•  11
    Wittgenstein's Tractatus at 100 (edited book)
    Springer Verlag. 2023.
    The 100th anniversary of the first publication of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus is celebrated by a collection of original papers by well-known experts on various aspects of one of the greatest works of philosophy in the twentieth century.
  •  249
    We enjoy immediate knowledge of our own limbs and bodies. I argue that this knowledge, which is also called proprioception, is a special form of perception, special in that it is, unlike perception by the external senses, at the same time also a form of genuine self-knowledge. The argument has two parts. Negatively, I argue against the view, held by G. E. M. Anscombe and strengthened by John McDowell, that this knowledge, bodily self-knowledge, is non-perceptual. This involves, inter alia, rescu…Read more
  •  149
    A Meeting of the Conceptual and the Natural: Wittgenstein on Learning a Sensation‐Language
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (1): 105-135. 2014.
    Since the rise of modern natural science there has been deep tension between the conceptual and the natural. Wittgenstein's discussion of how we learn a sensation-language contains important resources that can help us relieve this tension. The key here, I propose, is to focus our attention on animal nature, conceived as partially re-enchanted. To see how nature, so conceived, helps us relieve the tension in question, it is crucial to gain a firm and detailed appreciation of how the primitive-ins…Read more
  •  164
    This paper corrects a mistake in John McDowell’s influential reading of Wittgenstein’s attack on the idea of private sensations. McDowell rightly identifies a primary target of Wittgenstein’s attack to be the Myth of the Given. But he also suggests that Wittgenstein, in the ferocity of his battles with this myth, sometimes goes into overkill, which manifests itself in seemingly behavioristic denials about sensations. But this criticism of Wittgenstein is a mistake. The mistake is made over two i…Read more
  •  249
    Transcendental idealism in Wittgenstein's tractatus
    Philosophical Quarterly 61 (244): 598-607. 2011.
    Wittgenstein's Tractatus contains an insubstantial form of transcendental idealism. It is insubstantial because it rejects the substantial a priori. Yet despite this, the Tractatus still contains two fundamental transcendental idealist insights, (a) the identity of form between thought and reality, and (b) the transcendental unity of apperception. I argue for (a) by connecting general themes in the Tractatus and in Kant, and for (b) by giving a detailed interpretation of Tractatus 5.6ff., where …Read more
  •  160
    Wittgenstein and the Dualism of the Inner and the Outer
    Synthese 191 (14): 3173-3194. 2014.
    A dualism characteristic of modern philosophy is the conception of the inner and the outer as two independently intelligible domains. Wittgenstein’s attack on this dualism contains deep insights. The main insight (excavated from §304 and §293 of the Philosophical Investigations) is this: our sensory consciousness is deeply shaped by language and this shaping plays a fundamental role in the etiology of the dualism. I locate this role in the learning of a sensation-language (as described in §244),…Read more