•  18
    Resolute Readings of the Tractatus
    In Hans-Johann Glock & John Hyman (eds.), A Companion to Wittgenstein, Wiley-blackwell. 2017.
    A spectator of the passing philosophical scene, recently encountering the current controversy about “resolute readings” of the Tractatus, might be forgiven for finding it difficult to figure out what the debate is supposed to be about and who exactly is on which side and why. This chapter demonstrates, through a reconstruction of some relevant features of “the” debate, that at one point there are in fact several orthogonal debates taking place, confusedly cast as contributions to a single debate…Read more
  •  14
    Wittgenstein on Sense and Grammar
    Cambridge University Press. 2022.
    The distinction between sense and nonsense is central to Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is at the basis of his conception of philosophy as a struggle against illusions of sense generated by misunderstandings of the logic of our language. Moreover, it informs the notions of “grammar” and “logical syntax”, whose investigation serves to clear up those misunderstandings. This Element contrasts two exegetical approaches: one grounding charges of nonsensicality in a theory of sense specifying criteria …Read more
  •  49
    Frege on Multiple Analyses and the Essential Articulatedness of Thought
    Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 5 (10). 2017.
    Frege appears to hold both that thoughts are internally articulated, in a way that mirrors the semantic articulation of the sentences that express them, and that the same thought can be analyzed in different ways, none of which has to be more fundamental than the others. Commentators have often taken these theses to be mutually incompatible and have tended to polarize into two camps, each of which attributes to Frege one of the theses, but maintains that he is only apparently committed to the ot…Read more
  •  14
    Demystifying Meaning in Horwich and Wittgenstein
    In James Conant & Sebastian Sunday (eds.), Wittgenstein on Philosophy, Objectivity, and Meaning, Cambridge University Press. pp. 164-184. 2019.
    Paul Horwich has advocated, and attributed to the later Wittgenstein, a “use-theory of meaning” that aims to demystify meaning by reducing it to pure regularities of use. This chapter challenges Horwich’s appropriation of Wittgenstein and seeks to make room for a different conception of the demystification of meaning. It argues that Wittgenstein does indeed aim to demystify meaning, but does not think that this involves any attempt to reduce meaning to something else.
  •  44
    Actions, Products, and Truth-Bearers: A Critique of Twardowskian Accounts
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (3): 297-312. 2020.
    Friederike Moltmann has recently proposed an account of truth-bearers that draws on Kazimierz Twardowski’s action/product distinction. Her account is meant to provide a third way between the dominant view of primary truth-bearers as mind-independent entities and the recently revived construal of them as mental or linguistic acts. This paper argues that there is no room for Twardowskian accounts because they are based on a notion of “nonenduring product” that defies comprehension, and no need for…Read more
  •  59
    Propositional complexity and the Frege–Geach Point
    Synthese 198 (4): 3099-3130. 2019.
    It is almost universally accepted that the Frege–Geach Point is necessary for explaining the inferential relations and compositional structure of truth-functionally complex propositions. I argue that this claim rests on a disputable view of propositional structure, which models truth-functionally complex propositions on atomic propositions. I propose an alternative view of propositional structure, based on a certain notion of simulation, which accounts for the relevant phenomena without acceptin…Read more
  •  13
    Libero arbitrio e retributività
    Rivista di Filosofia 97 (1): 59-82. 2006.
  •  65
    Wittgenstein, Theories of Meaning, and Linguistic Disjunctivism
    European Journal of Philosophy 25 (4): 1340-1363. 2017.
    This paper argues that Wittgenstein opposed theories of meaning, and did so for good reasons. Theories of meaning, in the sense discussed here, are attempts to explain what makes it the case that certain sounds, shapes, or movements are meaningful linguistic expressions. It is widely believed that Wittgenstein made fundamental contributions to this explanatory project. I argue, by contrast, that in both his early and later works, Wittgenstein endorsed a disjunctivist conception of language which…Read more
  •  12
    Rispondere delle proprie parole. Temi cavelliani nel «Tractatus»
    Iride: Filosofia e Discussione Pubblica 24 (3): 615-630. 2011.
  •  70
    Cora Diamond. Philosophy in a Realistic Spirit. An Interview
    Iride: Filosofia e Discussione Pubblica 26 (2): 239-282. 2013.
  •  50
    Review of Representation and Reality in Wittgenstein's Tractatus by J. L. Zalabardo (review)
    Nordic Wittgenstein Review 5 (1): 139-144. 2016.
    Book review of J. L. Zalabardo, Representation and Reality in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Oxford: OUP 2015.
  •  24
  •  81
    Frege and propositional unity
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (4): 750-771. 2017.
    This paper identifies a tension in Frege’s philosophy and offers a diagnosis of its origins. Frege’s Context Principle can be used to dissolve the problem of propositional unity. However, Frege’s official response to the problem does not invoke the Context Principle, but the distinction between ‘saturated’ and ‘unsaturated’ propositional constituents. I argue that such a response involves assumptions that clash with the Context Principle. I suggest, however, that this tension is not generated by…Read more
  •  160
    Bentham’s Contextualism and Its Relation to Analytic Philosophy
    Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 2 (8). 2014.
    This paper (i) offers an interpretation of some central aspects of Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of language, (ii) challenges the received view of its relation to analytic philosophy, and (iii) seeks to show that this investigation into the prehistory of analytic philosophy sheds light on its history proper. It has been often maintained, most notably by Quine, that Bentham anticipated Frege’s context principle and the use of contextual definition. On these bases, Bentham has been presented as one …Read more