Thomas J. McKay
Professor Emeritus
Department of Philosophy
Syracuse University
Education:
Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, 1974
Dissertation - "Essentialism and Quantified Modal Logic: Quine's Argument and Kripke's Semantics" Advisor: Terence Parsons
M.A. University of Massachusetts, 1972
B.A. Swarthmore College, 1969
Academic Positions:
Syracuse University:
Professor Emeritus, 2014-
Interim Department Chair, 2011-2012
Professor, 1996-2014
Department Chair, 1995-2002
Director of Syracuse Semester in Italy Program, 1980-81
Associate Professor, 1979-1996
Assistant Professor, 1973-1979
Areas of Specialization:
Logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics
Books:
Plural predication, Oxford University Press, 2006. (viii + 263 pages). (Online at http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/philosophy/9780199278145/toc.html)
Textbooks:
Modern Formal Logic
First edition, Macmillan, 1989.
Second edition, Thomson-Cengage, 2006.
Reasons, Explanations and Decisions (Wadsworth), 2000.
Journal Articles:
"Stuff and Coincidence," Philosophical Studies 172 (2015), 3081–3100.
Review of New Essays on Singular Thought, Robin Jeshion, ed. (Oxford University Press). Analysis Reviews, January, 2012.
Critical study of Henry Laycock's Words without objects, for Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38 (June, 2008), 301-323.
"A reconsideration of an argument against compatibilism," Philosophical Topics, 24 (1996), 113-121. (Actually published in late 1997.)
"Analogy and Argument," Teaching Philosophy, 20 (1997), 49-60.
"Representing de re Beliefs," Linguistics and Philosophy 14 (1991), 711-739.
"he himself: Undiscovering an Anaphor," Linguistic Inquiry 22 (1991), 368-373.
"Lowe and Baldwin on Modalities," Mind 95 (1986), 499-505.
"His Burning Pants," Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 27 (1986), 393-400.
"On Critical Thinking," American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy, Spring-Summer 1985, 19-20.
"Actions and De Re Beliefs," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1984), 631-635.
"On Showing Invalidity," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1984), 97-100.
Critical Review of Michael Devitt's Designation, Noûs 18 (1984), 357-367.
"On Proper Names in Belief Ascriptions," Philosophical Studies 39 (1981), 287-303.
"Natural Kind Terms and Standards of Membership," with Cindy Stern, Linguistics and Philosophy 3 (1979), 27-34.
"The Principle of Predication," Journal of Philosophical Logic 7 (1978), 19-26.
"Counterfactuals with Disjunctive Antecedents," with Peter van Inwagen, Philosophical Studies 31 (1977), 353-356.
"Essentialism in Quantified Modal Logic," Journal of Philosophical Logic 4 (1975), 423-438.
Book chapters:
"Mass and Plural," in Plurality and Unity, edited by Massimiliano Carrara, Friederike Moltmann and Alexandra Arapinis, Oxford University Press, 2016.
"Plural Reference and Unbound Pronouns," in Logic and Philosophy of Science in Uppsala, edited by Dag Prawitz and Dag Westerstahl, 1994.
"Names, Causal Chains, and De Re Beliefs," Philosophical Perspectives 8 (1994), James E. Tomberlin, editor .
"De Re and De Se Belief," in Philosophical Analysis: A Defense by Example, edited by David Austin, Reidel (Dordrecht), 1988.
"Against Constitutional Sufficiency Principles," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 11 (1986).
"Singular Terms in Modal Logic," Views on Language, edited by Reza Ordoubadian and Wallburga Von-Raffler Engle, Inter-University Publishing (Tennessee), 1975, 32-52.