Here you'll find all my papers. For an explanation of how they fit together, see my research statement.
Published or Forthcoming:
A General Schema for Bilateral Proof Rules. Journal of Philosophical Logic. 2024.
A standard "unilateral" logical system provides rules for inferring sentences from other sentences. A bilateral system, by contrast, provides rules for inferring both affirmations and denials of sentences from other affirmations and denials. In this paper, I put forward a new sort of bilateral proof system in which all the rules for the classical connectives are determined by a single rule schema. I also prove some things about it, illustrating a new method of simplifying proof-theory by doing it at this schematic level of generality. (link to publication, pdf of penultimate draft)
How to Be a Hyper-Inferentialist. Synthese. 2023.
An inferentialist theory of meaning aims to account for the meanings of sentences in terms of the inferential rules governing their use. A "hyper-inferentialist" theory admits only "narrowly inferential" rules, relating sentences to other sentences. Such a version of inferentialism is widely thought to be a theoretical non-starter. I argue here, however, that not only is hyper-inferentialism theoretically viable, but it is really the only viable form of inferentialism there is. (link to publication, pdf of penultimate draft).
Why Must Incompatibility Be Symmetric? The Philosophical Quarterly. 2023.
Something's being red (all over) is incompatible with its being blue (all over), and just as well, something's being blue is incompatible with its being red. In general, it seems that whenever a is incompatible with b, b is also incompatible with a. Why is this the case? This question might not seem like the sort of question we'd be able to answer, and recent work in the philosophy of logic which appeals to the notion of incompatibility as primitive has assumed just that. In this paper, however, I provide an answer. (link to publication, pdf of penultimate draft)
Sellars's Two Worlds. To appear in Reading Kant with Sellars, edited by Luz. C Seiberth and Mahdi Ranaee. Routledge.
This is a paper for a forthcoming anthology on Sellars and Kant. In it, I situate Sellars's Kantian picture in the context of the debate over "two worlds" vs. "two aspects" readings of transcendental idealism, arguing that Sellars has a two worlds conception of transcendental idealism, but he resolves the problems that traditionally plague such conceptions through his distinctive naturalistic spin on Kant. (pdf of penultimate draft)
Considering the Exceptions: On the Failure of Cumulative Transitivity for Indicative Conditionals. Synthese. 2022.
All existing theories of indicative conditionals have it that, if "If A then B" is true and "If A and B, then C" is true, then "If A, then C" must also be true. Here, I provide a class of counterexamples to this principle. After spelling out how these cases pose a problem to existing theories of conditionals, I propose a new dynamic strict account of conditionals that accommodates them. (link to publication, pdf of penultimate draft)
In Fall 2019, I was a visitor at Pittsburgh, working with Robert Brandom, and I sat in on Brandom's course on Wilfrid Sellars. One of Brandom's main claims in the course was that Sellars's ontological nominalism was unintelligible. I thought there was more to be said for it, so I decided to write this paper, arguing that Sellars's ontological nominalism is not only intelligible but that the theory of conceptual content that Brandom develops is actually just what is needed for us to make proper sense of it. (link to publication, pdf of penultimate draft.)
The Normative/Agentive Correspondence. Journal of Transcendental Philosophy. 2020.
This is my attempt to bridge the gap between Robert Brandom's account of the mind, articulated in normative vocabulary, and the sort of account offered by some of his closest critics such as John McDowell, James Conant, and Sebastian Rödl, articulated in principally agentive modal vocabulary. On the account I propose, these two sorts of accounts are really two perspectival sides of the same multi-perspectival coin. (link to publication, open access pdf)
Pointing Out the Skeptic's Mistake and Reformulating the Two Aspects of Justification. Florida Philosophical Review. 2014, 2013.
These are two papers I wrote as an undergrad, which became chapters three and four of my undergrad thesis. In the first, which I still rather like, I defend Donald Davidson's transcendental argument against Cartesian skepticism by giving it a Moorean spin, drawing on work by Quill Kukla and Mark Lance. In the second, which I wish I wrote differently (I'd read the version in chapter four of the thesis, if you're curious), I develop an account of justification, drawing from W.V.O. Quine's work on observation sentences, where justification has two aspects, one connecting to belief qua state and one connecting to belief qua bearer of content, that fit together like the two sides of a seesaw.
