For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser. Michael Devitt Position: Distinguished Professor Campus Affiliation: Graduate Center mdevitt@gc.cuny.edu Website Curriculum Vitae Degrees/Diplomas: Ph.D. Harvard University Research Interests Philosophy of language Philosophy of linguistics Naturalized metaphysics: realism issues; biology Current projects include: Biological Essentialism Overlooking Conventions: The Trouble with Linguistic Pragmatism. Experimental semantics An ignored argument for scientific realism Courses Recently Taught Naturalized Metaphysics (Spring 2019) Biological Essentialism (Spring 2018) Reference and Experimental Philosophy (Fall 2017) Representative Publications Designation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981 Realism and Truth. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984 (Princeton: Princeton University Press). 2nd edn revised, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991. Reprinted “with a new afterword”, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Ignorance of Language. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. “Singular Terms”. Journal of Philosophy LXXI (1974), pp. 183‑205. “‘Ostrich Nominalism’ or ‘Mirage Realism’?” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61 (1980), pp. 433‑39. “Meanings Just Ain’t in the Head”. Method, Reason and Language: Essays in honour of Hilary Putnam, George Boolos, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1990), pp. 79-104. “The Metaphysics of Truth”. In The Nature of Truth, Michael Lynch, ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2001), pp. 579-611. “Resurrecting Biological Essentialism”. Philosophy of Science 75 (2008), pp. 344-82. “No Place for the A Priori”. In What Place for the A Priori?, Michael J. Shaffer and Michael L. Veber, eds. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court Publishing Company (2011), pp. 9-32. “The Reference of Proper Names: Testing Usage and Intuitions” (with Nicolas Porot). Cognitive Science 42 (2018), pp. 1552-1585. doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12609. “Stirring the Possum: Responses to the Bianchi Papers”. In Language and Reality from a Naturalistic Perspective: Themes from Michael Devitt, Andrea Bianchi, ed. Cham: Springer (forthcoming)