I have a B.A. in Biochemistry from U.C. Berkeley (1985) and a second B.A. in Philosophy from San Francisco State (1992).
I earned my Ph.D. in Philosohy in 2001 from the University of Virginia. Supervisors: Cora Diamond Phone: + 47 55 58 3009 Address: Sydnesplassen 12/13 5007 Bergen Norway
I argue that despite whatever basic substantive positions they may have apparently shared, Carnap... more I argue that despite whatever basic substantive positions they may have apparently shared, Carnap and Wittgenstein were always far apart on issues of fundamental importance, even on one of the questions one might have supposed them to be close. Specifically, I will try to show that beneath what at first sight could appear to be a philosophical difference over a mundane question regarding the nature of the propositions of logic, in fact exemplified a chasm between Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s understanding of our relation to language and the world. After first laying out the Carnap’s own understanding of his difference between himself and Wittgenstein on the nature of tautology, I explicate Wittgenstein's rejection of what would soon become Carnap's metalogical stance in Logical Syntax of Language. I do this in terms of Wittgenstein’s reception of Frege, the significance for Wittgenstein of the sign/symbol distinction, and his views of ordinary language and skepticism already at work in the Tractatus. I point out a connection between Heidegger and Wittgenstein on ordinary language that distinguishes them each from both the dominant traditions in analytic philosophy of language and from much contemporary post-modernist views of language. Finally I bring out what was at stake personally and culturally for Wittgenstein in his difference from Carnap on logical syntax.
Book review of Ben Ware, Dialectic of the Ladder: Wittgenstein, the Tractatus and Modernism , Lon... more Book review of Ben Ware, Dialectic of the Ladder: Wittgenstein, the Tractatus and Modernism , London: Bloomsbury 2015, xix+212 pp.
The paper assumes for its starting point the basic correctness of the so-called “resolute” readin... more The paper assumes for its starting point the basic correctness of the so-called “resolute” reading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, a reading first developed by Cora Diamond and James Conant. The main part of the paper concerns the consequences this interpretation will have for our understanding of Wittgenstein's well-known remark in a letter to a prospective publisher that the point or aim of his book was an ethical one. I first give a sketch of what, given the committments of the resolute reading, the ethical point of the book will be, and then argue that given these committments and Wittgenstein's own philosophical biases at the time he wrote the Tractatus, the book cannot serve the ethical purpose for which it was written.
Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy, eds. Ed Dain and Reshef Agam-Segal, 2017
In a 2013 paper titled “Beyond the ‘New’ Wittgenstein”, Hans Sluga claims that so-called resolute... more In a 2013 paper titled “Beyond the ‘New’ Wittgenstein”, Hans Sluga claims that so-called resolute readers have proffered an interpretation of Wittgenstein that makes it hard to see any robust relationship between his philosophy and ethics understood in a broader social and political sense. He suggests this may be a result of “resolutists’” infatuation with Wittgenstein exegesis, with getting the master right as it were, and that this is interpretatively and philosophically unwarranted.
I will respond to this here by clarifying how what Wittgenstein called “ethics” was internally connected to his critique of metaphysics. Yet, such a critique, while casting suspicion on the traditional hunt for a foundational ethical theory, in no way rules out intelligent discussion of pressing political and ethical questions of the day. To show this, I discuss an example of Cora Diamond’s paper “Eating Meat and Eating People”, a work addressing the ethics of vegetarianism. The paper takes up what is undeniably a public ethical issue, is fully in the spirit of the “New” Wittgenstein, and yet contains no references to Wittgenstein at all.
Sluga mentions three issues in particular that he takes to be the major ethical-political challenges of our day: overpopulation, environmental destruction, and out of control technological growth. He suggests that these are our problems and that they were not “burning” for Wittgenstein's generation and further implies that resolute readings make it especially difficult to make it plausible that Wittgenstein (and his generation) have anything relevant to say about them. In the last part of the paper, I will contest this claim as well. Not only did Wittgenstein (and others in his generation) have many thoughts about science and technology’s role in society, there is no conflict at all between these thoughts and his ethics. In fact they may be tied together if “technological thinking” and traditional ethical theorizing qua metaphysics (both of which Wittgenstein's “ethics” opposes) share more than meets the eye. Not only does Wittgenstein’s philosophy in no way disallow the sort of ethico-political engagement that we see exemplified in Diamond’s paper on vegetarianism, but that the “self-regarding” ethics that is internal to Wittgenstein’s critique of metaphysics may itself be important if a genuine environmental ethics is to be anything other than a technocratic fix.
