Situating Semantics

John Perry, Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, is one of a handful of contemporary analytic philosophers to combine the focused approach of most current work in analytic philosophy with the more expansive systems-building of earlier analytic philosophers and contemporary philosophers in other disciplines. Perry, like W. V. O. Quine, Donald Davison, David Lewis, and Hilary Putnam, focuses on narrow topics across a broad range of subjects. In this volume, leading contemporary analytic philosophers contribute original essays in each of the areas that have been most influenced by Perry's work--metaphysics, language, and mind. Perry himself contributes detailed and original replies. After a comprehensive introduction to Perry's work by the editors that places semantics at the heart of Perry's philosophical strategy, the essays discuss Perry's contributions to the metaphysics of identity, the philosophy of language--in particular, contributions related to reference and unarticulated constituents--and the philosophy of mind. The essays and replies provide new perspectives on Perry's philosophical contributions over the last four decades, and yield insights into contemporary debates on these topics. ContributorsRobert Audi, Kent Bach, Patricia Blanchette, Herman Cappelen, Eros Corazza, Ernie Lepore, Brian Loar, Peter Ludlow, Genoveva Marti, Michael McKinsey, Stephen Neale, Michael O'Rourke, John Perry, Francois Recanati, Cara Spencer, Kenneth A. Taylor, Corey WashingtonMichael O'Rourke is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Idaho and an editor of Freedom and Determinism (MIT Press, 2004) and Law and Social Justice (MIT Press, 2005). Corey Washington holds a Ph.D. in philsophy from Stanford University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University.