Jessica Pepp

Short presentation

My research interests are in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind, with a focus on the nature of reference in language and thought. I also work on the philosophy of technology, especially online speech and the foundations of reference and meaning in AI systems. I was PI of the VR-funded project New Frontiers of Speech: Philosophy of Language in the Information Age (2020-2024) and I will be PI of the VR-funded project, How Words Mean: Lessons from LLMs (2026-29).

Research

1. “Towards a New ‘Kripke-Donnellan theory’ of proper name reference”, in 50 Years of Naming and Necessity. Corine Besson, Romina Birman, Anandi Hattiangadi and Antonella Mallozzi (eds). (Forthcoming with Oxford University Press.)

2. “Proper Names and the Referential-Attributive Distinction,” to appear in Review of Philosophy and Psychology.
3. “Who’s Afraid of Semantic Instrumentalism?,” with T. Huvenes, to appear in Ergo.
4. “(Co-) Reference all the way down: A unified theory of (pro) nominals in ordinary English,” with J. Almog, Theoria (2025).
5. “On Amplification,” with E. Michaelson and R. Sterken, to appear in J. Saul, S. Goldberg and P. Connolly (eds.), Conversations Online, Oxford University Press (2025).

6. “Reference without Intentions in Large Language Models,” Inquiry, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2024.2448482. (2025)

7. “The Size of a Lie: from Truthlikeness to Sincerity”, Inquiry, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2024.2376350 (2024).

8. “Can Machines Manipulate Us?”, with E. Michaelson and R. Sterken, Cardiff University Open for Debate blog, (2024)

9. "On Retweeting," with E. Michaelson and R. Sterken, in E. Lepore and L. Anderson, eds., Oxford Handbook of Applied Philosophy of Language, (2024).

10. “Fake News and Fictional News,” with E. Michaelson and R. Sterken, in A. James, F. Lavocat, and A. Kubo, (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief, Routledge, (2024).

11. "The Commitment in Lying," The Journal of Philosophy 119 (12):673-686, (2022).

12. "Towards a Sensible Bifurcationism (concerning what grounds thought about particulars)," Theoria 88.2 (2022): 348-64.

13. "Manipulative Machines," with E. Michaelson, R. Sterken and M. McKeever, in Jongepier, F., & Klenk, M. (Eds.). (2022). The Philosophy of Online Manipulation (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003205425.

14. “Relevance-based Knowledge Resistance,” with E. Michaelson and R. Sterken. In Strömbäck, J., Wikforss, Å., Glüer, K., Lindholm, T., & Oscarsson, H. (Eds.) (2022). Knowledge Resistance in High-Choice Information Environments (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003111474

15. “Online Communication,” with R. Sterken and E. Michaelson, in The Philosophers’ Magazine, Issue 94, 3rd quarter 2021.

16. “What Fake News is and Why That Matters,” with R. Sterken and E. Michaelson, Public Ethics Blog, Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace, 2021.

17. "Is Dickie's Account of Aboutness Explanatory?", Theoria, 2020.

18. "Why We Should Keep Talking about Fake News" with E. Michaelson and R. Sterken, Inquiry, 65(4), 471–487. 2019

19. "The Problem of First-Person Aboutness", Croatian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XIX, No. 57, 2019.

20. “Principles of Acquaintance,” in J. Knowles and T. Raleigh, eds., Acquaintance: New Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

21. "What's New About Fake News?" with E. Michaelson and R. Sterken, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, Volume XVI, Issue 2, 2019.

22. "The Aesthetic Significance of the Lying-Misleading Distinction," British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 59, Issue 3, 2019.

23. “On Pictorially Mediated Mind-Object Relations," Inquiry, 2019. DOI: 10.1080/0020174X.2018.1562372.

24. “Assertion, Lying, and Untruthfully Implicating,” in S. Goldberg, ed., The Oxford Handbook on Assertion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190675233.013.40

25. “What Determines the Reference of Names? What Determines the Objects of Thought.” Erkenntnis 84, 741–759, 2019.

26. “Truth Serum, Liar Serum, and Some Problems about Saying what You Think is False,” in E. Michaelson and A. Stokke, eds., Lying. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
27. “A Unified Treatment of (Pro-) Nominals in Ordinary English,” co-authored with Joseph Almog and Paul Nichols, in A. Bianchi, ed., On Reference. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

28. Locating Semantic Reference. UCLA Ph.D. Dissertation (doctoral thesis), 2012. Available online: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3z15t80z

29. “Reference and Referring: A Framework,” in W. Kabasenche, M. O’Rourke, and M. Slater, eds., Reference and Referring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.

30. “Semantic Reference Not By Convention?” Abstracta – Linguagem, Mente e Ação. Volume 5 Number 2, 2009.

31. “Two Conceptions of Semantic Reference,” Proceedings of ILCLI International Workshop on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Rhetoric, The University of the Basque Country Press (EHU Press), 2009.