A short paper from afew years back discussed experiments using functional magnetic resonance imag... more A short paper from afew years back discussed experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI) of the brain that purport to cast into doubt the reality of free will. In what follows, I first give a quick overview of these experiments and some of the reported claims made on their behalf. Second , I suggest that serious problems with the purported results stem largely from the widely held yet very tendentious assumption that the structure of human action must be directly analogous to the structure of a physical mechanism or process. Finally, I argue that the philosophical significance that these recent studies appear to have is due to their exploiting what I will call a "degenerate case " of action, a case that only seems promising against the background of the tendentious assumption about human action specifically, and of mechanistic explanations more generally.
The article shows how in Outline of a Theory of Practice Pierre Bourdieu relies on a kind of phil... more The article shows how in Outline of a Theory of Practice Pierre Bourdieu relies on a kind of philosophical myth in his attempt to dispel structuralist accounts of action. Section 2 is a summary of Bourdieu's use of the concept of habitus against intellectualism and structuralism. Schatzki's criticism of Bourdieu from a purportedly Wittgensteinian perspective is also examined. Section 3 relates Bourdieu's use of habitus to a debate between Hubert Dreyfus and John McDowell about the role of concepts in action. Section 4 shows how McDowell's rejection of foundationalist elements in Dreyfus's account of action also raises problems for Bourdieu's account of action. Diamond's recent criticism of Winch is shown to have an interesting connection to this debate.
I argue that despite whatever basic substantive positions they may have apparently shared, Carnap... more I argue that despite whatever basic substantive positions they may have apparently shared, Carnap and Wittgenstein were always far apart on issues of fundamental importance, even on one of the questions one might have supposed them to be close. Specifically, I will try to show that beneath what at first sight could appear to be a philosophical difference over a mundane question regarding the nature of the propositions of logic, in fact exemplified a chasm between Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s understanding of our relation to language and the world. After first laying out the Carnap’s own understanding of his difference between himself and Wittgenstein on the nature of tautology, I explicate Wittgenstein's rejection of what would soon become Carnap's metalogical stance in Logical Syntax of Language. I do this in terms of Wittgenstein’s reception of Frege, the significance for Wittgenstein of the sign/symbol distinction, and his views of ordinary language and skepticism already at work in the Tractatus. I point out a connection between Heidegger and Wittgenstein on ordinary language that distinguishes them each from both the dominant traditions in analytic philosophy of language and from much contemporary post-modernist views of language. Finally I bring out what was at stake personally and culturally for Wittgenstein in his difference from Carnap on logical syntax.
Book review of Ben Ware, Dialectic of the Ladder: Wittgenstein, the Tractatus and Modernism , Lon... more Book review of Ben Ware, Dialectic of the Ladder: Wittgenstein, the Tractatus and Modernism , London: Bloomsbury 2015, xix+212 pp.
The paper assumes for its starting point the basic correctness of the so-called “resolute” readin... more The paper assumes for its starting point the basic correctness of the so-called “resolute” reading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, a reading first developed by Cora Diamond and James Conant. The main part of the paper concerns the consequences this interpretation will have for our understanding of Wittgenstein's well-known remark in a letter to a prospective publisher that the point or aim of his book was an ethical one. I first give a sketch of what, given the committments of the resolute reading, the ethical point of the book will be, and then argue that given these committments and Wittgenstein's own philosophical biases at the time he wrote the Tractatus, the book cannot serve the ethical purpose for which it was written.
Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy, eds. Ed Dain and Reshef Agam-Segal, 2017
In a 2013 paper titled “Beyond the ‘New’ Wittgenstein”, Hans Sluga claims that so-called resolute... more In a 2013 paper titled “Beyond the ‘New’ Wittgenstein”, Hans Sluga claims that so-called resolute readers have proffered an interpretation of Wittgenstein that makes it hard to see any robust relationship between his philosophy and ethics understood in a broader social and political sense. He suggests this may be a result of “resolutists’” infatuation with Wittgenstein exegesis, with getting the master right as it were, and that this is interpretatively and philosophically unwarranted.
I will respond to this here by clarifying how what Wittgenstein called “ethics” was internally connected to his critique of metaphysics. Yet, such a critique, while casting suspicion on the traditional hunt for a foundational ethical theory, in no way rules out intelligent discussion of pressing political and ethical questions of the day. To show this, I discuss an example of Cora Diamond’s paper “Eating Meat and Eating People”, a work addressing the ethics of vegetarianism. The paper takes up what is undeniably a public ethical issue, is fully in the spirit of the “New” Wittgenstein, and yet contains no references to Wittgenstein at all.
