Philosophy-of-Language 6
Needs of the Mind: How Aptic Normativity Can Guide Conceptual Adaptation
Philosophical Studies. 2026. doi:10.1007/s11098-026-02511-3
The article offers an account of “needs of the mind” in terms of a distinctively aptic normativity–a normativity of fittingness. After reconstructing the history of different conceptions of needs and their gradual subjectivization, the article focuses on conceptual needs and argues that they register a cognitive privation that goes beyond a shortage of words, marking a mismatch between our conceptual repertoire and our situation that reorients conceptual engineering from detached amelioration to situated adaptation. This makes a needs-first approach uniquely suited to guiding conceptual adaptation in times of technological disruption.
conceptual adaptation, needs, aptic normativity, privacy, philosophy of language, functions
Download PDF
Williams’s Debt to Wittgenstein
In Bernard Williams on Philosophy and History. Marcel van Ackeren and Matthieu Queloz (eds.), 283–316. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2025. With Nikhil Krishnan.
Argues that several aspects of Bernard Williams’s style, methodology, and metaphilosophy can be interpreted as evolving dialectically from those of Wittgenstein.
history, analytic philosophy, 20th century, british philosophy, philosophy of language, Bernard Williams
Download PDF
Nietzsche’s Conceptual Ethics
Inquiry 66 (7): 1335–1364. Proceedings of the International Society of Nietzsche Studies. 2023. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2022.2164049
While Nietzsche appears to engage in two seemingly contrary modes of concept evaluation—one looks to concepts’ effects, the other to what concepts express—this article offers an account of the expressive character of concepts which unifies these two modes and yields a powerful approach to practical reflection on which concepts to use.
conceptual ethics, conceptual engineering, genealogy, naturalism, revaluation of values, expressivism
Download PDF
Davidsonian Causalism and Wittgensteinian Anti-Causalism: A Rapprochement
Ergo 5 (6): 153–72. 2018. doi:10.3998/ergo.12405314.0005.006
Seeks a rapprochement in the longstanding debate between Davidsonian causalists and Wittgensteinian anti-causalists by arguing that both sides can agree that reasons are not causes, but that intentional explanations are causal explanations.
reasons vs. causes, action explanation, explanation, analytic philosophy, 20th century, interpretation
Download PDF
Two Orders of Things: Wittgenstein on Reasons and Causes
Philosophy 92 (3): 369–97. 2017. doi:10.1017/S0031819117000055
Situating Wittgenstein in the causalism/anti-causalism debate in the philosophy of mind, this paper argues that Wittgenstein’s arguments differ from those of his immediate successors; that he anticipates current anti-psychologistic trends; and that he is perhaps closer to Davidson than historical dialectics suggest.
action theory, action explanation, analytic philosophy, reasons vs. causes, philosophy of language, 20th century
Download PDF
Wittgenstein on the Chain of Reasons
Wittgenstein-Studien 7 (1): 105–30. 2016. doi:10.1515/witt-2016-0108
This article examines Wittgenstein’s conception of rationality through the central image of the “chain,” arguing that reasons are defined by their relational role in making actions intelligible rather than by intrinsic properties. The author contends that unlike chains of causes, chains of reasons are necessarily finite and anchored in communal reason-giving practices, meaning that justification inevitably ends at the boundaries of a specific language game. Ultimately, the paper suggests that this finite structure liberates agents from the misleading expectation of infinite justification while simultaneously limiting the reach of reasons to the specific practices that sustain them.
action theory, Wittgenstein, reasons and causes, philosophy of mind, explanation, justification
Download PDF