Expression: Acts, Products, and Meaning

Researchers on emotion and expression commonly distinguish expressive from representational acts and artifacts without further elucidating that distinction. I here take steps toward such an elucidation by, first (Section 1) characterizing self-expression as behavior in which one designedly shows an aspect of one’s psychological state. The states we express may be cognitive, affective or experiential. The showing at issue requires making knowledge available. The design may be a result of natural selection, artificial selection, cultural evolution, or individual intention where this latter is construed widely enough to include acquired automaticity. Expression per se is then defined in terms of self-expression and expressiveness. I then argue that expressed emotions may in some instances be perceived (Section 2), after which I consider (Section 3) implications for this position in light of recent challenges to a view of emotions as natural kinds. I then (4) defend a view of speech acts as institutions whose role is to extend the scope of those states we can express beyond those we make perceptible, and broaden this perspective (5) to slurs in the course of advocating an expressivist perspective thereon. I then (6) propose that metaphors are often used to aid speakers in expressing affective states by showing others how they feel. Speech acts, slurs and metaphors are all representational, and yet each wields substantial expressive powers.

Philosophical Studies, 2007

Abstract This essay offers a constructive criticism of Part I of Davis’ Meaning, Expression and Thought. After a brief exposition, in Sect. 2, of the main points of the theory that will concern us, I raise a challenge in Sect. 3 for the characterization of expression that is so central to his program. I argue first of all that a sincere expression of a thought, feeling, or mood shows it. Yet attention to this fact reveals that it does not go without saying how it is possible to show such things as thoughts, feelings or moods; we need an account of how this is possible, and I offer a partial such account in Sect. 4. Second, much of the attraction of Davis’ program depends on its ability to explain how linguistic meaning can be arrived at without covertly presupposing linguistic conventions. This in turn depends, in Davis’ hands, upon the claim that it is possible to express any of a wide range of ideas in the absence of conventions. I argue in Sect. 5 that the account of showing at which we will by then have arrived makes clear that Davis needs, and lacks, an explanation of how it is possible to do this.

A. Coliva (ed.), Mind, Meaning, and Knowledge: Themes from the Philosophy of Crispin Wright, 2012

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 2019

This paper argues that there is a class of terms, orusesof terms, that are best accounted for by an expressivist account. We put forward two sets of criteria to distinguish between expressive and factual (uses of) terms. The first set relies on the action-guiding nature of expressive language. The second set relies on the difference between one's evidence for making an expressive vs. factual statement. We then put those criteria to work to show, first, that the basic evaluative adjectives such as ‘good’ have expressive as well as factual uses and, second, that many adjectives whose primary meanings are factual, such as ‘powerful’, also have expressive uses.

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy

I respond to an interesting objection to my 2014 argument against hermeneutic expressivism. I argue that even though Toppinen has identified an intriguing route for the expressivist to tread, the plausible developments of it would not fall to my argument anyways---as they do not make direct use of the parity thesis which claims that expression works the same way in the case of conative and cognitive attitudes. I close by sketching a few other problems plaguing such views.

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2009

Jackson and Pettit argue that expressivism in metaethics collapses into subjectivism. A sincere utterer of a moral claim must believe that she has certain attitudes to be expressed. The truth-conditions of that belief then allegedly provide truth-conditions also for the moral utterance. Thus, the expressivist cannot deny that moral claims have subjectivist truth-conditions. Critics have argued that this argument fails as stated. I try to show that expressivism does have subjectivist repercussions in a way that avoids the problems of the Jackson-Pettit argument. My argument, based on the norms for asserting moral sentences, attempts to tie expressivists to a more modest form of subjectivism than the previous arguments

Ergo, 2018

In a recent paper, Jack Woods (2014) advances an intriguing argument against expressivism based on Moore's paradox. Woods argues that a central tenet of expressivism-which he, following Mark Schroeder (2008a), calls the parity thesis-is false. The parity thesis is the thesis that moral assertions express noncognitive, desire-like attitudes like disapproval in exactly the same way that ordinary, descriptive assertions express cognitive, belief-like attitudes. Most contemporary defenders of expressivism seem not only to accept the parity thesis but also to rely on it to distinguish their view from subjectivism, so Woods's argument against it poses a serious challenge to the view. In this paper, I argue that Woods's argument is unsuccessful , but show that diagnosing precisely where it goes wrong raises interesting questions for expressivists-and metaethicists more generally-about the transparency of our moral attitudes.

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement

This volume accurately reproduces the talks given there. As its title indicates, the conference focused on different varieties of contemporary expressivism, and how they fare in relation to the truth-aptness of utterances with expressive meaning, and the status of knowledge claims. Expressivisms of all kinds share the negative thesis that claims with expressive meaning do not represent states of affairs 1. This semantic characterisation of the negative thesis also permits the pragmatic wording that the business of expressive discourse is something other than describing. Endorsing this negative thesis suffices for an approach to count as expressivist. The negative thesis can applied to all uses of language, and thus be global, or alternatively be restricted to some specific areas of discourse, or to some specific terms and phrases. The first kind of non-global expressivism is local expressivism, and I'll call the second kind term-focused expressivism. In term-focused expressivism, terms with expressive meaning do not contribute a component to what is said, i.e. they are semantically irrelevant. Frápolli's and Price's contributions defend global versions of expressivism, while Bar-On's, Besson's and Osorio and Villanueva's propose local versions, and Chrisman's, Soria and Stojanovic's, and Zalabardo's views are term-focused varieties. Within their respective scopes, all expressivisms stick to the negative thesis. It is the positive thesis, i.e. the thesis that identifies what expressive claims and utterances actually do, where a deeper disagreement between the different approaches lies. And at this point the options multiply. Just to give a hint of the variety, the positive thesis has attributed to expressive claims subjective as well as 1