Sluga mentions three issues in particular that he takes to be the major ethical-political challenges of our day: overpopulation, environmental destruction, and out of control technological growth. He suggests that these are our problems and that they were not “burning” for Wittgenstein's generation and further implies that resolute readings make it especially difficult to make it plausible that Wittgenstein (and his generation) have anything relevant to say about them. In the last part of the paper, I will contest this claim as well. Not only did Wittgenstein (and others in his generation) have many thoughts about science and technology’s role in society, there is no conflict at all between these thoughts and his ethics. In fact they may be tied together if “technological thinking” and traditional ethical theorizing qua metaphysics (both of which Wittgenstein's “ethics” opposes) share more than meets the eye. Not only does Wittgenstein’s philosophy in no way disallow the sort of ethico-political engagement that we see exemplified in Diamond’s paper on vegetarianism, but that the “self-regarding” ethics that is internal to Wittgenstein’s critique of metaphysics may itself be important if a genuine environmental ethics is to be anything other than a technocratic fix.
A short paper from afew years back discussed experiments using functional magnetic resonance imag... more A short paper from afew years back discussed experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI) of the brain that purport to cast into doubt the reality of free will. In what follows, I first give a quick overview of these experiments and some of the reported claims made on their behalf. Second , I suggest that serious problems with the purported results stem largely from the widely held yet very tendentious assumption that the structure of human action must be directly analogous to the structure of a physical mechanism or process. Finally, I argue that the philosophical significance that these recent studies appear to have is due to their exploiting what I will call a "degenerate case " of action, a case that only seems promising against the background of the tendentious assumption about human action specifically, and of mechanistic explanations more generally.
The article shows how in Outline of a Theory of Practice Pierre Bourdieu relies on a kind of phil... more The article shows how in Outline of a Theory of Practice Pierre Bourdieu relies on a kind of philosophical myth in his attempt to dispel structuralist accounts of action. Section 2 is a summary of Bourdieu's use of the concept of habitus against intellectualism and structuralism. Schatzki's criticism of Bourdieu from a purportedly Wittgensteinian perspective is also examined. Section 3 relates Bourdieu's use of habitus to a debate between Hubert Dreyfus and John McDowell about the role of concepts in action. Section 4 shows how McDowell's rejection of foundationalist elements in Dreyfus's account of action also raises problems for Bourdieu's account of action. Diamond's recent criticism of Winch is shown to have an interesting connection to this debate.
Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture: Naturalism, Relativism, and Skepticism, 2021
This book explores the question of what it means to be a human being through sustained and origin... more This book explores the question of what it means to be a human being through sustained and original analyses of three important philosophical topics: relativism, skepticism, and naturalism in the social sciences.
Kevin M. Cahill’s approach involves an original employment of historical and ethnographic material that is both conceptual and empirical in order to address relevant philosophical issues. Specifically, while Cahill avoids interpretative debates, he develops an approach to philosophical critique based on Cora Diamond’s and James Conant’s work on the early Wittgenstein. This makes possible the use of a concept of culture that avoids the dogmatism that not only typifies traditional metaphysics but also frequently mars arguments from ordinary language or phenomenology. This is especially crucial for the third part of the book, which involves a cultural-historical critique of the ontology of the self in Stanley Cavell’s work on skepticism. In pursuing this strategy, the book also mounts a novel and timely defense of the interpretivist tradition in the philosophy of the social sciences.
Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture will be of interest to researchers working on the philosophy of the social sciences, Wittgenstein, and philosophical anthropology.
World-leading anthropologists and philosophers pursue the perplexing question fundamental to both... more World-leading anthropologists and philosophers pursue the perplexing question fundamental to both disciplines: What is it to think of ourselves as human? A common theme is the open-ended and context-dependent nature of our notion of the human, one upshot of which is that perplexities over that notion can only be dealt with in a piecemeal fashion, and in relation to concrete real-life circumstances. Philosophical anthropology, understood as the exploration of such perplexities, will thus be both recognizably philosophical in character and inextricably bound up with anthropological fieldwork. The volume is put together accordingly: Precisely by mixing ostensibly philosophical papers with papers that engage in close anthropological study of concrete issues, it is meant to reflect the vital tie between these two aspects of the overall philosophical-anthropological enterprise. The collection will be of great interest to philosophers and anthropologists alike, and essential reading for anyone interested in the interconnections between the two disciplines.