Under Review or Slated for a Volume:
Bringing Bilateralisms Together. Under Review.
This paper brings together much of the technical work that I've with the ROLE working group. In it, I consider two distinct versions of "logical bilateralism," which take affirmation and denial to be equally basic in providing an account of the logical connectives. I argue that each has benefits when it comes to inferentialist semantics, and I put foward a new kind of logical system that enables us to have the benefits of both. (pdf of draft)
Generalized Bilateral Harmony. For the 2023 Logica Yearbook.
Bilateral natural deduction systems for classical logic solve the problem of harmony between the introduction and elimination rules but give rise to a further problem of potential disharmony between the positive and negative rules. In this paper, I propose a new criterion of bilateral harmony, framed within a new generalized approach to bilateralism as a whole, developed also in my paper "A General Schema for Bilateral Proof Rules." pdf of draft
An Act-Based Theory of Assertibles and Instantiables. Revise and Resubmit at Ergo.
I combine the act-based theory of propositions, developed by Peter Hanks, with the normative functionalist theory of content, developed by Robert Brandom, to arrive at an act-based conception not just of propositions, but properties and relations as well. (draft)
Meaning, Coherence, and Consequence: Rethinking the Philosophical Significance of the Sequent Calculus. For a Festschrift for Michael Kremer.
I wrote this paper for Michael Kremer's retirement conference. In it, I consider the potential of the sequent calculus to provide an inferentialist account of the meanings of the logical connectives. I raise a problem regarding multiple conclusions in the classical sequent calculus, and I resolve it by putting forward a new kind of bilateral sequent calculus. Much of what appears here was drawn from and will appear in my paper "Bringing Bilateralisms Together." pdf
In the Works:
"Yes," "No," Neither, and Both: Bilateral Systems for the FDE Family
In bilateral logic, affirmation and denial are almost always taken to be exhaustive and exclusive: for any sentence, exactly one of these two opposite stances must be correct. What if, however, we relax this imposition of exhaustivity and exclusivity, or drop it entirely? In this paper I show how, if we do, we arrive at bilateral systems of the FDE family of logics (LP, K3, and FDE), and I discuss some of the technical advantages of these systems, as well as some philosophical consequences for debates about different approaches to paradoxes like the liar. pdf of draft
Properties without Problems
Our ordinary ways of talking and speaking seem to commit us to the claim that there are many different ways things are, and many ways that things could be but nothing actually is. In other words, it seems that there are many properties things have, and many uninstantiated properties that nothing has. There's no existing theory of this vast number of properties, however, that avoids the traditional metaphysical and epistemological problems associated with such things. In this paper, provide an account of properties that resolves these problems. On this account, which is metaphysically platonist but epistemologically nomianlist, properties are modal profiles that things might (or might not) have, and we know about them by mastering the rules governing the use of predicates. (draft coming soon)
Against Conceptual Svabhāva
According to the Madhyamaka tradition in Indian Buddhist Philosophy, all things are empty of "svabhāva," a term generally translated as "inherent existence" or "own-being." One of the basic arguments meant to establish this claim is an argument against the coherence of inherently existing things standing in causal relations. In this paper, I reconstruct an important objection against this view (put forward in Nagarjuna's Vigrahavyāvartanī) according to which an argument of just the same form can be applied to the thesis of emptiness itself standing in inferential relations to other theses (for instance, ruling out the claim that things have svabhāva). I argue that the Madhyamika should accept this conclusion, and I articulate an account of conceptual emptiness in response. (draft coming soon)
The Consequentiality of Explicitation
Luca Incurvati and Julian Schlöder have recently proposed an inferentialist account of meaning, with the core inferential notion being that of committive consequence between speech acts. For instance, denying Q is an consequence of asserting P just in case, if you explicitly assert P, you're implicitly committed to denying Q. According to their logic, however, committive consequence is a closure operator, which, among other things, means that if you make your implicit commitments explicit (explicitly performing the speech acts that you were antecedently only implicitly committed to), this does not result in your coming to be committed to anything new. In short, on their logic, explicitation is inconsequential. In this paper, I argue, from some concrete cases, that we should think that explicitation is consequential. I then show how thisidea can be handled formally by adopting a non-transitive logic and a dynamic semantics to go with it. Finally, I show how Incurvati and Schlöder's most important technical developments---in particular, their logical "multilateralism"---can be recast in this non-transitive framework.
