Publications
From Pictures to Employments: Later Wittgenstein on 'the Infinite'
(Inquiry 2024) (penultimate) (final)
Abstract: With respect to the metaphysics of infinity, the tendency of standard debates is to either endorse or to deny the reality of ‘the infinite’. But how should we understand the notion of ‘reality’ employed in these options? Wittgenstein’s critical strategy shows that the notion is grounded in a confusion: talk of infinity naturally takes hold of one’s imagination due to the sway of verbal pictures and analogies suggested by our words. This is the source of various philosophical pictures that in turn give rise to the standard metaphysical debates: that the mathematics of infinity corresponds to a special realm of infinite objects, that the infinite is profoundly huge or vast, or that the ability to think about infinity reveals mysterious powers in human beings. First, I explain Wittgenstein’s general strategy for undermining philosophical pictures of ‘the infinite’ – as he describes it in Zettel; and then show how that critical strategy is applied to Cantor’s diagonalization proof in Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics II.
Feminist Philosophy and Film: The Conditions of Sexual Violence in Marilyn Frye's Politics of Reality and Joyce Chopra's Smooth Talk
Co-authored with Tamara Fakhoury
(Forthcoming: Visions of Peace & Non-Violence in Popular Culture)
(penultimate draft)
Abstract: Eliminating sexual violence requires understanding where it comes from and why it happens. We must learn to detect when the grounds for violence are being built up so that we can promptly take them down. How can we improve our ability to notice the subtle practices of sexism and make them a matter of critical reflection? The aim of this paper is to show how film can enhance critical perception of the social conditions that give rise to sexual violence in particular. We will do this by way of a specific example, showing how Joyce Chopra’s 1985 film Smooth Talk serves to display the complex circumstances that make sexual violence possible – thereby illustrating (and allowing us to see) Frye’s philosophical insight about the interconnected mechanisms of oppression.
A Cave Allegory
(Forthcoming: Philosophy and Literature) (penultimate)
Abstract: A retelling of Plato's famous cave allegory. Inspired by Dōgen, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein.
Later Wittgenstein on 'Truth' and Realism in Mathematics (Philosophy 2024) (final: open source)
Abstract: I show that Wittgenstein’s critique of G.H. Hardy’s mathematical realism naturally extends to Paul Benacerraf’s influential paper, ‘Mathematical Truth’. Wittgenstein accuses Hardy of hastily analogizing mathematical and empirical propositions, thus leading to a picture of mathematical reality that is somehow akin to empirical reality despite the many puzzles this creates. Since Benacerraf relies on that very same analogy to raise problems about mathematical ‘truth’ and the alleged ‘reality’ to which it corresponds, his major argument falls prey to the same critique. The problematic pictures of mathematical reality suggested by Hardy and Benacerraf can be avoided, according to Wittgenstein, by disrupting the analogy that gives rise to them. I show why Tarskian updates to our conception of ‘truth’ discussed by Benacerraf do not answer Wittgenstein’s concerns. That is, because they merely presuppose what Wittgenstein puts into question, namely, the essential uniformity of ‘truth’ and ‘proposition’ in ordinary discourse.
Crossing Pictures of 'Determination' in Wittgenstein's Remarks on Rule-Following
(Philosophical Investigations 2023) (penultimate) (final)
Abstract: In PI 189, Wittgenstein's interlocutor asks, ‘But are the steps then not determined by the algebraic formula?’. Wittgenstein responds, ‘The question contains a mistake’. What is the mistake contained in the interlocutor's question? Wittgenstein's elaboration is neither explicit nor its intended upshot transparent. In this paper, I offer a reading on which the interlocutor's question arises from illicitly crossing different pictures of ‘determination’. I begin by working through Wittgenstein's machine analogy in PI 193, which illustrates picture‐crossing in our ways of talking about a machine. Using the lessons from this analogy, I show how the interlocutor's ‘mistake’ can be diagnosed in similar terms: their confusion about the power of a rule to determine its applications rests on mistakenly crossing a behavioural and a mathematical sense of ‘determine’—thereby concocting a mystifying picture of rule‐following.
In Progress
Hume on Simple and Complex Ideas:
A Wittgensteinian Reappraisal (handout)
Abstract: David Hume's science of human nature hinges on a strict separation between simple and complex ideas—a distinction likewise foundational to the empiricism of Locke and Berkeley. This paper examines how Wittgenstein's critique of absolute simples in Philosophical Investigations bears on this distinction. Wittgenstein argues that any distinction between 'simple' and 'composite' is relative to how we (inter-)define these terms, with multiple definitions possible in any context; hence, there is no absolute distinction between simple and complex elements of experience. Does this critique destabilize Hume's project? I argue that the answer depends on whether Hume's distinction between 'simple' and 'complex' ideas is intended to follow from the phenomenology of experience or to serve as a theoretical stipulation with specific explanatory or pragmatic aims. If the former, Wittgenstein's argument is devastating: 'experience itself' is compatible with various ways of drawing such distinctions, not all of which would support Hume's critical arguments. If the latter, however, Hume might have preempted this issue by justifying his theoretical stipulations on pragmatic grounds.
[a paper about truth, title redacted, under review]
(full draft available upon request)
Dissolution of The Metaphysical Self in Wittgenstein's Blue Book
Abstract: In The Blue Book, Wittgenstein challenges the notion of the self as a non-bodily substance, as found in Descartes' Meditations. Wittgenstein identifies the source of this idea in a misleading analogy between two uses of "I": the subject-use and the object-use. In the object-use, "I" involves recognition of an object, such as one's body (or, in cases of misrecognition, another's). In the subject-use, however, there is no recognition of an object, as misrecognition of any object would be nonsensical. Despite this difference, the continued use of "I" in both cases creates the illusion that a special substance must underlie the subject-use, leading to the picture of a mysterious, non-bodily self. By disentangling these uses, Wittgenstein undermines the analogy that sustains this metaphysical picture. This paper clarifies Wittgenstein's critique and situates it within his broader dismantling of metaphysical pictures in The Blue Book (e.g., time as a substance, numbers as abstract objects, meanings separate from uses). I argue that common concerns about Wittgenstein's alleged view that "I" is not a referring expression are misplaced, as his critique targets the misleading role of linguistic analogies rather than the semantics of "I" and does not rely on a contentious account of reference.
Selfhood and Emptiness: A Comparative Study of Indian Philosophy and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Evolution
Abstract: This paper explores how Wittgenstein's development (early-to-late) parallels a divide between Hindu and Buddhist conceptions of self. The Tractatus notion of the philosophical subject as limit of the world resembles the notion of atman as the "unseen seer" which cannot be described; Blue Book and Philosophical Investigations' rejection of the Augustinian picture and their general anti-essentialism resembles the Buddhist insistence that there is no 'substance' or 'essence' underlying our uses of 'I' and 'self'. Further, the aim of many Buddhists is not to theorize, but rather aim at "the relinquishing of all views" (Nagarjuna), which they see as an obstacle to mindfulness and compassion. -- I conclude with a question regarding what these comparisons might suggest regarding the 'ethical' significance of later Wittgenstein.
Dissertation
Three Essays on Later Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Mathematics:
Reality, Determination, & Infinity
(UNC Chapel Hill, 2022)
