My research focuses on the philosophies of logic, language, and mathematics. This research is guided by a faithfulness constraint: that one’s theories in these domains should illuminate the ways that logic, mathematics, and ordinary language are actually used, rather than prescribing major revisions to that practice. This constraint leads me to take the practices of logical and mathematical reasoning as central data in my work. On this basis, I argue for distinctive forms of logical pluralism and mathematical structuralism. My latest project involves using the theories of meta-linguistic negotiation to make sense of logical disputes.
I also work on Susan Stebbing, a contemporary of Russell and Moore. During the 2022-2023 academic year, I held an NEH Fellowship to complete a book on Stebbing, titled "Susan Stebbing, Critical Thinking and Common Sense".
More recently, I have begun work on updating the notion of a blacklist for an LLM to include a more dynamic notion about what to keep silent about, and more importantly, what we must speak about. Our project (with Shay Allen Logan, Thomas Maculay Ferguson and Marcus Rossberg) extends both the bounds-consequence reading of logic and the monstrous content expansion to systems meant to model language in ways that incorporate the third attitude of silence. Our concern is with those things we cannot remain silent about, given what we accept and reject. On incorporating the concepts from the monstrous content discourse, this becomes a concern not only with content that is monstrous when asserted or denied, but also with "monstrous silences": things about which we cannot remain silent. We call this the extended monstrous content framework.
If you would like to see copies of any of the papers or drafts listed here, please email me at tkouri@odu.edu.
In Progress
A paper on logical pluralism and harmony, under blind review
"Merely verbal disputes and cooperation", a paper on using the notion of cooperation developed out of the question-under-discussion framework to determine when merely verbal disputes are worth having
"Susan Stebbing, Critical Thinking and Common Sense", book length manuscript on Stebbing's notion of common sense, and how it influences her philosophy and work on helping the general public to be better critical thinkers.
Books
Classical First-Order Logic, with Stewart Shapiro, under contract with Cambridge University Press for the Cambridge Elements series
Peer-Reviewed Papers
“The Principle of Tolerance and Logical Pluralism,” Carnap Handbook, Editors Christian Damböck and Georg Schiemer, Metzler-Verlag, forthcoming*
“Stebbing and Reid on Common Sense,” Susan Stebbing on Logic and Analysis, Editor Siobhan Chapman, Palgrave Macmillan, 2026, 41-61*
“Teaching Critical Thinking with Directional Analysis,” Innovations in Teaching Philosophy, edited by Brynn F. Welch, 2026, 179-184*
“Stebbing, Translations, and Verbal Disputes,” in Susan Stebbing: Analysis, Common Sense and Public Philosophy, edited by Annalisa Coliva and Louis Doulas, 2025*
“Susan Stebbing,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/stebbing/, 2025
“Stebbing and Russell’s Logical Atomism,” In: Elkind, L.D.C., Klein, A.M. (eds) Bertrand Russell, Feminism, and Women Philosophers in his Circle. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024*
“Carnap as a Beall-Style Logical Pluralist,” Asian Journal of Philosophy, 2023, 2(17), 1-16
“Directional Analysis,” and “Potted Thinking,” Encyclopedia of Concise Concepts by Women Philosophers, 2021
“Metalinguistic Negotiation and Logical Pluralism,” Synthese, 2019, 198(Supplemental volume 20), 4801-4812
“Pluralistic Perspectives on Logic: An Introduction,” Synthese, 2021, 198(Supplemental volume 20), 4789-4800, with Colin Caret
“Logical Pluralism and Normativity,” Inquiry, with Stewart Shapiro, 2020, 63(3-4), 389-410
“A New Interpretation of Carnap’s Logical Pluralism,” Topoi, 2019, 38(2), 305-314
“Logical Instrumentalism and Concatenation,” Felsefe Arkivi, 2019, 51, 153-160
“Susan Stebbing,” Portale Italiano Di Filosofia Analytica, 2019
“Classical Logic,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018, with Stewart Shapiro
“Logical Pluralism and Connective Meanings,” Pluralisms in Truth and Logic, edited by Jeremy Wyatt, Nikolaj J.L.L. Pedersen and Nathan Kellen, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 217-235
“Logical Pluralism from a Pragmatic Perspective,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2018, 96(3), 578-591
“Restall’s Proof-Theoretic Pluralism and Relevance Logic,” Erkenntnis, 2016, 81(6), 1243-1252
“Ante Rem Structuralism and the No-Naming Constraint,” Philosophia Mathematica, 2016, 24(1), 117-128
“A Reply to Heathcote’s ‘On the Exhaustion of Mathematical Entities by Structures’,” Axiomathes, 2015, 25(3), 345-357
Edited Volumes
"Pluralistic Perspectives on Logic," Special Issue of Synthese, with Colin Caret, 2021
Reviews
“Review of Charles Parsons, Philosophy of Mathematics in the Twentieth Century: Selected Essays,” with Stewart Shapiro, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2014