•  13
    The Tractatus on Truth
    Philosophy Compass 18 (9). 2023.
    The aim of this paper is to discuss Wittgenstein's conception of truth in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Section 1 sets the scene by exploring how the notion of truth is in the Tractatus intertwined with notions such as sense and picture. In section 2 I discuss a traditional interpretation that sees the Tractatus as committed to truth as correspondence. In sections 3 and 4 I discuss two more recent alternative lines of interpretation; according to one, we should interpret truth in the Tract…Read more
  •  23
    Kant on the Nature of Logical and Moral Laws
    Res Philosophica 100 (3): 389-412. 2023.
    In this article I engage with a recent debate vis-à-vis Kant’s conception of logic, which deals with whether Kant saw logical laws as normative for, or rather as constitutive of, the faculty of understanding. On the former view, logical laws provide norms for the correct exercise of the understanding; on the latter, they define the necessary structure of the faculty of understanding per se. I claim that these two positions are not mutually exclusive, as Kant held both a normative and a constitut…Read more
  •  24
    The Logical Alien. Conant and His Critics (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 71 (4). 2021.
    The Logical Alien. Conant and His Critics. By Miguens Sofia.. ISBN 9780674335905).
  •  46
    Logic, Judgment, and Inference: What Frege Should Have Said about Illogical Thought
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 56 (4): 727-746. 2018.
    This paper addresses Frege's discussion of illogical thought in the introduction to Basic Laws of Arithmetic. After a brief introduction, I discuss Frege's claims that logic is normative vis-à-vis thought, and not descriptive, and his opposition to the idea that logical laws express psychological necessities. I argue that these two strands of Frege's polemic against psychologism constitute two motivating factors behind his allowing for the possibility of illogical thought. I then explore a line …Read more
  •  38
    Logic, Thinking and Language in Frege
    Paradigmi. Rivista di Critica Filosofica 3 (3): 165-180. 2017.
    In this paper I take the opportunity of the recent publication of Pieranna Garavaso’s and Nicla Vassallo’s Frege on Thinking and Its Epistemic Significance (with whose main tenets this paper is in constant dialogue) to provide an overview of some important components of Frege’s conception of logic. Section 1 discusses Frege’s view that the task of logic is to provide justification for what we think, and in sections 2 and 3 this idea is shown to play a central role in his anti-psychologistic view…Read more
  •  180
    Formality of logic and Frege’s Begriffsschrift
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 49 (2): 182-207. 2019.
    This paper challenges a standard interpretation according to which Frege’s conception of logic (early and late) is at odds with the contemporary one, because on the latter’s view logic is formal, while on Frege’s view it is not, given that logic’s subject matter is reality’s most general features. I argue that Frege – in Begriffsschrift – retained the idea that logic is formal; Frege sees logic as providing the ‘logical cement’ that ties up together the contentful concepts of specific sciences, …Read more
  •  10
    Hans Sluga , Wittgenstein . Reviewed by (review)
    Philosophy in Review 32 (6): 524-526. 2012.
  •  49
    Nominalism and Realism. How Not to Read the Tractatus' Conception of a Name
    Philosophical Investigations 37 (3): 208-227. 2013.
    This paper focuses on a central aspect of the “picture theory” in the Tractatus – the “identity requirement” – namely the idea that a proposition represents elements in reality as combined in the same way as its elements are combined. After introducing the Tractatus' views on the nature of the proposition, I engage with a “nominalist” interpretation, according to which the Tractatus holds that relations are not named in propositions. I claim that the nominalist account can only be maintained by …Read more
  •  11
    Il Labirinto, l'Albero e la Scala. Sulla Forma del Tractatus
    Paradigmi. Rivista di Critica Filosofica 3 175-190. 2012.
    This paper presents and discusses some recent interpretations of the form of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Borutti (2010) interprets the Tractatus as a sort of maze, where its propositions – far from leading to a single conclusion – represent different paths and (intersecting) ways of elucidating the essence of language and reality. Bazzocchi (2010), by contrast, describes the Tractatus as having a tree-like structure, its main propositions being the roots of the tree and the decimal ones branches a…Read more
  •  1074
    Language and Logic in Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
    Dissertation, University of Stirling. 2010.
    This thesis discusses some central aspects of Wittgenstein's conception of language and logic in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and brings them into relation with the philosophies of Frege and Russell. The main contention is that a fruitful way of understanding the Tractatus is to see it as responding to tensions in Frege's conception of logic and Russell's theory of judgement. In the thesis the philosophy of the Tractatus is presented as developing from these two strands of criticism and th…Read more
  •  20
    This paper examines an aspect of the debate between the so-called “traditional” and “resolute” (or “therapeutic”) interpretations of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, by focusing on the notion of nonsense and on the role that the context principle plays for a correct interpretation of that notion. In the first section the author distinguishes between “substantial” and “austere” conceptions of Tractarian nonsense; in the second section it is discussed how the austere conception of nonsense – held by the …Read more
  •  362
    Language and Logic in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
    Nordic Wittgenstein Review 2 (1): 57-80. 2013.
    This paper investigates Wittgenstein’s account of the relation between elementary and molecular propositions (and thus, also, the propositions of logic) in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I start by sketching a natural reading of that relation – which I call the “bipartite reading” – holding that the Tractatus gives an account of elementary propositions, based on the so-called picture theory, and a different account of molecular ones, based on the principle of truth- functionality. I then sh…Read more
  •  127
    Frege on the Normativity and Constitutivity of Logic for Thought I
    Philosophy Compass 10 (9): 583-591. 2015.
    This two-part paper reviews a scholarly debate on an alleged tension in Frege ’s philosophy of logic. In Section 1 of Part I, I discuss Frege ’s view that logic is concerned with establishing norms for correct thinking and is therefore a normative science. In Section 2, I explore a different understanding of the role of logic that Frege seems to advance: logic is constitutive of the very possibility of thought, because it sets forth necessary conditions for thought. Hence, the tension the view a…Read more
  •  55
    Types, Forms and Unity. Wittgenstein's Criticism of Russell's Theory of Judgment
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 31 (2): 177-193. 2014.
    This paper investigates Wittgenstein's "notorious" criticism of Russell's theory of judgment. Instead of advancing a further new interpretation of it, though, I analyze and discuss some of the most promising readings of the Russell/Wittgenstein dispute put forward in the secondary literature; I aim to show that, despite their alleged reciprocal opposition, they cohere with each other because they are, at bottom, different ways of highlighting the same question. I then connect Wittgenstein's crit…Read more
  •  82
    Frege on the Normativity and Constitutivity of Logic for Thought II
    Philosophy Compass 10 (9): 592-600. 2015.
    This two-part paper reviews a scholarly debate on an alleged tension in Frege's philosophy of logic. In Section 1 of Part I, I discuss Frege's view that logic is concerned with establishing norms for correct thinking and is therefore a normative science. In Section 2, I explore a different understanding of the role of logic that Frege seems to advance: logic is constitutive of the very possibility of thought, because it sets forth necessary conditions for thought. Hence, the tension the view acc…Read more