RESEARCH
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Philosophy is not a theory, but an activity.
A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.
The result of philosophy
is not a number of 'philosophical propositions',
but to make propositions clear.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)
I have various philosophical interests and (some) competence in two areas of analytic philosophy.
One is contemporary philosophy of science broadly understood. I work in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of physics, and very often address issues at their boundary. I also venture into metaphysics and epistemology (when I find them scientifically relevant), philosophy of logic and history of science and mathematics.
Another area is the history of analytic philosophy: (later) Wittgenstein, Quine, Frege.
These two areas are connected by my main concern, to understand the nature of mathematics. My approach is to examine its uses in science (especially in physics) and in everyday life.
Awards and grants (selection)
Research Council of Norway (RCN). Senior Research Grant FRIPRO Mathematics with a Human Face. Set Theory within a Naturalized Wittgensteinean Framework. 2019-2024. Budget ca. 15 mil. Norwegian kroner, out of which ca. 10 million (1.1 mil €) from RCN; Principal Investigator. Collaborator: Kevin Cahill, Univ. of Bergen.
Visiting scholar IHPST Paris (Jan-June 2025, March-April 2024)
Visiting Fellowship at Institute Vienna Circle, Univ. of Vienna (Nov. - Dec. 2022)
Visiting Fellow at Wadham College, Univ. of Oxford for Trinity Term 2022 (April - June 2022)
Visiting scholar at McGill University, Montreal (Jan-March 2020)
Visiting scholar, UC Irvine LPS (Jan. - June 2019)
Recent talks (invited; selection)
TBA. Keynote talk at Model-Based Reasoning Conference: Epistemology, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science. Rome 17-19 June 2026
TBA. Talk at the Logic and Phil of Science Research group, Dept. of Philosophy, Univ. of Toronto. 13 March 2026.
Can there be mathematical knowledge without proof? Conf. Truth and Meaning in Mathematics, Reykjavik, Univ. of Iceland, 25-27 June 2025
Wittgenstein on Cantor's Diagonal Proof. At Paris-Chicago Joint Conference in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics 13 June 2025. Paris.
Wittgenstein on the Infinite and Cantor's Diagonal Proof. At UNED Univ. Madrid, 4 March 2025
Wittgenstein on assimilationism, scientism and mathematics. Key-note speaker at 1st Conference of the Young Network for Wittgensteinean Philosophy. October 2024, Universitat de les Illes Balears.
Reductionism, Constructionism and Explanation: The BCS model of Superconductivity. At MRC2024: Models, Representation, and Computation Conference Paris, 15 June 2024.
Empirical Evidence for Innate Mathematical Knowledge. At Boston University, Mathematics with a Human Face conference organized by Juliet Floyd. 22 April 2024 and Institute Vienna Circle, Univ. of Vienna. Organizer Georg Schiemer. April 2024
The Discrete Charm of Linear Momentum. Causal and Non-causal explanations in Quantum Mechanics. At Mathematics in Physics conference, Oslo 2 June 2023, and at Morrison Memorial. Univ. of Toronto, 30 Sept. 2022.
Proofs and Concepts. At Wittgenstein on Mathematics, Mind and Language workshop. Bergen, 16 May 2023.
Wittgenstein on the Benacerraf Dilemma. At The Heuristic View. Logic, Mathematics and Science. Rome, 20 Feb. 2023, and at Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mathematical Practice, Brussels, 30 March 2023 (keynote)
"There is Nothing to Explain": Wittgenstein on Scientism. At Institute Vienna Circle (joint seminar w/ CEU) 24 Nov. 2022, Vienna.
Wittgenstein on the Irrationals. At Wittgenstein on Foundations: Mathematics, Language, World, conference at Wadham College, Oxford. Aug 2nd 2022, and at IHPST Paris, 30 June 2022. Co-authored with Jeffrey Schatz.
Wittgenstein on Proof. Brussels, 10 March 2022.
An analogous investigation? Later Wittgenstein on psychological and mathematical discourse video. At online workshop Wittgenstein and the Formal Sciences, ETH Zurich, 11 Jan. 2022.
Factivism in Historical Perspective: (Mis)Understanding the Gravitational Deflection of Light. At online conference Understanding II Bucharest, 24 Nov. 2021
Non-causal explanation in physics. At Philosophy of science seminar, Stockholm/Uppsala Univ., 18 Nov. 2021
Two dualisms in later Wittgenstein’s writings on mathematics. At Philosophy of Mathematics Seminar, Oxford Univ., 3 May 2021
Formal(ist) explanation in physics -- at Ernst Mach Workshop IX: Non-causal explanations in physics. Prague, 17 Sept. 2020 (keynote)
The ‘Intelligibility of Nature’ and Second Quantization -- at Scientific Understanding and Representation (SURe) Workshop Atlanta, 13 March 2020
How there are extra-mathematical explanations possible. At Montreal Inter-University Workshop on History and Philosophy of Mathematics Group, McGill Univ. Montreal, 14 Feb 2020
Later Wittgenstein on Mathematical Necessity. At Wittgenstein in the 21st Century Conf. UC Berkeley, 6 April 2019