(Note that, though paper has undergone a change in pitch, it is the successor to "Normative Dynamics Reconsidered")
(Note that, though paper has undergone a change in pitch, it is the successor to "Normative Dynamics Reconsidered")
Unpublished Manuscripts and Talks:
Meanings Done Right: An Act-Based Theory of Linguistic Meaning (talk, 2024)
This talk presents the main idea of presented in "An Act-Based Theory of Assertibles and Instantiables," with some broader philosophical context and motivation, situating the view in response to contemporary act-base approaches but also in response to ideas from Frege, Wittgenstein, and Sellars. long handout
On the Self-Undoing of Madhyamaka Philosophy (unpublished m.s., 2023)
The 2nd Century Indian Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna is the widely regarded as the most significant Buddhist philosopher after the Buddha himself. The core doctrine of Nāgārjuna's Madhymamaka (``middle way'') philosophy (insofar as there can be said to be a ``core doctrine'' at all) is that of ``emptiness." Nāgārjuna characterizes emptiness as "the expedient to get rid of all views" which, puzzlingly, includes emptiness itself. In this paper, I try to show how this puzzling "self-undoing" of Madhyamaka philosophy works, taking the vast majority of interpretative views as my target. (pdf)
I'm no longer happy with this paper, as it stands. I will rewrite it at some point in the future, but I plan to work on other stuff in Madhyamaka philosophy before that.
I'm no longer happy with this paper, as it stands. I will rewrite it at some point in the future, but I plan to work on other stuff in Madhyamaka philosophy before that.
Simply Substructural Semantics (talk, 2021)
This is a presentation of some of my work with the R.O.L.E. group. The positive view now has been put forward in "Bringing Bilateralisms Together," but here I pitch this view in response to a problem I raise with representationalist semantic theories when it comes to accounting for defeasible implication and incompatibility relations. pdf
Semantics without Contents (unpublished m.s., 2021)
This paper reframes some of the core ideas of my dissertation. In it, raise a worry about the explanatory role that properties and relations play in contemporary semantic theories, and, I propose a radically different way of doing semantics that doesn't involve any appeal to properties, relations, propositions or anything else to serve as the contents of predicates or sentences. According to this semantic theory, which I "discursive role semantics," we think of the meanings of predicates and sentences directly in terms of what one does in uttering them, without appealing to any things one says. (pdf)
I now think this paper tries to do too much in one go, and I no longer agree with some of the framing. The ideas from it are now to be presented in "Normative Dynamics Reconsidered," "An Act-Based Theory of Assertibles and Instantiables," and "Properties without Problems."
I now think this paper tries to do too much in one go, and I no longer agree with some of the framing. The ideas from it are now to be presented in "Normative Dynamics Reconsidered," "An Act-Based Theory of Assertibles and Instantiables," and "Properties without Problems."
This is a paper I wrote for a conference on the work of Matt Boyle. In it, I try to defend a conceptualist picture of perceptual experience of the sort proposed by John McDowell against Matt's critique, developing the "agentive conception of perceptual experience" also put forward in my paper "The Normative Agentive Correspondence." pdf
Frege and the Logical Notion of Judgment (unpublished m.s., 2019)
In attempting to familiarize myself with Begriffsschrift notation, I ended up writing this paper. I argue here that there is a tension in Frege's mature philosophy concerning the place of the judgement stroke in his logical notation, but there were seeds of a very different conception of logic in his early writing--what James Conant calls a "Kantian conception of logic"--where the judgment stroke is not at all out of place. (pdf)
Propositions and the Power to Represent (unpublished m.s., 2017)
This was my "preliminary essay" for my Ph.D. program at University of Chicago. In it, I present a new argument for the act-based conception of propositions, arguing that propositions do not represent things as being certain ways, as is widely taken to be the case; rather, we represent things as being certain ways, and propositions are our acts of doing so. In subsequent work, most notably, "An Act-Based Theory of Assertibles and Instantiables," I've radicalized the basic view put forward here, applying the act-based approach not just to propositions, but properties as well. (pdf)