Nat Hansen Curriculum Vitae

Department Address Department of Philosophy University of Chicago Chicago, IL 60637 Fax: 773-702-5259

Home Address 5428 S. Kimbark Ave., Apt 3R Chicago, IL 60615 [email protected] Tel: 773-368-0867

Education Ph.D. B.A. (Hons.) A.B.

University of Chicago, Philosophy (Expected June 2010) University of Oxford, P.P.E., First Class, 2000–2002 Georgetown University, Philosophy, Summa Cum Laude, 1996–2000

Areas of Specialization Philosophy of Language, Metaphysics, Epistemology Areas of Competence Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind, Early Analytic Philosophy, Wittgenstein Dissertation Radical Contextualism Dissertation committee Josef Stern (director), James Conant, Michael Kremer, David Finkelstein, Jason Bridges Dissertation Abstract My dissertation concerns the variety of ways that context interacts with linguistic meaning. I defend a systematic, truth-conditional semantic theory against the attacks mounted by radical contextualists, who argue that context affects meaning in pervasive and open-ended ways that can’t be explained by systematic truth-conditional semantic theory. My defense consists of three interconnected parts: (1) I show that both radical contextualists and the defenders of systematic semantics rely on an overly simplistic intuitive methodology, and in response I develop a more comprehensive, nuanced method of eliciting intuitions that changes the basic structure of the debate; (2) I show how apparently radical, Dionysian forms of context-sensitivity are the result of the interaction of several different kinds of tractable context-sensitivity; and (3), I rebut several different a priori arguments, based on Wittgenstein’s discussions of rule-following, that radical contextualists take to show that systematic semantic theory is impossible. What emerges from my response to the radical contextualists is an approach to the study of meaning that channels the Dionysian context-sensitivity championed by the radical contextualists into the powerful Apollonian structure of truth-conditional semantics.

Works in Progress “Color Adjectives and Radical Contextualism” “A Slugfest of Intuitions: Reconsidering the Evidence for Contextualism” “Meta-Linguistic Performance, What is Said, and Semantic Content” “Radicalism and Rule-Following” “Dionysian Semantics” Academic Awards, Fellowships, Grants Lee Prize (for best graduate essay in theoretical philosophy), University of Chicago, 2008 Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2007–2008 Nicholson Center for British Studies Dissertation Fellowship (Declined), 2007–2008 Franke Institute of the Humanities Affiliated Fellow, University of Chicago, 2007–2008 Stuart A. Tave Teaching Fellowship (competitive Division of the Humanities teaching award), Spring 2007 Century Fellow (Five-year award covering tuition with stipend), University of Chicago, 2002– 2007 Doolittle-Harrison Travel Fellowship (University of Chicago Humanities Division competitive travel award) Summer 2007 Nicholson Center for British Studies, Graduate Project Grant (History of 20th Century British Philosophy II), 2006-2007 Humanities Travel Grant (For research on J.L. Austin in Oxford), Summer 2006 Nicholson Center for British Studies, Graduate Project Grant (competitive grant used to fund a History of 20th Century British Philosophy lecture series), 2005-2006 Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Practicum Grant (awarded for a proposal to integrate philosophy into a high school humanities curriculum), 2004 Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies (national award covering tuition and stipend for the first year of graduate study), 2002–2003 Allbritton Fellowship, Brasenose College, University of Oxford (Georgetown University award covering tuition and stipend for two years at Oxford), 2000–2002 Ryan Medal (for highest GPA in advanced philosophy courses at Georgetown University), 2000 Undergraduate Honors Philosophy Thesis defended with distinction, Georgetown University, 2000

