Dr Bryan Pickel

  • Senior Lecturer (Philosophy)

email: Bryan.Pickel@glasgow.ac.uk

room 406, 69 Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow, Glasgow City, Scotland, G12 8LP

Import to contacts

ORCID iDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429

Biography

I am a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Previously, I was a Reader at the University of Edinburgh, having begun as a Chancellor's Fellow in 2013. Prior to that, I held a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Barcelona through the PERSP project as a member of the LOGOS research group. I received my PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.

Although my philosophical interests are very broad, my main areas of research are metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and the history of analytic philosophy.   I also work on philosophical logic and epistemology.  

Two major themes in my recent research are that the structure of our thoughts can differ from the structure of the sentences we use to express them and that we should be willing to revise any view in light of new evidence. I also have a longstanding interest in the philosophy of Susan Stebbing.

I am keen to supervise or co-supervise post-graduate students in projects pertaining to many areas of philosophy of language, metaphysics, and the history of analytic philosophy (including work that broadens the traditional canon).  

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2010 | 2008
Number of items: 33.

2025

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Szabó, Zoltán Gendler (2025) Compositionality. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2025.

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2025) Of passives and propositions. Inquiry, (doi: 10.1080/0020174X.2025.2571843) (Early Online Publication)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2025) A semantic vacuity theory of truth. Mind, (Accepted for Publication)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Carter, J. Adam ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1222-8331 (2025) Frege on the tolerability of sense variation: a reply to Michaelson and Textor. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, (doi: 10.1080/00048402.2025.2482823) (Early Online Publication)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2025) Stebbing on linguistic convention: understanding, definition, and verbal disputes. In: Coliva, Annalisa and Doulas, Louis (eds.) Analysis, Common Sense, and Public Philosophy. Oxford University Press. (Accepted for Publication)

2023

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2023) Against second-order primitivism. In: Fritz, Peter and Jones, Nicholas (eds.) Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. (Accepted for Publication)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Ball, Derek (2023) Conceptual engineering as inquiry. In: Isaac, M.G., Koch, S. and Scharp, K. (eds.) Conceptual Engineering. Series: Synthese Library. Springer. (Accepted for Publication)

2022

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2022) Susan Stebbing’s intellectualism. Journal for the History of Analytic Philosophy, 10(4),

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2022) Scorekeeping in a chess game. Semantics and Pragmatics, 15, 12. (doi: 10.3765/sp.15.12)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2022) Against Fregean quantification. Ergo, 9, pp. 971-1007. 37. (doi: 10.3998/ergo.2906)

2021

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2021) The functional composition of sense. Synthese, 199(3), pp. 6917-6942. (doi: 10.1007/s11229-021-03099-3)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2021) Frege and saving substitution. Philosophical Studies, 178(8), pp. 2687-2697. (doi: 10.1007/s11098-020-01576-y)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2021) The myth of occurrence-based semantics. Linguistics and Philosophy, 44(4), pp. 813-837. (doi: 10.1007/s10988-020-09302-x)

2020

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2020) Structured propositions and trivial composition. Synthese, 197(7), pp. 2991-3006. (doi: 10.1007/s11229-018-1853-1)

2019

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2019) Unity through truth. Synthese, 196(4), pp. 1425-1452. (doi: 10.1007/s11229-016-1279-6)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2019) Structured propositions in a generative grammar. Mind, 128(510), pp. 329-366. (doi: 10.1093/mind/fzw074)

2018

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Schulz, Moritz (2018) Quinean updates: In defense of "two dogmas". Journal of Philosophy, 115(2), pp. 57-91. (doi: 10.5840/jphil201811524)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429, Rabern, Brian and Dever, Josh (2018) Reviving the parameter revolution in semantics. In: Ball, Derek and Rabern, Brian (eds.) The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics. Oxford University Press: Oxford, United Kingdom, pp. 138-171. ISBN 9780198739548 (doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198739548.003.0005)

