Work
In his brief career Evans made substantial contributions to logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. Aside from Strawson, Michael Dummett and John McDowell were important influences on his work.
Evans was one of many in the UK who took up the project of developing formal semantics for natural languages, instigated by Donald Davidson in the 1960s and 1970s. He co-edited Truth and Meaning (1976) with John McDowell on this subject. He also wrote a paper, "The Causal Theory of Names" (1973), which heavily criticized certain lines of the theory of reference that derived from Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity (1972/1980) and work by Keith Donnellan.
A one-page paper in Analysis, "Can There Be Vague Objects?" (1978), drew dozens of papers in response and is now considered a key work in metaphysics.
Read more about this topic: Gareth Evans (philosopher)
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