Arpy Khatchirian Curriculum Vitae

Transcription

1 Arpy Khatchirian Curriculum Vitae 1124 Ocean Ave. arpyk.weebly.com Oakland, CA (415) Education PhD, Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley, (with 6 years of leave). Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science, University of California at Berkeley, BA, Mathematics and Philosophy, High Honors, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Baccalauréat Français (emphasis on Mathematics), Lycée Guist'hau, Nantes, France, Academic Employment Berkeley Connect Fellow, University of California at Berkeley, Areas of Specialization Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind, and related areas of Metaphysics and Epistemology Areas of Competence History of Analytic Philosophy Other Teaching Interests Logic Dissertation Substantive Truth and Knowledge of Meaning I give an account of the role of truth in our understanding of linguistic competence. We need a notion of truth that fits with the fact that competent speakers know the conditions under which their sentences are true. I argue that this requirement commits us to a substantive notion of truth. This result rules out the possibility of combining a deflationary account of truth with a plausible approach to meaning. Committee: John MacFarlane, Barry Stroud (Co-Chairs), Hannah Ginsborg, Christopher Kutz (Boalt School of Law). Publications What is Wrong with the Indeterminacy of Language-Attribution, Philosophical Studies 146 (2): (2009).

2 Works Under Review Truth Theories as Meaning Theories: What s Interpretation Got to Do with It? Deflationism and Knowledge of Truth-Conditions Presentations Deflationism and Knowledge of Truth-Conditions, Hunter College (CUNY), February 5, Deflationism and Knowledge of Truth-Conditions, UC Berkeley, December 5, Does linguistic competence consist in knowledge of truth-conditions?, The 6 th California Universities Semantics and Pragmatics Conference, UC Berkeley, October 11, Why I can t be wrong in thinking that Snow is white as I use it is true if and only if snow is white, Richard Wollheim Society, Department of Philosophy, UC Berkeley, October 26, Guest Speaker on Leading Discussion Sections, Teaching Seminar for first-time Graduate Student Instructors (Prof. Niko Kolodny), September Truth, Reference and Indeterminacy, Richard Wollheim Society, Department of Philosophy, UC Berkeley, May Comments on Matthew Manning, Sub-Personal Psychology and As-If Syntax, Berkeley- London Philosophy Conference, Birkbeck, University of London, UK, May Social Externalism and Incomplete Understanding, Berkeley-Stanford-Davis Philosophy Conference, Stanford, Spring Interpretation and Indeterminacy, Dissertation Seminar, UC Berkeley, November Concepts, Belief and Indeterminacy, First Berkeley-London Graduate Philosophy Conference, Birkbeck, University of London, UK, June Comments on Minh Nguyen, Davidson on First-Person Authority, American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division), March The Presumption of Rationality in Intentional Description, Berkeley-Stanford Philosophy Conference, Stanford, May Comments on Elizabeth Harman, Lewis s Modal Realism: Trivializing the Actual, Berkeley- Stanford Philosophy Conference, UC Berkeley, May

3 Honors and Awards At UC Berkeley Berkeley Connect Fellow, Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor, Mangasar Mangasarian Scholarship, Spring 2004, 2003, 2002, and Neshan Zovick Fellowship, Dean s Normative Time Fellowship, Spring Church Fellowship, Summer Fellowship from the Slusser Endowment to Prof. Davidson s Chair, Logic and Methodology Non-Resident Tuition Scholarship, At Rutgers University W. J. Norton Alumnae Award in Philosophy, Richard Morris Award in Mathematics, John Bogart Prize in Mathematics, Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Elected to Pi Mu Epsilon, Nelle Smither Scholarship Courses at UC Berkeley (* = audited) Concepts* (Hannah Ginsborg) Meaning, Understanding, and the Attribution of Attitudes* (Barry Stroud) Context-Sensitivity in Semantics* (John MacFarlane) Confused Reference* (John MacFarlane) Thought, Experience, Meaning and Modality* (Barry Stroud) Varieties of Subjectivism* (Barry Stroud) Unity of the Proposition* (Donald Davidson) Quine* (Donald Davidson) Rationality, Consciousness and Society (John Searle) Aristotle (David Gill) Moral Epistemology (Russ Shafer-Landau) Theory of Knowledge (Barry Stroud) Hume (Janet Broughton) Identity (Stephen Neale) Language and Thought (Donald Davidson) Wittgenstein (Barry Stroud) Philosophy of Mathematics (Paolo Mancosu) First-Year Seminar (Hannah Ginsborg and Stephen Neale) Qualifying Exam Committee: Alan Code, Donald Davidson, Paolo Mancosu, Christopher Kutz. Topics: Analyticity and A Priori Truth Meaning, Rule-Following, and Community The Justification of Induction 3

