Mark Bowker is a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin, funded by the Irish Research Council, and supervised by Maria Baghramian. Mark works primarily on philosophy of language and related issues in epistemology and philosophy of mind. He is particularly interested in the nature of semantic content and its role in communication. Mark Bowker received his PhD in Philosophy in 2016 from the University of St Andrews and was supervised by Patrick Greenough and Andy Egan. His dissertation Saying Nothing shows how communication can succeed when semantic content is underdetermined and argues that many linguistic theories have been unfairly dismissed through underdetermination arguments. Before joining UCD, Mark was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, supervised by Kristina Liefke.
News:
Conference: Indeterminacy and Underdetermination
Maria Baghramian and I recently held a conference on 'Indeterminacy and Underdetermination' at UCD's Humanities Institute, generously funded by UCD and the Irish Research Council. Keynote speakers were Rachel Sterken and Elizabeth Harman. A full programme is available here. Thanks to all in attendance for a wonderful and inspiring time. We plan to publish a selection of the papers presented. More details to follow.Available Online
My paper Ineliminable Underdetermination and Context-Shifting Arguments is now available in Inquiry online.Call for Abstracts:
Our upcoming conference on indeterminacy and underdetermination has a Call for Abstracts. Find it here.
New website
The .org address got expensive after two years. This one is one Euro.
Forthcoming:
Mark Bowker, Ineliminable Underdetermination and Context-Shifting Arguments is now forthcoming in Inquiry.
Available online:
Mark Bowker, Underdetermination, Domain Restriction, and Theory Choice is now available online.
Talk: CCC2, Univeristy of Warsaw
Title: Generics Without Truth-Conditions
Generics are analysed as incomplete structures that must be assigned a quanti?er to determine truthconditions. As contexts are regularly consistent with di?erent assignments, generics are consistent with di?erent truth-conditional interpretations.
Available online
Mark Bowker, Saying a Bundle: Meaning, Intention, and Underdetermination is now available online.
Forthcoming
Mark Bowker, Saying a Bundle: Meaning, Intention, and Underdetermination has now been accepted for publication in Synthese.
Forthcoming
Mark Bowker, paper Underdetermination, Domain Restriction, and Theory Choice has now been accepted for publication in Mind & Language.
Talk: PLM4
Title: Semantic Restrictivism.
I present the restrictivist approach to semantics, on which the words, structure, and context of utterances restrict their propositional interpretations without determining a unique propositional content. The view is deployed to explain Travis-style cases of lexical underdetermination, nonsentential assertion, and generics.
Talk: ECAP9
Title: Reviving Semantic Descriptivism.
I argue that Kripke misinterprets Russellian descriptivism. Russell's actual theory avoids Kripke's objections.
Insults, Lies, and Bullshit
Module outline now available. Teaching starts 25 April.
Forthcoming
Rich Situated Attitudes, a joint paper by Kristina Liefke and Mark Bowker has been accepted for publication in Lecture Notes in Computer Science/Artificial Intelligence.
Workshop: Situations, Information, and Situated Content
From 16th-18th December, Kristina Liefke and Mark Bowker hosted a workshop at the MCMP: Situations, Information, and Situated Content. Speakers included Robin Cooper, Nikola Kompa, Sebastian Löbner, Roussanka Loukanova, Friedrike Moltmann, Floris Roelofsen, Markus Werning, and Thomas Ede Zimmermann.
Talk: LENLS 13
On 15th November, Mark presented a paper written in collaboration with Kristina Liefke at LENLS 13 in Tokyo, Japan.
The paper was titled Rich situated propositions: the 'right' objects for the content of propositional attitudes.