Faculty

Mark Richard

Lenore Stern Professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Philosophy of Language, Philosophical Logic, Philosophy of Linguistics, Epistemology and Metaphysics

Contact Info:
Department of Philosophy
Miner Hall, room 02
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155

617-627-2342
Email Prof. Richard

Office Hours:
Thursdays, noon to 1 and by appointment

Biography

Professor Mark Richard specializes philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and metaphysics and epistemology. He attended Hamilton College, the University of Freiburg in West Germany and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Richard has published several books (Propositional Attitudes (1990), Meaning (2002), and When Truth Gives Out (2008)) and numerous articles, some of which are collected in the forthcoming collection of his papers Meaning in Context.

Richard's current research interests include foundational issues in semantics (including the question of whether the semantics of discursive talk is invariably to be given by characterizing its truth conditions), the semantics of particular constructions (including the tenses and epistemic modals), vagueness, and issues on the borderline between epistemology and metaethics (for example, the conditions under which awareness of disagreement about normative matters should reduce one's confidence in one's normative beliefs).

Richard is an avid hiker, an adequate cook of Mexican and Thai food, and a mediocre woodworker. He sometimes has trouble pouring water out of boots without instructions printed on the heel. He enjoys accompanying family members to clubs with loud music, and has the Department's largest collection of Mission of Burma records.

Selected Publications

"Indeterminacy and Truth Value Gaps" in Moruzzi, S. and Sereni, A., eds., The Arche Papers on Vagueness (Oxford University Press, 2009).

When Truth Gives Out (Oxford University Press, 2008).

"Opacity", in E. LePore and B. Smith, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language (Oxford UP 2006).

"Contextualism and Relativism", Philosophical Studies 119 (2004).

"Analysis, Synonymy, and Sense", in C.A. Anderson and M. Zeleny, eds., Logic, Language, and Computation (Kluwer, 2000).

"Defective Contexts, Accommodation, and Normalization", Canadian Journal of Philosophy 25 (1995), 551-570.

Propositional Attitudes: An Essay on Thoughts and How We Ascribe Them. (Cambridge University Press: 1990).

"Quantification and Leibniz's Law", The Philosophical Review 96 (1987), 555-578

"Grammar, Opacity, and Quotation", Linguistics and Philosophy 9 (1986), 383-403.

"Direct Reference and Ascriptions of Belief", Journal of Philosophical Logic 12 (1983), 425-447.

"Tense, Propositions, and Meanings", Philosophical Studies 41 (1982), 337-351.