Research
Philosophy of Language
I am an interdisciplinary researcher specializing in the philosophy of language and linguistics, with a focus on internalist semantics and a strong interest in biolinguistics. My inquiries include: how animal communication systems function, what aspects of human neurology enable a distinct linguistic capacity, in what sense language is innate, how truth relates to meaning, how the arts and sciences shape epistemic access to the world, and why linguistic diversity matters. These questions guide my ongoing research.
Philosophers generally agree that while truth is an aspirational aim, knowledge remains approximative. Theories and models gain explanatory value not by listing facts, but by distorting them constructively. For instance, maps scaled to real dimensions would be useless; architectural models are not built from structural materials; and diagrams, schematics, and idealizations abstract key properties to enable understanding. An idealized liquid won’t bend light, but Snell’s Law allows diffraction angles to quantify sediment (Cartwright 1983). These representational tools—what Catherine Z. Elgin terms “felicitous fictions” (2004)—are judged not by truth alone, but by explanatory utility and predictive power.
I argue that such epistemological insights should apply equally to theories of meaning. Historically, meanings were viewed as mental recipes—organic, evolutionarily shaped, and used to generate concepts. By contrast, others contend that understanding meaning entails knowing conditions under which an utterance is true. But what kind of truth? Logical deduction, for instance, rarely feels natural, and scientific truths (e.g., “water is H₂O”) raise further semantic questions.
Because polysemy and metaphor permeate natural language, I posit that meaning precedes truth. Scientific semantics should not be conflated with the richer expressivity of everyday speech. Both the arts and sciences rely on “felicitous falsehoods”—or what I’ve elsewhere termed “facetted fictions”—to render the world intelligible.
I have shared this perspective through public talks and exhibitions since 2010, including a series of 13 artworks inspired by Elgin’s “True Enough.” Additionally, my multilingual children’s book series has been studied at the University of Ottawa for its novel approach to mapping grammatical structures across languages.
Publications
Ithaque 9: Revue de philosophie de l’Université de Montréal (2011)
“The ‘Is’ in Animal-is-m”
Eric T. Olson argues for a position in personal identity called animalism. Olson's definition of ‘what we are’ is what the biological community currently defines as the ‘human animal’. This article deals with the notoriously slippery quality of the copula 'is'. In my conclusion, I follow Olson’s surprising admission by suggesting that I too have no idea what we are.
Work in Progess
"Meanings and Self-Knowledge from the Chomskyan Perspective"
The traditional questions of early analytic philosophy have related more to epistemology, and the grounding of an externalist semantics for the sciences.
"Chomsky on I-languages, E-languages and P-language"
Supporting Noam Chomsky’s views on the limits of the science of language, I offer 6 definitions based on the I-LANGUAGE and E-LANGUAGE distinction.
Other Writing
"The Visual Artist and the Problem of Space - Thoughts on Outdoor Painting" (2019)
I discuss the problem of studio space for artists. This is an introduction to my 2019 exhibition titled: "Venise n'est pas en Italie".
"Contemporary Canadian Artists and Why Museums Hate Us" (2017)
Obviously, the title is meant to be provocative.