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Department of Philosophy

Directory

Brett Sherman

Title: Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
Department: Philosophy
College of Arts and Sciences
Email: shermab3@mailbox.sc.edu
Office: Close-Hipp 516
Resources: Department of Philosophy
Personal Web Page
Linguistics Program 
Brett Sherman

Education

Ph.D. Princeton University, 2008
A.B. Harvard University, 2000

Research Interests

My research focuses on questions in the philosophy of language and epistemology. I am currently working on a project concerning the relation between open questions and modal concepts (those that pertain to what is possible and what is necessary). I am also interested in the ways in which linguistic meaning depends on the context in which linguistic expressions are used. I have defended a position that I call Context Constructivism, according to which the context in which an indexical gets its content is constructed by the conversational participants. In epistemology, I am interested in the connection between what we know and what we trust to be the case.

Regularly Taught Courses 

  • PHIL 114 - Introduction to Formal Logic I
  • PHIL 115 - Introduction to Formal Logic II
  • PHIL 350 - Knowledge and Reality
  • PHIL 351 - Mind and Nature
  • PHIL 719 - Semantic Theory
  • PHIL 763 - Epistemology

Recent Publications

  • "Ambivalence, Uncertainty, and Modality." (with Barry Lam.) In Berit Brogaard and Dimitria Electra Gatzia (eds.), Being of Two Minds: The Philosophy and Psychology of Ambivalence. New York: Routledge. 2021.
  • "Open Questions and Epistemic Necessity." The Philosophical Quarterly. Vol. 68, Num. 273, 819-840. 2018.
  • "'According to' Phrases and Epistemic Modals." Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. Vol. 36, Num. 2, 627-636. 2018.
  • "Constructing Contexts." Ergo. Vol. 2, Num. 23, 581-605. 2015.
  • Metasemantics. (co-edited with Alexis Burgess.) New York: Oxford University Press. 2014.
  • "Knowledge and Assumptions." (with Gilbert Harman.) Philosophical Studies. Vol. 156, Num. 1, 131-140. 2011.

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

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