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Talks “Color Adjectives, Radical Contextualism, and the Metaphysics of Color”, Issues in Contemporary Semantics and Ontology 1, Buenos Aires, August 2009 “A Slugfest of Intuitions”, Contemporary Philosophy Workshop, University of Chicago, May 2009 “Debunking Arguments”, Georgetown University, February 2009 “Color Adjectives and Radical Contextualism”, Joint Meeting of the Semantics and Philosophy of Language Workshop and the Wittgenstein Workshop, University of Chicago, Fall 2008 Formal Philosophy Workshop, University of Chicago, Winter 2009 “Radicalism and Rule-Following”, Semantics and Philosophy of Language Workshop, University of Chicago, Spring 2008 “Occasion-Sensitivity and Perceptual Representation”, Philosophy of Mind Workshop, University of Chicago, Spring 2008 “Varieties of Semantic Explananda”, Contemporary Philosophy Workshop, University of Chicago, Spring 2008 “On ‘Wittgenstein’s Rule-Following Considerations and the Central Project of Theoretical Linguistics’”, Franke Institute for the Humanities Affiliated Fellows Group, January 2008 “Three Debunking Arguments: Circularity, Open Texture and Rule-Following”, Wittgenstein Workshop, University of Chicago, January 2008 “Faute de Mieux : J.L. Austin on Ordinary Sense”, Perception et sense commun Austin et la question du r´ealisme, Colloque international `a l’Universit´e de Picardie–Jules Verne, ` a Amiens, June 2007 “Wittgensteinian Contextualism” Wittgenstein Workshop, University of Chicago, December 2006 Semantics and Philosophy of Language Workshop, University of Chicago, November 2006 “Radical Contextualism and Communication”, Contemporary Philosophy Workshop, University of Chicago, December 2006 “Time, Tense and Change” (with Jay Elliott), Philosophy of Mind Workshop, University of Chicago, May 2006 “Contextualism: The Lazy Man’s Approach to Philosophy?”, Philosophy of Mind Workshop, University of Chicago, March 2006 “Haute Banal : An Aesthetic of the Everyday” University of New Mexico Pop Culture Conference, February 2007 Cornell University Aesthetics of Pop Conference, March 2006

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“Reconsidering Frege on Demonstratives”, Contemporary Philosophy Workshop, University of Chicago, January 2006 “Files, Chains and Internal Continuity” Oxford University Graduate Philosophy Conference, November 2005 University of Iowa Graduate Philosophy Conference, May 2005 “Groucho’s Joke” Lecture for Undergraduate Philosophy Majors, University of Chicago, October 2005 University of Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon Graduate Philosophy Conference, April 2005 Intermountain West Philosophy Conference, University of Utah, February 2005 “Contraries, Echoes, Pretense: Approaches to Irony”, Lecture for Undergraduate Philosophy Majors, March 2005 “De-Filing the Mind” Contemporary Philosophy Workshop, University of Chicago, November 2004 Philosophy of Mind Workshop, University of Chicago, November 2004 Indiana Philosophical Association, Indiana University, November 2004 “Unconscious Belief”, Contemporary Philosophy Workshop, University of Chicago, March 2004 “The Unintuitive Criterion of Difference”, Wittgenstein Workshop, University of Chicago, November 2003 “Is Thought Essentially Social?” Northwest Philosophy Conference, Reed College, November 2003 Graduate Philosophy Conference, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, April 2003 Marquette University Intentionality Conference, April 2003 “Gareth Evans vs. Walker Evans: Photography and Thought” Philosophy of Mind Workshop, University of Chicago, June 2003 Indiana Philosophical Association, Ball State University, November 2003 “The Knights Who Say: WE! Normativity and Social Practices”, Graduate Student Colloquium, Georgetown University, May 2000