2017

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2017) Are propositions essentially representational? Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98(3), pp. 470-489. (doi: 10.1111/papq.12123)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2017) Naming, saying, and structure. Noûs, 51(3), pp. 594-616. (doi: 10.1111/nous.12145)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2017) Does semantic relationism solve Frege’s puzzle? Journal of Philosophical Logic, 46(1), pp. 97-118. (doi: 10.1007/s10992-016-9420-z)

2016

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2016) Frontloading, supposition, and contraction. Philosophical Quarterly, 66(264), pp. 559-578. (doi: 10.1093/pq/pqv112)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2016) The antinomy of the variable: a Tarskian resolution. Journal of Philosophy, 113(3), pp. 137-170. (doi: 10.5840/jphil201611338)

2015

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2015) Nominalism about Properties: New Essays / Ghislain Guigon and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (eds.), Routledge, 2015, 217pp., $145.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781138849938. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 10 Sep. [Book Review]

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2015) Variables and attitudes. Noûs, 49(2), pp. 333-356. (doi: 10.1111/nous.12044)

2014

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2014) Complex predication and the metaphysics of properties. Dialectica, 68(2), pp. 209-230. (doi: 10.1111/1746-8361.12060)

Ball, Derek and Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2014) One dogma of Millianism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 88(1), pp. 70-92. (doi: 10.1111/phpr.12009)

2013

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2013) Russell on incomplete symbols. Philosophy Compass, 8(10), pp. 909-923. (doi: 10.1111/phc3.12071)

2012

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2012) Rigidification and attitudes. Philosophical Studies, 158(1), pp. 43-58. (doi: 10.1007/s11098-010-9666-1)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Mantegani, Nicholas (2012) A Quinean critique of Ostrich nominalism. Philosophers' Imprint, 12(6), pp. 1-21.

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2012) Things: Papers on Objects, Events, and Properties. By Stephen Yablo. (Oxford UP, 2010. Pp. 323. Price £55.00.). Philosophical Quarterly, 62(246), pp. 215-217. (doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.00014.x)[Book Review]

2010

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2010) Syntax in basic laws §§29–32. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 51(2), pp. 253-277. (doi: 10.1215/00294527-2010-016)

2008

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2008) There is no ‘Is’ of constitution. Philosophical Studies, 147, pp. 193-211. (doi: 10.1007/s11098-008-9275-4)

This list was generated on Sat Nov 8 14:55:50 2025 GMT.
Jump to: Articles | Book Sections | Book Reviews
Number of items: 33.

Articles

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Szabó, Zoltán Gendler (2025) Compositionality. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2025.

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2025) Of passives and propositions. Inquiry, (doi: 10.1080/0020174X.2025.2571843) (Early Online Publication)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2025) A semantic vacuity theory of truth. Mind, (Accepted for Publication)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Carter, J. Adam ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1222-8331 (2025) Frege on the tolerability of sense variation: a reply to Michaelson and Textor. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, (doi: 10.1080/00048402.2025.2482823) (Early Online Publication)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2022) Susan Stebbing’s intellectualism. Journal for the History of Analytic Philosophy, 10(4),

