Publications

Edited Volume

1. Analysis, Common Sense, and Public Philosophy: Themes from the Philosophy of Susan Stebbing
   

   Oxford University Press (forthcoming; co-edited with Annalisa Coliva)

   This is the first volume to be dedicated exclusively to the philosophy of Susan Stebbing (1885–1943). Through fourteen, previously unpublished essays, this book traces and explores the depth and breadth of Stebbing’s philosophical contributions across a diverse range of issues in analytic philosophy—from logic and science, to public philosophy and politics—and reinforces the importance of Stebbing’s place in that history as well as the saliency of her ideas to issues still under dispute today.

Articles

2. What Philosophical Disagreement and Philosophical Skepticism Hinge On
   

   Synthese (2022) 200: 1–14 (with Annalisa Coliva)

   Philosophers disagree. A lot. Pervasive disagreement is part of the territory; consensus is hard to find. Some think this should lead us to embrace philosophical skepticism: skepticism about the extent to which we can know, or justifiably believe, the philosophical views we defend and advance. Most philosophers in the literature fall into one camp or the other: philosophical skepticism or philosophical anti-skepticism. Drawing on the insights of hinge epistemology, this paper proposes another way forward, an intermediate position that appeals both to skeptical and anti-skeptical intuitions concerning the possibility and scope of philosophical knowledge. The main advantage of our account is that it’s able to recover some philosophical knowledge while also being compatible with philosophical skepticism.

   ⤹ Download PDF

   
   

3. Against Philosophical Proofs Against Common Sense
   

   Analysis (2021) 81: 207–215 (with Evan Welchance)

   Many philosophers think that common sense knowledge survives sophisticated philosophical proofs against it. Recently, however, Bryan Frances (2021) has advanced a philosophical proof that he thinks common sense cannot survive. Exploiting philosophical paradoxes like the Sorites, Frances attempts to show how common sense leads to paradox and therefore that common sense methodology is unstable. In this paper, we show how Frances’s proof fails and then present Frances with a dilemma.

   ⤹ Download PDF

   
   

4. A Puzzle About Moorean Metaphysics
   

   Philosophical Studies (2021) 178: 493–513

   Some metaphysicians believe that existence debates are easily resolved by trivial inferences from Moorean premises. This paper considers how the introduction of negative Moorean facts—negative existentials that command Moorean certainty—complicates this picture. In particular, it shows how such facts, when combined with certain plausible metaontological principles, generate a puzzle that commits the proponents of this method to a contradiction.

   ⤹ Download PDF

   
   

Book Chapters

5. Making Sense of Stebbing and Moore on Common Sense
   

   In A. Coliva and L. Doulas (eds.), Analysis, Common Sense, and Public Philosophy: Themes from the Philosophy of Susan Stebbing, Oxford University Press (forthcoming)

   Like her contemporary G.E. Moore, common sense played a central role in Susan Stebbing’s philosophy. “We must begin with commonsense facts” says Stebbing, for “we cannot find premisses more certain than [these] from which [such common sense beliefs] may be deduced ” (1932/33: 74). In this respect, “common sense needs no defence” (1938–39: 84). While it’s clear that Stebbing, twelve years Moore’s junior, was influenced by Moore’s broadly common sense approach, it’s not always clear they agreed on the nature and scope of this approach. This chapter investigates Stebbing’s and Moore’s relationship to common sense and how they understood its role in philosophical theorizing. The overarching goal is to bring some unexplored themes to light from a philosopher—Stebbing—who has been largely (and unjustly) overlooked and to reevaluate the views of a philosopher—Moore—whose common sense commitments have largely been treated as open-and-shut.

   
   

6. Philosophical (and Scientific) Progress: A Hinge Account
   

   In S. Goldberg and M. Walker (eds.), Attitude in Philosophy, Oxford University Press (forthcoming) (with Annalisa Coliva)

   Abstract coming soon...

   
   

7. Philosophical Progress, Skepticism, and Disagreement
   

   In M. Baghramian, J. A. Carter, and R. Rowland (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Disagreement, Routledge (2022) (with Annalisa Coliva)

   This chapter serves as an opinionated introduction to the problem of convergence (that there is no clear convergence to the truth in philosophy) and the problem of peer disagreement (that disagreement with a peer rationally demands suspending one’s beliefs) and some of the issues they give rise to, namely, philosophical skepticism and progress in philosophy. After introducing both topics and surveying the various positions in the literature we explore the prospects of an alternative, hinge-theoretic account.

   ⤹ Download PDF

   
   

In Progress

Dissertation

1. Proof and Circularity, Reconsidered

   My dissertation draws on archival evidence and overlooked passages in G.E. Moore’s Lectures on Philosophy to challenge prevailing interpretive narratives surrounding the circularity of his 1939 proof of an external world.

Other Projects

2. Of Tables and the Atomic Theory: Susan Stebbing on Ordinary Language and Scientific Language

   The goals of this paper are twofold. The first is to provide an account of how Stebbing conceived of the relationship between ordinary language and scientific language (especially in her Philosophy and the Physicists [1937] and “Some Puzzles about Analysis” [1938/39]). The second is to explore Stebbing’s relationship to ordinary language philosophy (OLP) as a whole. The historiography here is underdeveloped and has mostly gone unquestioned (later Wittgenstein, Ryle, and Austin are thought to be its main protagonists). I argue, however, that Stebbing’s work may have prefigured some of the argumentative strategies thought to be characteristic of OLP.

3. Pedantry and Poetry: The Clashing Philosophical Styles of Moore and Bradley

   It’s all too common to hear that the clash between British idealism and Moore and Russell’s “New Philosophy” was entirely epistemological in nature: idealist views are untenable, contradictory, and incoherent. But is this not just another myth of history? Using Moore and Bradley as a case study, I attempt to reconceive the history of early analytic philosophy as a clash between philosophical styles. Reflected in the distinct writing styles of Moore and Bradley, for example, are two different ways of doing philosophy: one piecemeal, particular, and pedantic, the other holistic, sweeping, and poetic. What can this clash of styles tell us about the early history of analytic philosophy? What can it tell us about how analytic philosophy is practiced today?

4. What Moore’s Hands Mean

   Abstract coming soon...

   
   

5. Waismann’s Visions

   In his “How I See Philosophy” (1968), Friedrich Waismann articulates a striking view of philosophy, albeit one involving two incompatible pictures: a therapeutic picture and a linguistic picture. Baker’s (1971) solution is to conceive of Waismann’s linguistic approach as of a piece with his therapeutic approach: describing the grammar of our language is an exercise of freedom. However, I argue that Baker’s reading fails to appreciate the true pluralism of Waismann’s view. I offer a competing reading. On my reading of Waismann, the philosophical projects of Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, and even the skeptic, are just as “therapeutic” as the linguistic approach Waismann is partial to; that is, they are all attempts at seeing aright because they are all articulations of philosophical “freedom” and “vision,” which, according to my reading of Waismann, are all attempts at a therapeutic cure.