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Dan Harris

@danielwharris.bsky.social

Philosophy of language and mind, cognitive science, history of analytic philosophy at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center. I grew up in Cape Breton.

843 Followers  |  298 Following  |  99 Posts  |  Joined: 26.07.2023
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Posts by Dan Harris (@danielwharris.bsky.social)

More important data for subway metaphysics. We should inform Myrtle Willoughby. philarchive.org/archive/WILS...

01.03.2026 01:46 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

CHAD SOPHIST Polus has FALLEN in the rankings after being THOUGHT MOGGED by THINKMAXXER Socrates, who argues it is better to suffer an injustice than to commit one, causing Polus to CRASH OUT in front of the Athenian orators

24.02.2026 17:54 β€” πŸ‘ 520    πŸ” 91    πŸ’¬ 6    πŸ“Œ 2

As the last several decades of the scientific realism/antirealism debate have taught us, nothing is more clear and determinate than what counts as an observation.

13.02.2026 01:20 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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#philosophy #philsky

08.02.2026 20:45 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

It has always read to me as a kind of play-by-play.

04.02.2026 18:57 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Here's the paper, in case anyone still wants to read it: danielwharris.com/papers/Danie...

30.01.2026 13:47 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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After a quick five years living Online First, my paper, "Intentionalism and Bald-Faced Lies" has been assigned to Volume 69, Issue 2 at Inquiry. I took this occasion to re-read it, and discovered this typo, which is a pretty solid candidate for a Freudian slip.

30.01.2026 13:46 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

At least most of the papers aren’t more than 70 or 80 pages.

28.01.2026 12:42 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

New indeterminacy just dropped.

18.01.2026 01:17 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Hearing Pablo Torre’s theme music start pumping after Thi makes some subtle point about the nature of value (and not after the latest revelation about Kawhi Leonard’s uncle’s shady real-estate transaction) is surreal.

14.01.2026 02:25 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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It’s book release day! I’m back on social media! I feel slightly awkward about it because part of the book is about how social media transforms your motivations for communication!

But honestly writing a book is lonely, weird basement-work, and now I want to talk to people about this weird jank.

13.01.2026 16:09 β€” πŸ‘ 173    πŸ” 36    πŸ’¬ 8    πŸ“Œ 3

I only drink Joyce water.

08.01.2026 15:32 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Using these ideas we show how to generalize Grice's theory of implicature, Craige Roberts' QUD model, and Stalnaker's theory of common ground to genres beyond the ones for which they were originally formulated.

07.01.2026 20:16 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

We consider four orthogonal kinds of genre variation as case studies: informative vs. practical, committal vs. exploratory, factual vs. make-believe, and cooperative vs. adversarial. Each, we argue, boils down to an independent kind of variation in conversation plans.

07.01.2026 20:16 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

We understand the genre of a conversation as a type of conversation planβ€”a plan about what to do in the conversation. Genres steer us toward certain kinds of speech acts by exerting pressure to make our communicative intentions fit the conversation plan.

07.01.2026 20:16 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Unnsteinsson Elmar & Harris Daniel W., Genre and Conversation - PhilPapers Conversations can belong to different types, or genres. We consider four dimensions of variation as case studies: Some conversations are about sharing information, others about making decisions; some ...

Elmar Unnsteinsson (@eunnsteins.bsky.social) and I have a new paper forthcoming in NoΓ»s.

"Genre and Conversation"

We show how to generalize the classic pragmatic theories to conversational genres that aren't factual, cooperative, committal information exchanges.

philpapers.org/rec/ELMGAC-2

07.01.2026 20:01 β€” πŸ‘ 31    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 4

Counterexample!

06.01.2026 12:12 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

True non-beliefs.

04.01.2026 23:32 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Yes and also just a very small sample of newsworthy cases, plus maybe a tendency for news orgs to overreport on the AI they have heard of.

04.01.2026 14:54 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Mostly base rate maybe?

04.01.2026 14:07 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0

Official rule is to β€œrespond *in the form of* a question.” Those Jeopardy people know what they’re doing.

11.12.2025 21:16 β€” πŸ‘ 10    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I think Stalnaker/Portner/Roberts/Karen Lewis on dynamic pragmatics is likewise in the neighborhood.

20.11.2025 12:28 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

If you construe β€œpragmatics” more widely, then I think there’s a long history of people setting things up roughly this way.

hrcak.srce.hr/file/137202

20.11.2025 12:24 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

We’re not allowed to have h-indices are we?

05.11.2025 16:25 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Who is writing about this supernatural thing as opposed to the legal/social-institutional thing?

28.10.2025 15:17 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

More like somebody should hit something.

11.10.2025 00:40 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

lol

01.10.2025 00:37 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Yeah this exact thing made me feel indignant about the charge that analytic philosophy has a problem with unnecessary formal notation that does more harm than good. I mean, yes, but also: Marxists heal thyselves!

30.09.2025 21:37 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I definitely considered this reading.

30.09.2025 21:34 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0