If Hob and Nob both read the same newspaper article claiming that a witch has come into town, then the following sentence can be true, even if the article is fabricated and there are no witches: <ol><li>(1) Hob thinks that a witch has blighted Bob’s mare, and Nob wonders whether she killed Cob’s sow.</li></ol> This phenomenon is called ‘intentional identity’, and there is no consensus on the semantics of (1) or similar sentences. Intentional identity is related to important, unsettled topics in the philosophy of language (e.g., anaphora, dynamic semantics) and in metaphysics (e.g., fictional and Meinongian objects). Thus, a correct semantic account of intentional identity is desirable. In this thesis, I argue that ‘she’ in (1) is behaving semantically like a traditional definite description, and that the truth of sentences like (1) often requires a certain causal connection between the two subjects. In chapter 1, I explain the difficulty in finding a correct semantic ac- count of intentional identity sentences, and I present new evidence that the phenomenon is broader than previously thought. Chapter 2 explores the idea that (1) involves certain exotic objects—e.g., fictional, Meinongian, or merely possible witches. I show that what I call the ‘causal connection problem’ affects most versions of this idea, and that even the best version is probably incorrect. In chapter 3, I argue that ‘she’ in (1) is not being bound dynamically, and that the ‘guise theory’ approach suggested by several dy- namic semanticists is unhelpful. Chapter 4 contains my proposed solution. With a broader view of the problem, one can see that ‘she’ is functioning like a traditional incomplete definite description, and that its complete semantic value involves Hob and Nob being causally connected. This solution allows us to avoid an extravagant semantics and ontology.

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The study of reference often leads to addressing fundamental issues in semantics, metaphysics and epistemology this suggests that reference is closely linked to the three realms. The overall purpose of this study is to elucidate the structure of some of these links, through a close exarriination of the "mechanism" of reference. As in many other enquiries, considering the possible (i.e., the modal,) in addition to the actual proves very helpful in clarifying and explicating insights. The reference of a term with respect to possible worlds is commonly called "intension" so this is a study of intensions. The main contribution of the study is an outline for a "calculator" of intensions. It is argued that the intension of a term is a function of three variables: (a) the way in which the term "picks out" its referent in different possible worlds (semantics) (b) criteria of identity (metaphysics) and (c) the actual state of affairs (actuality). While considering different possible values for these variables, it is demonstrated how the variables combine to generate the term's intension. In other words, the result is a calculator that when provided with the required values, yields the reference of the term in different possible worlds. By taking into account the possible gap between what we take the values of these variables to be and what they may in fact be, we also gain important insights into the epistemic aspect of reference. In addition, since a "rigid designator" is a term with constant intension, the proposed thesis provides an elaborate account of rigidity. The first chapter is devoted to the development of the calculator of intensions. Each of the following three chapters elaborates on one aspect of intensions, namely, the semantic, metaphysical and epistemic aspects. In the course of these chapters, various familiar puzzles pertaining to the respective philosophical realms are addressed (many of these puzzles are discussed in Kripke's Naming and Necessity a. work that considerably inspired this study). In the fifth and last chapter the analysis of intensions is applied to two case-studies from relatively recent philosophical literature: the Kripke-Lewis debate over the identity theory of mind, and the debate over the significance of Donnellan's referential/attributive distinction. The novel accounts that these applications generate purport to illustrate the importance and originality of the proposed thesis.

