We will explore the meaning of attitude ascriptions, with a focus on the question in what respects (if any) they are context-sensitive, or in some other way admit multiple interpretations. Our topics will include various puzzles involving attitude reports for which some philosophers have wanted to invoke some form of ambiguity or context-sensitivity as part of their solution, possibly including Frege's puzzle about the apparent failures of standard logical rules for identity when applied to attitude ascriptions; Mate's puzzle of synonymy; Quine's puzzle of double vision; Geach's puzzle of intentional identity; Kripke's "Puzzle About Belief"; and the problem of logical omniscience. We will also discuss various challenges attitude ascriptions pose for systematic semantics, such as that of accounting for the contrast between "de re" and "de dicto" readings (along with certain other readings that arguably fall outside this classification).

Email Richard Roth at rhr8837@nyu.edu to be added to the mailing list for any readings which can't be posted publicly.

Expectations:
-attend the student sessions and main sessions having completed the set reading
-participate regularly in the student sessions and sometimes in the main sessions
-write a term paper (15-20 pages) or two shorter papers (6-10 pages each) on topic(s) related to the course themes

Schedule:
The first three sessions will be introductory sessions. They will run for no more than 2.5 hours. In those weeks we will meet only on Tuesdays. After that we will commence our regular schedule, with an extra Monday meeting only for enrolled students (except there will be no Monday meeting on 3/30). In the Monday session we will discuss the week's reading. The Tuesday session will begin with a presentation by one of the instructors, followed by a response from the speaker and then q&a. These presentations will largely presuppose the content of the papers, so please read the paper if you are coming to a session.

01/20 Student session: Attitudes and context-sensitivity.
Reading: Dorr, Transparency and the context-sensitivity of attitude reports
Handout

01/27 Student session: Quantifying in.
Readings: Quine, Quantifiers and propositional attitudes, and Kaplan, Quantifying in

02/03 Student session: Context-sensitivity beyond Frege's puzzle.
Readings: Holguín, Thinking, believing, and guessing and Phillips-Brown, Desiderative Lockeanism

02/10 Viola Schmitt (zoom)

02/24 Ben Holguín

03/03 Angelika Kratzer

03/10 Yael Sharvit

03/24 Sam Cumming

03/31 Cian Dorr

04/07 Tim Williamson

04/14 Mike Caie

04/21 Dilip Ninan

04/28 Kyle Blumberg & John Hawthorne

05/05 Harvey Lederman