This is the main statement of my current (2010-2013) project on imperative logic. See also Cognitivism about imperatives; Conditional commands; Preposcription semantics and KDDc4; The transformational approach to imperative consequence; and Permissives and epistemic modals,
Abstract: An argument is usually said to be valid iff it is truth-preserving – iff it cannot be that all its premises are true and its conclusion false. But imperatives (it is normally thought) are not truth-apt. They are not in the business of saying how the world is, and therefore cannot either succeed or fail in doing so. To solve this problem, we need to find a new criterion of validity, and I aim to propose such a criterion.
Parsons, Josh. 2013. “Command and Consequence.” Philosophical Studies 164 (1): 61–92. doi:10.1007/s11098-013-0094-x.
Until September 2016 I am a Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College and an Associate Professor in the Oxford Philosophy Faculty. From then on, I'll be a Senior Adviser at the New Zealand Ministry of Transport.
My intellectual interests are mainly in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and ethics, and of course transport policy.
Read published version
Read draft