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Teaching Experience Instructor (designed syllabus and taught course) Philosophical Perspectives I: Ancient Philosophy, University of Chicago, Fall 2008 Philosophical Perspectives III: Ethics, University of Chicago, Summer 2007 Telling the Truth: Skepticism, Relativism and Bullshit (Tave Fellowship Class), University of Chicago, Spring 2007 Philosophical Perspectives II: Early Modern Philosophy, University of Chicago, Winter 2007 Philosophy of Mind, Center for Talented Youth, Loyola Marymount University, Summers 2004 & 2005 Personal Identity, (Funded by Woodrow Wilson Practicum Grant), University High School, California State University Fresno, Summer 2004 Ethics, Center for Talented Youth, Johns Hopkins University, Summer 2003 Preceptor (led seminars for philosophy B.A. honors students) Philosophy B.A. Thesis Seminar, University of Chicago, Fall 2008–Spring 2009 Teaching Assistant (Assisted in grading and led discussion sections) Analytic Philosophy (for Master of Arts in the Humanities students), Professor Michael Kremer, University of Chicago, Spring 2006 Hegel’s Phenomenology, Professor Michael Forster, University of Chicago, Spring 2006 Reasons and Reasoning (for Master of Arts in the Humanities students), Professor Jason Bridges, University of Chicago, Winter 2006 The Philosophy of J.L. Austin, Professor Ted Cohen, University of Chicago, Fall 2005 History of Philosophy III: Kant to Hegel, Professor Michael Forster, University of Chicago, Spring 2005 Ethics, Johns Hopkins University, CTY Summer Program, 2001 & 2002 Writing Intern (directed writing workshops and assisted in grading) Philosophical Perspectives I: Ancient Philosophy, Professor Jason Bridges, Fall 2006

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Dissertation Summary My dissertation concerns the variety of ways that context interacts with linguistic meaning. I defend a systematic, truth-conditional semantic theory against the attacks mounted by radical contextualists (RCs), who argue that context affects meaning in pervasive and open-ended ways that can’t be explained by systematic truth-conditional semantic theory. My defense consists of three interconnected parts: (1) I rebut several different a priori arguments, based on Wittgenstein’s discussions of rule-following, that radical contextualists take to show that systematic semantic theory is impossible; (2) I describe in detail how apparently radical, Dionysian forms of context-sensitivity are the result of the interaction of several different kinds of tractable context-sensitivity; and (3) I show that both radical contextualists and the defenders of systematic semantics rely on an overly simplistic intuitive methodology, and in response I develop a more comprehensive, nuanced method of eliciting intuitions that changes the basic structure of the debate. Those three parts constitute the three central chapters of my dissertation. After an account of the basic commitments and explanatory goals of compositional, truthconditional semantics (CTCS) in Chapter 1, and the range of different methods that CTCS has adopted to handle the obvious forms of context-sensitivity and indeterminacy of meaning in natural language (ambiguity, indexicality, and the claims of what Grice calls “A-philosophy”) in Chapter 2, I present the RC attack on CTCS in Chapter 3. The RC attack involves two parts. The first part is what has been called a “context-shifting” argument. After considering a wide variety of different context-shifting arguments, advocates of RC conclude that the effects of context-sensitivity are too varied and pervasive to be systematically described by CTCS. The second part of the attack involves several different a priori arguments inspired by Wittgenstein’s reflections on rule-following, which attempt to show that the explanatory project undertaken by CTCS is impossible. My defense of CTCS begins in Chapter 4 with an examination and rebuttal of the a priori RC arguments inspired by Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following. In place of the interpretations of rule-following offered by the RCs, I show how Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following, properly understood, are compatible with the explanatory project of CTCS, and that they actually challenge the picture of unconstrained context-sensitivity advocated by RC. In Chapter 5 I focus attention on one core group of examples, which involve color adjectives (“red”, “green”, etc.) often used in RC context-shifting arguments. I describe in detail the different ways that color adjectives vary their content in different contexts, and how they interact with different kinds of ambiguity and context-sensitivity in the RC examples. Peeling apart the different kinds of context-sensitivity and ambiguity at work in the RC context-shifting arguments reveals more context-sensitivity than one might expect, and more than has previously been noticed by either RC or defenders of CTCS, but not the wholesale, untamable variability the RCs endorse. The final part of my response to the RC attack involves a novel challenge to the linguistic evidence that contextualists of all varieties (not just RCs) present as examples of contextsensitivity. Evidence for contextualism consists of intuitions generated in response to a variety of different thought experiments. I argue that features of experimental design influence the intuitions generated by contextualist thought experiments. These features need to be controlled for in order for the evidence that is normally taken to support contextualism to be trustworthy. I offer several different methodological recommendations for improving contextualist thought experiments, and argue that these improvements have wide-ranging consequences both for our understanding of contextualism and for linguistic methodology in general.

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