Seeking a centaur, adoring adonis: Intensional transitives and empty terms

Midwest Studies in Philosophy

Volumn 25, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 103-127

  Richard, Mark ^a  

^a TUFTS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 37549035460     PISSN: 03636550     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1475-4975.00041     Document Type: Article

References (3)

1. Richard Montague, "The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English," in R. Thomason, ed., Formal Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974).
2. Actually, in "On the Nature of Certain Philosophical Entities" (in Thomason, ed., 1974), Montague suggests adopting a clausal analysis of verbs like 'seeks'; the view here outlined is found in PTQ.
3. This is an expanded version of "How to Seek a Unicorn: Remarks on Intensional Transitives," the third Weatherhead Lecture in the Philosophy of Language. That lecture was given at Tulane University in October 2000. I am grateful to the Weatherhead family for making the lecture possible and to the audience at Tulane for their stimulating comments. I am also indebted to audiences at UC Davis, UC Irvine, Rutgers University, and Ohio State University for discussion and objections. Among those I am particularly indebted to are Peter Ludlow, Terry Parsons, Rich Larson, and Cara Spencer, some of whom disagree with much of the above. Graeme Forbes, Jeff King, and Kathrin Koslicki gave me very helpful written comments. This paper is a descendent of my "Commitment" (Philosophical Perspectives, 12:255-281, 1998); its account of intensional transitives supercedes the account given there.