After training in analytic philosophy, I became fascinated by American pragmatism, particularly the thought of Charles Peirce. I completed a PhD at Australian National University on Peirce's three philosophical categories, entitled "Modes of Being". My thesis presented an extended argument against Quine's famous statement: "to be is the value of a bound variable" (in our best scientific theory), as the template for realist ontology. I argued that we should be realist about not only particular existent objects (which Peirce categorised under 'Secondness'), but also universals ('Thirdness') and real chance and possibility ('Firstness').
Since…
After training in analytic philosophy, I became fascinated by American pragmatism, particularly the thought of Charles Peirce. I completed a PhD at Australian National University on Peirce's three philosophical categories, entitled "Modes of Being". My thesis presented an extended argument against Quine's famous statement: "to be is the value of a bound variable" (in our best scientific theory), as the template for realist ontology. I argued that we should be realist about not only particular existent objects (which Peirce categorised under 'Secondness'), but also universals ('Thirdness') and real chance and possibility ('Firstness').
Since then, I've brought Peirce's ideas into mainstream philosophy debates concerning realism, truth, meaning, modal epistemology and the grounds of logical normativity. Most recently I've been working on perception and cognition, where I've engaged with both Pittsburgh School philosophy and contemporary work in embodied cognition. Since 2019, I've served as editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry "Pragmatism".
I also have long-standing research interests in formal ontology and knowledge representation, having briefly worked in artificial intelligence research as an ‘applied ontologist’, and philosophy of education, where pragmatist ideas such as active learning and the 'community of inquiry' find much resonance.