4 Teaching As Primary Instructor Introductory The Nature of Mind UC Berkeley, Summer 2014 Introduction to Logic UC Berkeley, Summer 2005 Introduction to Logic UC Berkeley, Summer 2004 Knowledge and Its Limits UC Berkeley, Summer 2001 Knowledge and Its Limits UC Berkeley, Summer 2000 Upper-Level Philosophy of Mind Notre Dame de Namur, Fall 2013 Philosophy of Mind UC Berkeley, Summer 2006 As Teaching Assistant at UC Berkeley Introductory Upper-level Other Teaching Experience The Nature of Mind John Campbell, Spring 2005 Introduction to Logic Paolo Mancosu, Fall 2001 Knowledge and its Limits Cheryl Chen, Summer 1999 Modern Philosophy Hannah Ginsborg, Spring 1999 Intro. to Philosophy of Science Ina Roy, Spring 1998 Introduction to Logic Charles Chihara, Fall 1997 Philosophical Methods Seth Yalcin, Spring 2014 Theory of Meaning John Campbell, Fall 2006 Theory of Meaning John Campbell, Fall 2005 Philosophy of Perception Alva Noe, Spring 2004 Wittgenstein Barry Stroud, Fall 2002 Metaphysics Barry Stroud, Spring 2002 Philosophy of Mind John Searle, Fall 1999 Philosophical Methods Daniel Warren, Fall 1998 Calculus Peer Mentor, Rutgers University. Math Tutor at the Math and Science Learning Center, Rutgers University. French Teacher, Berlitz Language School, Princeton, NJ. Professional Service Chair, Colloquium on Perception, APA Eastern Translated from French into English: Philosophy as the Education of Grown-Ups, Pierre Hadot, forthcoming in The Philosophy of Hilary Putnam (Library of Living Philosophers), Open Court Publishing Company. Research Assistant to Prof. Hannah Ginsborg, Summer Research Assistant to Prof. Marcia Cavell, Fall Co-organizer, Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Philosophy Conference, May Research Assistant to Prof. Donald Davidson, Spring 2003, 2002 and Languages: French (native speaker), Arabic (intermediate), Armenian (spoken). 4

5 Dissertation Abstract Substantive Truth and Knowledge of Meaning Suppose I just uttered the sentence It is cold outside. I may not know if this sentence is true, since I may not know if it is cold outside. But if I am a competent speaker of English, and if I have a concept of truth, then I do know that It is cold outside (as just uttered by me) is true if and only if it is cold outside. Any plausible approach to truth or meaning should be compatible with my knowledge of such facts and ideally help explain that knowledge. A deflationary conception of truth appears to put us in an ideal position to explain our knowledge of the truth-conditions of our own sentences. Deflationists hold that is true is a logical device whose role in our language we can fully capture by specifying the rule or schema governing its use for instance, by invoking our disposition to accept instances of the schema < s is true if and only if s> and explaining the point of having such a device in our language. On this approach, knowledge of truth-conditions seems to be something that we get for free by knowing how to use the expression is true. However, I argue, this cannot be right. To give an account of language compatible with the fact that competent speakers know the truth-conditions of their sentences, we need a more substantive conception of truth than deflationists allow. In particular, we cannot give a plausible account of speakers mastery of a deflationary truth locution without attributing to them some prior, independent grasp of the concept of truth. The upshot is that if we want to explain knowledge of meaning as at least coinciding with knowledge of truth conditions, we cannot accept a deflationary conception of truth. In particular, we must reject such a conception if we accept Davidson s approach to meaning. Davidson proposed that a meaning theory for a language ought to take the form of a truth theory, that is, a finite and structure-revealing account of the conditions under which sentences of the language are true. I argue that this proposal was rooted in Davidson s conception of a meaning theory as an account of a speaker s understanding of her own sentences, and of this understanding as at least partly consisting in the speaker s knowledge of the truth-conditions of her sentences. And this commitment is incompatible with deflationism. But this is not because, as many have argued, deflationism explains knowledge of truth-conditions as a by-product of linguistic competence, instead of being constitutive of it. Rather, it is because deflationism does not even allow us to describe competent speakers as knowing the truth-conditions of their own sentences. The nature and source of Davidson s demands on truth have not generally been well understood. Why is that? The main culprit, I suggest, is a misunderstanding of the role of interpretation in Davidson s philosophy of language. Many philosophers have assumed, naturally enough, that Davidson sought to ground each and every one of his proposals about meaning in his account of the ends and means of interpretation. I argue that this assumption is mistaken. I also explain how it has led to serious misunderstandings and consequent marginalization of Davidson s proposal to use truth theories as meaning theories. Once these misunderstandings are cleared, we can begin to understand the point of Davidson s opposition to deflationism. The deep connection between knowledge of meaning and grasp of truth is not simply a feature of an idiosyncratic approach to the theory of meaning, but rather, a fundamental constraint on any plausible account of our linguistic practices. My dissertation makes it intelligible why this should be so. 5

