About

I'm an associate professor of philosophy at Tufts University. Most of my research is in the philosophy of language and formal semantics, but I'm also interested in epistemology, the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophical logic. I co-direct the Linguistics Minor at Tufts, and I teach a number of courses related to this, including Semantics, Philosophy of Language, and Modal Logic. I hold a BA from the University of Western Ontario, a BPhil from Oxford University, and a PhD from MIT. From 2019-2024, I was an Editor-in-Chief of Linguistics and Philosophy. During the 2020-2021 academic year, I was a fellow at the Paris Institute for Advanced Study.

Work

  1. The Strength of Assertion
    2025. Analytic Philosophy. Advance online publication.
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  2. First-Person Propositions (with Michael Caie)
    Forthcoming in Philosophers' Imprint.
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  3. De Se Attitudes
    Forthcoming in the International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Elsevier.
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  4. A Relationist Theory of Intentional Identity
    2024. Mind. 133(531): 761-792.
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  5. An Expressivist Theory of Taste Predicates
    2024. Philosophers' Imprint. 24(13): 1-23.
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  6. Modality and the Future: Critical Notice of The Modal Future by Fabrizio Cariani
    2024. Analysis. (advance online version)
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  7. Relativism and Two Kinds of Branching Time
    2023. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. 104(2): 465-492.
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  8. Dynamic Relationism about Belief
    2022. Proceedings of the 23rd Amsterdam Colloquium. 221-227
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  9. Assertion, Evidence, and the Future
    2022. Philosophical Review. 131(4): 405-451.
    local file | DOI: 10.1215/00318108-10136817
  10. Williams on the Self and the Future
    2022. Analytic Philosophy. 63(3): 147-155.
    local file | DOI: 10.1111/phib.12229
  11. Knowing, Believing, and Acting as if You Know
    2021. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 44(E164).
    local file | DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X20001545
  12. Naming and Epistemic Necessity
    2021. Noûs 55(2): 334-362.
    local file | DOI: 10.1111/nous.12314
  13. The Projection Problem for Predicates of Taste
    2020. Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 30, 753-778.
    local file | DOI: 10.3765/salt.v30i0.4809
  14. De Se Attitudes and Action
    2020. In S. Biggs and H. Geirsson (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Reference, Routledge.
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  15. Quantification and Epistemic Modality
    2018. Philosophical Review 127(2): 433-485.
    Selected by the Philosopher's Annual as one of the ten best papers published in philosophy in 2018.
    local file | DOI: 10.1215/00318108-6973010
  16. Relational Semantics and Domain Semantics for Epistemic Modals
    2018. Journal of Philosophical Logic 47(1): 1-16.
    local file | DOI: 10.1007/s10992-016-9414-x
  17. Aboutness and Justification
    2017. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 95(3): 371-377.
    local file | DOI: 10.1111/phpr.12418
  18. Names in Fiction
    2017. Theoretical Linguistics 43(1-2): 61-70
    local file | DOI: 10.1515/tl-2017-0004
  19. Imagination and the Self
    2016. In A. Kind (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination, Routledge.
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  20. What is the Problem of De Se Attitudes?
    2016. In M. Garcia-Carpintero and S. Torre (eds.),
    About Oneself: De Se Attitudes and Communication, Oxford University Press.
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  21. Review of John MacFarlane, Assessment Sensitivity: Relative Truth and Its Applications.
    2016. Philosophical Review 125(3): 439-447.
    local file | DOI: 10.1215/00318108-3517041
  22. On Recanati's Mental Files
    2015. Inquiry 58(4): 368-377.
    local file | DOI: 10.1080/0020174X.2014.883751
  23. Taste Predicates and the Acquaintance Inference
    2014. Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT ) 24: 290-309.
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  24. Self-Location and Other-Location
    2013. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87(2):301-331.
    local file | DOI: 10.1111/phpr.12051
  25. Counterfactual Attitudes and Multi-Centered Worlds
    2012. Semantics and Pragmatics 5(5):1-57.
    DOI: 10.3765/sp.5.5
  26. Propositions, Semantic Values, and Rigidity
    2012. Philosophical Studies 158(3): 401-413.
    local file | DOI: 10.1007/s11098-010-9677-y
  27. Review of Robin Jeshion (ed.), New Essays on Singular Thought.
    2011. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
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  28. Review of Stephen Yablo, Thoughts: Philosophical Papers, Vol. I.
    2011. Protosociology.
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  29. Semantics and the Objects of Assertion
    2010. Linguistics and Philosophy 33(5): 355-380.
    local file | DOI: 10.1007/s10988-011-9084-7
  30. De Se Attitudes: Ascription and Communication
    2010. Philosophy Compass 5(7): 551-567.
    link | DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00290.x
  31. Persistence and the First-Person Perspective
    2009. Philosophical Review 118(4): 425-464.
    local file | DOI: 10.1215/00318108-2009-014
  32. Two Puzzles About Deontic Necessity
    2005. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 51: 149-178.
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More work

  1. Comments on L.A. Paul, Transformative Experience.
    2015. Notes for talk at the Norwegian Institute in Athens.
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  2. Imagination, Content, and the Self
    2008. PhD dissertation, MIT.
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  3. Illusions of Influence in Newcomb's Problem
    2006. Unpublished manuscript.
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Contact

111 Miner Hall, Tufts University
Medford, MA, 02155, USA
dilip.ninan [at] tufts.edu
+1 (857) 756-2324