Separatory Confusion Does Not Corrupt
Abstract
If I am confused, and I think two people are one and the same, that may impair my ability to refer to either of them. This is combinatory confusion. What if I am confused, and think that one person is actually two people? This is separatory confusion, and it seems quite different. After all, even in my confusion, my thoughts and my referential devices seem to track back to a single individual. Unnsteinsson has recently argued that both types of confusion corrupt, i.e. they may prevent us from referring the right way. In this paper, I examine the four arguments he offers for this conclusion, and I argue that the intuitive view that separatory confusion does not corrupt can withstand his challenge.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Epistemology
Ethics
and Metaphysics
Philosophy and Theoretical Science
Syntax
Semantics
Linguistic Variation
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Croatian Journal of Philosophy
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 75
- Pages
- 425–437
- Publication date
- 13 January 2026
- Language
- EN