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2022) Scorekeeping in a chess game. Semantics and Pragmatics, 15, 12. (doi: 10.3765/sp.15.12)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2022) Against Fregean quantification. Ergo, 9, pp. 971-1007. 37. (doi: 10.3998/ergo.2906)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2021) The functional composition of sense. Synthese, 199(3), pp. 6917-6942. (doi: 10.1007/s11229-021-03099-3)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2021) Frege and saving substitution. Philosophical Studies, 178(8), pp. 2687-2697. (doi: 10.1007/s11098-020-01576-y)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2021) The myth of occurrence-based semantics. Linguistics and Philosophy, 44(4), pp. 813-837. (doi: 10.1007/s10988-020-09302-x)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2020) Structured propositions and trivial composition. Synthese, 197(7), pp. 2991-3006. (doi: 10.1007/s11229-018-1853-1)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2019) Unity through truth. Synthese, 196(4), pp. 1425-1452. (doi: 10.1007/s11229-016-1279-6)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2019) Structured propositions in a generative grammar. Mind, 128(510), pp. 329-366. (doi: 10.1093/mind/fzw074)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Schulz, Moritz (2018) Quinean updates: In defense of "two dogmas". Journal of Philosophy, 115(2), pp. 57-91. (doi: 10.5840/jphil201811524)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2017) Are propositions essentially representational? Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98(3), pp. 470-489. (doi: 10.1111/papq.12123)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2017) Naming, saying, and structure. Noûs, 51(3), pp. 594-616. (doi: 10.1111/nous.12145)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2017) Does semantic relationism solve Frege’s puzzle? Journal of Philosophical Logic, 46(1), pp. 97-118. (doi: 10.1007/s10992-016-9420-z)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2016) Frontloading, supposition, and contraction. Philosophical Quarterly, 66(264), pp. 559-578. (doi: 10.1093/pq/pqv112)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Rabern, Brian (2016) The antinomy of the variable: a Tarskian resolution. Journal of Philosophy, 113(3), pp. 137-170. (doi: 10.5840/jphil201611338)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2015) Variables and attitudes. Noûs, 49(2), pp. 333-356. (doi: 10.1111/nous.12044)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2014) Complex predication and the metaphysics of properties. Dialectica, 68(2), pp. 209-230. (doi: 10.1111/1746-8361.12060)

Ball, Derek and Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2014) One dogma of Millianism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 88(1), pp. 70-92. (doi: 10.1111/phpr.12009)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2013) Russell on incomplete symbols. Philosophy Compass, 8(10), pp. 909-923. (doi: 10.1111/phc3.12071)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2012) Rigidification and attitudes. Philosophical Studies, 158(1), pp. 43-58. (doi: 10.1007/s11098-010-9666-1)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Mantegani, Nicholas (2012) A Quinean critique of Ostrich nominalism. Philosophers' Imprint, 12(6), pp. 1-21.

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2010) Syntax in basic laws §§29–32. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 51(2), pp. 253-277. (doi: 10.1215/00294527-2010-016)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2008) There is no ‘Is’ of constitution. Philosophical Studies, 147, pp. 193-211. (doi: 10.1007/s11098-008-9275-4)

Book Sections

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2025) Stebbing on linguistic convention: understanding, definition, and verbal disputes. In: Coliva, Annalisa and Doulas, Louis (eds.) Analysis, Common Sense, and Public Philosophy. Oxford University Press. (Accepted for Publication)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2023) Against second-order primitivism. In: Fritz, Peter and Jones, Nicholas (eds.) Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. (Accepted for Publication)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 and Ball, Derek (2023) Conceptual engineering as inquiry. In: Isaac, M.G., Koch, S. and Scharp, K. (eds.) Conceptual Engineering. Series: Synthese Library. Springer. (Accepted for Publication)

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429, Rabern, Brian and Dever, Josh (2018) Reviving the parameter revolution in semantics. In: Ball, Derek and Rabern, Brian (eds.) The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics. Oxford University Press: Oxford, United Kingdom, pp. 138-171. ISBN 9780198739548 (doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198739548.003.0005)

Book Reviews

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2015) Nominalism about Properties: New Essays / Ghislain Guigon and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (eds.), Routledge, 2015, 217pp., $145.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781138849938. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 10 Sep. [Book Review]

Pickel, Bryan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5686-8429 (2012) Things: Papers on Objects, Events, and Properties. By Stephen Yablo. (Oxford UP, 2010. Pp. 323. Price £55.00.). Philosophical Quarterly, 62(246), pp. 215-217. (doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.00014.x)[Book Review]

This list was generated on Sat Nov 8 14:55:50 2025 GMT.

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