophical Studies (October 1991), 64(1):115-123.

1992

"Maximal Consistent Sets of Instances of Tarski's Schema (T)." Journal of Philosophical Logic (August 1992), 21(3):235-241.
(with Keith Lehrer.) "Particulars, Individual Qualities, and Universals." In Kevin Mulligan, ed. Language, Truth and Ontology, pp. 37-47. Philosophical Studies, 51. Dordrecht & Boston: Kluwer, 1992.
Review of Arnold Koslow's A Structuralist Theory of Logic. Journal of Philosophy (May 1993), 90(5):271-274.
Review of D.H. Sanford's If P, then Q: Conditionals and the Foundations of Reasoning. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (March 1993), 53(1):239-242.
Review of Igal Kvart's A Theory of Counterfactuals. Philosophy of Science (September 1993), 60(3):518-519.
Review of John Etchemendy's The Concept of Logical Consequence. Journal of Symbolic Logic (1992), 57(1):254-255.
Review of Robert C. Koons' Paradoxes of Belief and Strategic Rationality. Mind (October 1993), 102(408):665-668.
"A Semantic Conception of Truth?" Philosophical Topics (1993), 21(2):83-111.
This issue is on "Philosophy of Logic."
"Two Problems with Tarski's Theory of Consequence." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1992), 92:273-292.

1994

"Learning the Impossible." In Ellery Eells and Brian Skyrms, eds., Probability and Conditionals: Belief Revision and Rational Decision, pp. 179-199. Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction, and Decision Theory. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
"Essays on probability and conditionals is intended to honor Professor Ernest W. Adams..."
"On the Degrees of Unsolvability of Modal Predicate Logics of Provability." Journal of Symbolic Logic (March 1994), 59(1):253-261.

1995

(with Brian McLaughlin.) "Distinctions Without a Difference." Southern Journal of Philosophy (1995), 33(Supplement):203-251.
Issue is on the Spindel Conference on "Vagueness," at the University of Memphis, October 6-8, 1994.

1996

"Logical Operations." Journal of Philosophical Logic (December 1996), 25(6):567-580.
Review of Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap's The Revision Theory of Truth. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (September 1996), 56(3):727-730.

1997

"The Complexity of the Modal Predicate Logic of 'True in Every Transitive Model of ZF'." Journal of Symbolic Logic (December 1997), 62(4):1371-1378.
"How We Learn Mathematical Language." Philosophical Review (January 1997), 106(1) [537]:35-68.
"Revision." In Enrique Villaneuva, ed., Truth. Philosophical Issues, 8. Atascadero: Ridgeview, 1997.

1998

"'Kilimanjaro'." Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Supplementary Volume (1998), 23:141-163.
Issue is on "Meaning and Reference," edited by Ali A. Kazmi.
(with Brian McLaughlin.) Review of Timothy Williamson's Vagueness. Linguistics and Philosophy (April 1998), 21(2):221-235.

1999

"An Airtight Dutch Book." Analysis (October 1999), 59(4):257-265.

2000

"The Analysis of 'x is true' as 'For any p, if x = 'p', then p'." In André Chapuis and Anil Gupta, eds., Circularity, Definition, and Truth, pp. 255-272. New Delhi & Atascadero, CA: Indian Council of Philosophical Research/Ridgeview, 2000.
(with Augustin Rayo.) "A Puzzle about De Rebus Beliefs." Analysis (October 2000), 60(4):297-299.
"To Tell the Truth about Conditionals." Analysis (January 2000), 60(1):107-111.

2001

"Truth by Default." Philosophia Mathematica (2001), 9(1):5-20.
Part of the George Boolos Memorial Symposium II, at Notre Dame, April 15-18, 1998.