Current research focusses on two areas: philosophy of semantics and Wittgenstein.
Philosophy of semantics
There are several topics that are researched under this heading. One is the relationship between philosophical theories of interpretation (radical interpretation à la Quine and Davidson, but also the hermeneutics of Heidegger and Gadamer and the ‘practical’ approach of Wittgenstein’s later work), and various theories of formal semantics (classical Montague grammar, discourse representation theory, dynamic semantics). Others topics concern conceptual and methodological issues in formal semantics, such as compositionality, grammatical and logical form, semantic competence, and intuitions. And there is work with Michiel van Lambalgen on abstraction and idealisation, and the role of naturalism in linguistic theory.
Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein has been an ongoing interest, in particular the contents of his ethical and religious views and their ontological and epistemological status. In 2002 World and Life as One. Ethics and Ontology in Wittgenstein’s Early Thought, appeared with Stanford University Press. Currently the main focus is on the relationship between values and realism in the later work, in particular On Certainty, and on the concept of “ethics as practice". I am also doing joint work with Jaap van der Does on transcendentality in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
More information, along with links to papers, can be found on my home page:
