University of California, Riverside

College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences



Department of Philosophy
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Philos. Dept.


Main Research Areas:

Philosophy of Logic, Mathematics, and Science; History of Analytic Philosophy

Areas of Competence:

Mathematical Logic; Philosophy of Language and Mind

Other Areas of Interests:

Aesthetics; Philosophy of Music

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Short Description:

My research over the last 12-15 years has been concentrated in three related areas: the philosophy of mathematics (logicist and structuralist views, mathematical knowledge); the philosophy of logic (notions of completeness, the status of logic); and early analytic philosophy (especially Frege, Wittgenstein, and Carnap). During the last 5 years, I have also branched out into two other areas: the philosophy of science (theories of explanation); late 19th- and early 20th-century philosophy more generally (Cassirer). In my work, I tend to combine considerations of historical figures and developments with contributions to contemporary debates; I don't make a strict distinction between doing history of philosophy (or of logic, mathematics, and science) and doing philosophy itself. I am also often interested in connections between questions arising out of the sciences and broader questions about language, reasoning, and knowledge (revolving around the notions of objectivity, structure, infinity, analysis, and understanding). More on the side, I like to think about questions in aesthetics (the significance of asthetic judgments and the role of the imagination, in science, music, and everyday life).

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Current Research:

Articles:

  • "Logic in Early Analytic Philosophy", for Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy, M. Beaney, ed. (in progress)

  • "Structuralism in the Philosophy of Mathematics", for The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E. Zalta, main editor (in progress)

  • "Cassirer, Dedekind, and Modern Mathematics", resulting from an NEH summer research project, Ernst Cassirer, Relational Structures, and the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (in preparation)

Edited Book:

  • The Historical Turn in Analytic Philosophy (in progress)

Monographs:

  • Dedekind, Structural Mathematics, and the Enterprise of Understanding (in progress)

Textbook:

  • Metalogic: A Mathematical, Historical, and Philosophical Introduction (in preparation)

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And beyond:

 


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