Herbert Feigl once referred to a “schism” within analytic philosophy. This recalls for me another... more Herbert Feigl once referred to a “schism” within analytic philosophy. This recalls for me another basic schism in European philosophy, that between the two camps known broadly as “Analytic” and “Continental” philosophy. One critical episode in this divide, the Davos disputation between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger, has been richly detailed in Michael Friedman’s A Parting of the Ways. In that retelling, it is Rudolf Carnap who plays a pivotal role in the split, in particular in the way his work from the early 1930s cemented the divide between the thought of the ascendant Heidegger and what would become the dominant trend in analytic philosophy of language. Because Carnap and the Vienna Circle had discovered and discussed the Tractatus well before the Davos disputation, I initially wanted the sole title for this talk to be “A Parting of the Ways: The Prequel”. But eventually it seemed to me to be the case that the sharp differences between Carnap and Wittgenstein on the one hand, and Carnap and Heidegger on the other, were in fact indicative of a deeper division that was already in the air of the German-speaking intellectual world of the early 1920s and that therefore there was something misleading about making my story too dependent on any easy chronology. Perhaps “Wittgenstein at Davos” would have been better.
For many years, John Dupre has offered powerful arguments for an anti-reductionist, pluralist nat... more For many years, John Dupre has offered powerful arguments for an anti-reductionist, pluralist naturalism in the Philosophy of Science. Dupre has grounded his position in the fact that reductionist positions, especially physicalism, are simply unsupported by scientific practice and findings. In a recent paper, Dupre has taken his pluralist naturalism one step further, arguing against what Wittgenstein seems to claim at Philosophical Investigations §18, namely that there is an in principle difference between the language of science and ordinary language. Dupre argues against this that there is no sharp difference between the natural and the social sciences, and, moreover, that there is no in-principle difference between the languages of the natural and social sciences on the one hand and ordinary language on the other. By drawing on aspects of ordinary language that Dupre neglects, I will argue here that Dupre misses a philosophically important, even though not metaphysical, distinction between the natural and social sciences, a distinction that can be seen in the way each he mischaracterizes ordinary language.
In recent work, Cora Diamond has criticized an aspect of Peter Winch’s attack on E.E. Evans-Pritc... more In recent work, Cora Diamond has criticized an aspect of Peter Winch’s attack on E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s classic Ethnography Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande. Winch claimed that some of Evans-Pritchard’s descriptions Zande practices contained logical fallacies rooted in a form of European ethnocentrism. Diamond, in turn, attack’s Winch’s arguments for an unwarranted assumption that genuine conflicts between different systems of thought are unintelligible, since it is only within established grammars or domains of discourse that something can be said at all. She claims against this that it is also possible to regard such conflicts as taking place in a logical space provided by the conflicts themselves and not necessarily only by the resources of each taken separately. I argue that despite their cogency, Diamond’s arguments nevertheless rest on historical factors, and this I suggest may not sit comfortably with the overall realist thrust of her views.
Forthcoming from Routledge: This is the first collection of essays to focus explicitly on the rel... more Forthcoming from Routledge: This is the first collection of essays to focus explicitly on the relationship between Wittgenstein and naturalism. The volume is divided into four sections, each of which addresses a different aspect of naturalism and its relation to Wittgenstein's thought. The first section considers how naturalism could or should be understood. The second section deals with some of the main problematic domains―consciousness, meaning, mathematics―that philosophers have typically sought to naturalise. The third section explores ways in which the conceptual nature of human life might be continuous in important respects with animals. The final section is concerned with the naturalistic status and methodology of philosophy itself. This book thus casts a fresh light on many classical philosophical issues and brings Wittgensteinian ideas to bear on a number of current debates-for example experimental philosophy, neo-pragmatism and animal cognition/ethics-in which naturalism is playing a central role.
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Papers by Kevin M Cahill
After first laying out the Carnap’s own understanding of his difference between himself and Wittgenstein on the nature of tautology, I explicate Wittgenstein's rejection of what would soon become Carnap's metalogical stance in Logical Syntax of Language. I do this in terms of Wittgenstein’s reception of Frege, the significance for Wittgenstein of the sign/symbol distinction, and his views of ordinary language and skepticism already at work in the Tractatus. I point out a connection between Heidegger and Wittgenstein on ordinary language that distinguishes them each from both the dominant traditions in analytic philosophy of language and from much contemporary post-modernist views of language. Finally I bring out what was at stake personally and culturally for Wittgenstein in his difference from Carnap on logical syntax.
I will respond to this here by clarifying how what Wittgenstein called “ethics” was internally connected to his critique of metaphysics. Yet, such a critique, while casting suspicion on the traditional hunt for a foundational ethical theory, in no way rules out intelligent discussion of pressing political and ethical questions of the day. To show this, I discuss an example of Cora Diamond’s paper “Eating Meat and Eating People”, a work addressing the ethics of vegetarianism. The paper takes up what is undeniably a public ethical issue, is fully in the spirit of the “New” Wittgenstein, and yet contains no references to Wittgenstein at all.