6 Description of Further Research A central claim of my dissertation is that making sense of what a speaker knows in knowing the meanings of her sentences depends on attributing to the speaker knowledge of the truthconditions of these sentences. My ongoing research has two main goals: (a) to articulate the nature, content, and role of a speaker s knowledge of the truth-conditions of her sentences, and (b) to uncover and address the motivations for various deflationary approaches to truth. What is Knowledge of Truth-Conditions Good for? It is plausible to think that I know that the sentence Snow is white (as just uttered by me) is true if and only if snow is white is true simply by virtue of grasping its meaning, just as it is plausible to think that I know that the sentence Bachelors are unmarried is true simply by virtue of grasping its meaning. However, I would like to suggest that my knowledge that Snow is white (as just uttered by me) is true if and only if snow is white is substantive in a way in which my knowledge that bachelors are unmarried is not. Moreover, the sense in which my knowledge of the truth-conditions of my own sentences is substantive is not, I claim, adequately explained simply by appeal to the contingency of the facts such knowledge is knowledge of. My goal is to pin down the sense in which knowledge of truth-conditions is substantive by examining its role in our cognitive lives. In particular, I explore what certain accounts of truth might be missing when they try to explain our grasp of truth in terms of our competent use of a deflationary truth locution. My primary contentions are, first, that deflationism cannot give us any way of accounting for what a speaker knows in knowing such things as that Snow is white is true if and only if snow is white, and second, that deflationism consequently misses a crucial aspect of our understanding of what people can do when they understand a language. Truth and Answerability to How Things Are Any plausible conception of belief and assertion should make sense of the fact that assertions and beliefs are, or at least are taken to be, answerable to how things are. Huw Price has argued that a deflationary account of the concept of truth cannot explain the presence of a distinctive norm of truth governing assertion, distinct from both subjective assertibility (sincerity) and objective assertibility (justifiability). At first sight, Price s argument, if successful, seems to show that deflationism cannot make room for the presence of such a norm. I argue, however, that Price s argument does no such thing. While his argument establishes the compatibility of deflationism with the absence of a norm of truth over assertion, it does not establish the incompatibility of deflationism with the presence of such a norm. My goal is to explain this incompatibility. I argue that any approach that does not allow the notion of truth to play a fundamental role in, as Brandom puts it, global explanations of propositional contentfulness in general, will simply fail to accommodate our conception of beliefs and assertions as answerable to how things are. Disquotationalism, Interpretation, and Indeterminacy The indeterminacy of translation (or interpretation) is, as I see it, the most plausible motivation for disquotationalism. In fact, I argue that indeterminacy of this sort leads to 6

7 incoherence unless we accept disquotationalism. If this is right, and if, as I argue elsewhere, disquotationalism leaves us with an implausible picture of linguistic activity, we need to explain away the alleged indeterminacy. In particular, we need to explain away cases in which we seem to have two equally acceptable ways of interpreting a speaker that diverge in the truth-conditions assigned to some of her sentences. Described differently, these are cases in which there seems to be no way of determining whether an alleged disagreement between us is substantive or verbal. We are all, I think, familiar with such cases, and it would be implausible to dismiss them as just an artifact of so-called interpretationist approaches to meaning and content. All the more reason to aim for an account of them that avoids the diagnosis of indeterminacy, and the resulting threat of disquotationalism. I develop such an account. In particular, I would like to argue that in many cases where two interlocutors seem to have reached a communicative impasse, there are compelling reasons for each interlocutor to opt for literal interpretation of the other s words, since there are simply no available reinterpretations that would optimize agreement. In other cases, the communicative impasse is genuine and does calls for reinterpretation, but in no case should we declare interpretation to be subject to indeterminacy. 7

8 References John Campbell Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of Philosophy UC Berkeley Hannah Ginsborg Professor of Philosophy UC Berkeley John MacFarlane Professor of Philosophy and Chair UC Berkeley Barry Stroud Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of Philosophy UC Berkeley Departmental Contact David Lynaugh, Graduate Student Affairs Officer Department of Philosophy University of California, Berkeley 314 Moses Hall Berkeley, CA