Research
My work mostly focuses on topics in language, mind, and metaphysics. In particular, I am interested in how we can think and talk about the world, and the interaction between this question and the question of what the world is like. What will learning about how human thought and language works tell us about the world? Are we apt to be misled about the nature of the world by the nature of our representations of it?
My current research focuses on two topics. First, should we think of all human language and thought as representing the world, or is some of it better understood as doing something else? And if we do understand some area of language and thought as doing something other than representing the world around us, what does that tell us about the nature of the things we appear to be talking about? This was the topic of my PhD thesis Non-Representationalism and Metaphysics, and my four most recent published papers.
Second, how should we account for representation that involves logical concepts like or, and, not, all, and some? Can thoughts and sentences involving these concepts be treated along the same lines as orthodox theories treat other kinds of representations? Or must we give a distinctive theory for these representations? If so, what should that theory look like, and what can we learn from the fact that these representations need a distinctive theory? I am currently exploring the idea that no orthodox theory can satisfactorily explain representations like this, starting with the ubiquitous but, I argue, neglected concepts of all and every.
My current research focuses on two topics. First, should we think of all human language and thought as representing the world, or is some of it better understood as doing something else? And if we do understand some area of language and thought as doing something other than representing the world around us, what does that tell us about the nature of the things we appear to be talking about? This was the topic of my PhD thesis Non-Representationalism and Metaphysics, and my four most recent published papers.
Second, how should we account for representation that involves logical concepts like or, and, not, all, and some? Can thoughts and sentences involving these concepts be treated along the same lines as orthodox theories treat other kinds of representations? Or must we give a distinctive theory for these representations? If so, what should that theory look like, and what can we learn from the fact that these representations need a distinctive theory? I am currently exploring the idea that no orthodox theory can satisfactorily explain representations like this, starting with the ubiquitous but, I argue, neglected concepts of all and every.