Stephen Yablo is a philosopher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 (MIT). He specializes in the philosophy of logic

Philosophy of logic

Following the developments in Formal logic with symbolic logic in the late nineteenth century and mathematical logic in the twentieth, topics traditionally treated by logic not being part of formal logic have tended to be termed either philosophy of logic or philosophical logic if no longer simply...

, philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e...

, metaphysics

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

, and philosophy of language

Philosophy of language

Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for analytic philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language...

.

In 1993, he published a short paper showing that a liar-like paradox

Liar paradox

In philosophy and logic, the liar paradox or liar's paradox , is the statement "this sentence is false"...

 can be generated without self-reference

Self-reference

Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding...

. His 1992 paper "Mental Causation" was a significant work in the philosophy of mind. In recent years, Yablo has gained attention for work concerning mathematical fictionalism.

He is married to fellow MIT philosopher Sally Haslanger

Sally Haslanger

Sally Haslanger is a professor of philosophy in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 2009, she has also served as Director of the Women's and Gender Studies program. She has published in metaphysics, epistemology, feminist theory, ancient...

.

External links

• Yablo's Homepage
• "Paradox Without Self-Reference" - Analysis, vol. 53 (1993), pp. 251–52
• "Mental Causation" - The Philosophical Review, vol. 101, issue 2 (1992), pp. 245–280
• "Go Figure: A Path Through Fictionalism"