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The Indispensability of Farbung

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Abstract

I offer a theory of propositional attitudeascriptions that reconciles a number of independently plausiblesemantic principles. At the heart of the theory lies the claim thatpsychological verbs (such as ``to believe'' and ``to doubt'') vary incontent indexically. After defending this claim and explaining how itrenders the aforementioned principles mutually compatible, I arguethat my account is superior to currently popular hidden indexicaltheories of attitude ascription. To conclude I indicate a number oframifications that the proposed theory has for issues in epistemology,philosophy of mind, and formal semantics.

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Pelczar, M.W. The Indispensability of Farbung . Synthese 138, 49–78 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SYNT.0000012203.59944.c5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SYNT.0000012203.59944.c5

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