I develop and argue for a version of epistemic contextualism - the view that the truth-values of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions depend upon and vary with the context in which they are uttered - that emphasises the roles played by both the practical interests of those in the context and the epistemic practices of the community of which they are part in determining the truth-values of their ‘knowledge’ ascriptions (the ‘basic contextualist thesis’). My favoured way of putting it is that the truth of a ‘knowledge’ ascription of the form ‘S knows that p’ requires that the subject of the ascription can rule out the relevant alternatives in which not-p, where the relevant alternatives are the ones that those in the ascriber’s context have a reason to consider. What alternatives those in the context have a reason to consider depends on their practical situation and on what alternatives are generally considered relevant within their community. I call this ‘interests contextualism’. The thesis splits into three parts. First, I deal with what I call ‘linguistic objections’, which purport to show that there’s no linguistic evidence that the expression ‘knows’ is context-sensitive (Hawthorne 2004; Stanley 2005a), and objections concerning the way ‘knows’ behaves in intra- and inter-contextual disagreement reports (Cappelen & Hawthorne 2009; MacFarlane 2005). I argue that there are a number of ways in which contextualists can deal with these objections. Consequently, they provide no reason to reject contextualism. Second, there are a number of ways of going beyond the basic contextualist thesis, and I argue that the best way is along the lines indicated above, viz. interests contextualism. In the process I articulate a number of desiderata for a contextualist account of the features of context that are responsible for contextual variation in the truth-values of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions. I argue that, unlike its main rival - which I call ‘conversational contextualism’ (Blome-Tillmann 2009a; Cohen 1999; DeRose 2009; Lewis 1996) - interests contextualism can satisfy all of the desiderata. Consequently, interests contextualism is preferable to conversational contextualism. Third, I argue that there is good reason to prefer interests contextualism to its noncontextualist rivals, strict invariantism (Brown 2006; Hazlett 2009; Pritchard 2010; Rysiew 2001), sensitive invariantism (Fantl & McGrath 2009; Hawthorne 2004; Stanley 2005a) and relativism (MacFarlane 2005; Richard 2004). The objections dealt with in the first part are meant to provide the main reason to prefer a sort of relativism to interests contextualism. Consequently, the upshot of the first part is that relativism is off the table. The considerations that tell in favour of interests contextualism and against sensitive invariantism are of two types. First, I argue that interests contextualism can deal with a wider range of cases than sensitive invariantism. Second, I argue that the influential account of the function of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions developed in Edward Craig (1990) tells against sensitive invariantism and in favour of interests contextualism. I also argue that the second consideration tells against strict invariantism as much as sensitive invariantism. Consequently, I conclude that interests contextualism is preferable to all of its rivals.

In this work I develop an argument which shows that rule-following is impossible, and investigate its impact on the philosophy of language. By way of orientation, I start with a critical evaluation of existing ‘rule-following considerations’, arguments derived from Wittgenstein which purportedly put rule-following under pressure. Having shown that its predecessors are unsound, and with the explicit aim of avoiding their flaws, I then formulate the new ‘indexical’ argument. The conclusion that rule-following is impossible is difficult to accept because we think that the ability to folldiw rules is constitutive of language-mastery. If this is correct, then to show that rule-following is impossible is to show that language is impossible. Such ‘meaning nihilism’ is not a tenable position, and some way of avoiding this conclusion has to be found. Various proposals in the literature have the potential to do this: principally (a) the irrealism suggested by Kripke; and (b) subjective on-gong determination advocated by Wright. I argue that neither strategy is successful. The correct response to the indexical argument is to accept that rule-following is not constitutive of language-mastery. In this case, clearly, the impossibility of rule-following does not entail the impossibility meaning, and the conclusion that rule-following is impossible becomes unproblematic. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see how language could survive without rules. The remainder of this work shows that rule-elimination does permit a respectable notion of linguistic content. The result is distinctively Wittgensteinian: a communitarian, ‘use’-based account of language.

Fol.r major accounts of linguistic meaning are considered. A referential theory of meaning as developed by Bertrand Russell is considered and rejected on the grounds of some critical observations made by P. F. Strawson. An instrumentalistic theory of meaning as adopted by Ludwig Wittgenstein is next considered and found after an evaluation by C. S. Chihara and J. A. Fodor to be inconclusive. A behavioristic theory of meaning as advocated by Charles W. Morris is considered next. Based on questions posed by L. O. Kattsoff this theory of meaning is found to be, at best, incomplete. Finally, an ideational account of meaning is considered. The traditional ideational account posed by John Locke is rapidly rejected on the basis of his theory of idea; but a theory of idea proposed by Brand Blanshard is found to serve an ideational theory of meaning quite well. Concluding the thesis is a brief summary and a prospectus.

Thesis--Cologne. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 338-343).