Sluga mentions three issues in particular that he takes to be the major ethical-political challenges of our day: overpopulation, environmental destruction, and out of control technological growth. He suggests that these are our problems and that they were not “burning” for Wittgenstein's generation and further implies that resolute readings make it especially difficult to make it plausible that Wittgenstein (and his generation) have anything relevant to say about them. In the last part of the paper, I will contest this claim as well. Not only did Wittgenstein (and others in his generation) have many thoughts about science and technology’s role in society, there is no conflict at all between these thoughts and his ethics. In fact they may be tied together if “technological thinking” and traditional ethical theorizing qua metaphysics (both of which Wittgenstein's “ethics” opposes) share more than meets the eye. Not only does Wittgenstein’s philosophy in no way disallow the sort of ethico-political engagement that we see exemplified in Diamond’s paper on vegetarianism, but that the “self-regarding” ethics that is internal to Wittgenstein’s critique of metaphysics may itself be important if a genuine environmental ethics is to be anything other than a technocratic fix.
After first laying out the Carnap’s own understanding of his difference between himself and Wittgenstein on the nature of tautology, I explicate Wittgenstein's rejection of what would soon become Carnap's metalogical stance in Logical Syntax of Language. I do this in terms of Wittgenstein’s reception of Frege, the significance for Wittgenstein of the sign/symbol distinction, and his views of ordinary language and skepticism already at work in the Tractatus. I point out a connection between Heidegger and Wittgenstein on ordinary language that distinguishes them each from both the dominant traditions in analytic philosophy of language and from much contemporary post-modernist views of language. Finally I bring out what was at stake personally and culturally for Wittgenstein in his difference from Carnap on logical syntax.
I will respond to this here by clarifying how what Wittgenstein called “ethics” was internally connected to his critique of metaphysics. Yet, such a critique, while casting suspicion on the traditional hunt for a foundational ethical theory, in no way rules out intelligent discussion of pressing political and ethical questions of the day. To show this, I discuss an example of Cora Diamond’s paper “Eating Meat and Eating People”, a work addressing the ethics of vegetarianism. The paper takes up what is undeniably a public ethical issue, is fully in the spirit of the “New” Wittgenstein, and yet contains no references to Wittgenstein at all.
Sluga mentions three issues in particular that he takes to be the major ethical-political challenges of our day: overpopulation, environmental destruction, and out of control technological growth. He suggests that these are our problems and that they were not “burning” for Wittgenstein's generation and further implies that resolute readings make it especially difficult to make it plausible that Wittgenstein (and his generation) have anything relevant to say about them. In the last part of the paper, I will contest this claim as well. Not only did Wittgenstein (and others in his generation) have many thoughts about science and technology’s role in society, there is no conflict at all between these thoughts and his ethics. In fact they may be tied together if “technological thinking” and traditional ethical theorizing qua metaphysics (both of which Wittgenstein's “ethics” opposes) share more than meets the eye. Not only does Wittgenstein’s philosophy in no way disallow the sort of ethico-political engagement that we see exemplified in Diamond’s paper on vegetarianism, but that the “self-regarding” ethics that is internal to Wittgenstein’s critique of metaphysics may itself be important if a genuine environmental ethics is to be anything other than a technocratic fix.
Kevin M. Cahill’s approach involves an original employment of historical and ethnographic material that is both conceptual and empirical in order to address relevant philosophical issues. Specifically, while Cahill avoids interpretative debates, he develops an approach to philosophical critique based on Cora Diamond’s and James Conant’s work on the early Wittgenstein. This makes possible the use of a concept of culture that avoids the dogmatism that not only typifies traditional metaphysics but also frequently mars arguments from ordinary language or phenomenology. This is especially crucial for the third part of the book, which involves a cultural-historical critique of the ontology of the self in Stanley Cavell’s work on skepticism. In pursuing this strategy, the book also mounts a novel and timely defense of the interpretivist tradition in the philosophy of the social sciences.
Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture will be of interest to researchers working on the philosophy of the social sciences, Wittgenstein, and philosophical anthropology.
fallacies rooted in a form of European ethnocentrism. Diamond, in turn, attack’s Winch’s arguments for an unwarranted assumption that genuine conflicts between different systems of thought are unintelligible, since it is only within established grammars or domains of discourse that something can be said at all. She claims against this that it is also possible to regard such conflicts as taking place in a logical space provided by the conflicts themselves and not necessarily only by the resources of each taken separately. I argue that despite their cogency,
Diamond’s arguments nevertheless rest on historical factors, and this I suggest may not sit comfortably with the overall realist thrust of her views.