I’m a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy project at McGill University. Starting in Fall 2026, I’ll be a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.
I received my PhD in philosophy from the University of California, Irvine (June 2024), after completing an MA in philosophy at Brandeis University.
I came to philosophy from art: I received a BFA in studio art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and spent time in New York writing about something called post-internet art.
I help run the New Voices in the History of Philosophy podcast as well as the Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy.
I’m on PhilPeople and Bluesky. You can contact me at louis.doulas@mcgill.ca
My research focuses primarily on the history of analytic philosophy and epistemology.
Beyond this, I’m interested in the history of philosophy more broadly, as well as the philosophy of science (and its history thereof), philosophy of language, and aesthetics. I also like thinking about philosophical and historical methodology.
I’m co-editor of the first edited volume on Susan Stebbing, which recently appeared with Oxford University Press.
My essay on G. E. Moore’s proof of an external world was recently published in the Journal of the History of Philosophy. You can find a TL;DR version over at New Work in Philosophy.
Susan Stebbing (1885–1943) was a pivotal figure in early analytic philosophy. Our edited volume—the first to be devoted exclusively to Stebbing’s philosophy—aims to bring her back into focus, showing why she mattered then and why she matters now.
I present a historical discovery that reframes how we should interpret Moore’s proof of an external world—and in particular the familiar charge that it begs the question—by situating the proof within Moore’s sustained pursuit of what I call a “fourth condition” on proof: that a genuine proof must be capable of extending knowledge.
Journal of the History of Philosophy 64: 125–144
We argue that philosophy progresses much like science—despite deep disagreements—because many disputes remain evidence-responsive within shared intra-theoretical frameworks.
In Attitude in Philosophy, eds. S. Goldberg and M. Walker
I raise two worries about Bergmann’s “autodidactic” method. I then use his view to highlight the limits of rational argument and contrast it with an alternative that also emphasizes the personal nature of philosophical inquiry while remaining more neutral regarding the rational standing of competing intuitions.
This is my contribution to a workshop on Michael Bergmann’s Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition held at Arizona State University on 7 December 2024. Find Bergmann’s replies here.
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 54: 522–530
I reexamine the relationship between Stebbing and Moore on common sense, showing that Stebbing’s account is both more distinct from and more indebted to Moore’s than scholars recognize. I argue that their key divergence lies in what I call Stebbing’s unity thesis—the view that common-sense and scientific knowledge form a genuine unity—yielding a dynamic position in which common-sense concepts may be clarified or revised by science, but not displaced wholesale.
In Susan Stebbing: Analysis, Common Sense, and Public Philosophy, eds. A. Coliva and L. Doulas, pp. 101–127
We distinguish two ways in which one may be led to skepticism about philosophical knowledge. We then introduce an alternative, hinge-theoretic account that promises to recover philosophical knowledge while preserving optimism about philosophical progress.
In The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Disagreement, eds. M. Baghramian, J. A. Carter, and R. Rowland, pp. 38–50
We argue that pervasive disagreement in philosophy—often taken to motivate skepticism about philosophical knowledge—can be reconciled with the possibility of such knowledge.
Synthese 200: 1–14
We argue that Bryan Frances’s argument to the effect that philosophy can overturn common sense fails; we then present a dilemma that exposes deeper problems in his argument.
Analysis 81: 207–215
I introduce the idea of negative Moorean facts—negative existentials that have the status of Moorean certainties—and show how they complicate certain approaches to settling existence debates.
Philosophical Studies 178: 493–513