USC graduate seminar (co-taught with Barry Schein) (Fall 2019): Semantic analysis often suggests the appropriateness of positing different sorts of entities, whether simple or structured, to act as, at least, targets for reference and quantification. Postulating some of these entities may accord well enough with intuition (e.g., objects and events) while others can seem more mysterious (e.g., processes and states). In this course, we examine the evidence for some of these posits, with a major focus on the mass-count and telicity distinctions, and their interactions with degree constructions (i.e., sentences with more, less, enough, etc). Here, technical notions from mereology, mereotopology, and measurement theory are introduced. More broadly, we explore questions like: what is the role that ontology can play in semantic explanation? And, what do we mean by "ontology"? Should we understand, in particular, the "natural language metaphysics" produced in semantic theory as (properly) metaphysics, or something else? If metaphysics wants to read (worldly) ontology off of the logical form of English or any other language, what justifies this move? Correspondingly, if cognitive psychologists want to read human conceptual structure off of logical form, how is that justified? Etc.

USC undergraduate seminar (latest Fall 2018): Linguists say that sentences describe events, while nouns describe objects. Psychologists describe principles of event perception, and philosophers debate the metaphysics of event identity. Our legal system holds us responsible for our actions (presumably, particular sorts of events), and, in some cases, our failures to act. How do these various discussions relate to each other? And in particular, do we mean the same thing by "event"? We explore these questions through a variety of interrelated topics including: the nature of actions; the logic underlying event talk; the distinction between event participants and (mere) bystanders; the structural similarities between ordinary objects and events; and, the emergence of our intuitions about these things in early childhood. This study thus engages with the analytic techniques of linguistics and philosophy, and the experimental methods of cognitive psychology. These tools help us to appreciate the complicated relationship between the way the world is (or, the way it might be) and the way we think it is. As such, the course will be appropriate for students that are curious about the nature of language and mind, seeking an introduction to the use of formal methods in philosophical/scientific inquiry, and/or who would like to see how a research topic can span traditional disciplinary divides.

NU graduate seminar (Spring 2015): Linguists, psychologists, and philosophers love to talk about 'events.' What are they? Are they like or unlike 'objects'? Are they out there in the world, or merely ways we think about things in the world? In this course, we investigate the logic of the sentences we use to talk about events, and other potentially mysterious entities like 'states.'' We begin by considering the traditional semantics for sentences like 'Juliet kicked Romeo,' in which it expresses a relation between two entities. Next, we examine evidence that there is more structure to the logical form of such sentences, involving quantification over events. As the course goes on, we look at more phenomena that the event analysis has been recruited to explain, and the greater elaborations to logical form that these phenomena have been taken to suggest. Throughout, we consider the significance of the event analysis to the relation between language and mind.