Philosophical Interests and Current Projects

"Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up" - Thomas Nagel

The Limit of Understanding

In both the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein suggests that there is a limit to understanding (an idea that he expresses when he talks, for example, in terms of the distinction between sense, senselessness, and nonsense). Furthermore, he suggests at times that there is a problem about talking about such limits (inasmuch as talking meaningfully about a limit to thinking might in fact imply, paradoxically, that one finds both sides of the limit ‘thinkable’).

More recently, Thomas Nagel (in The View from Nowhere, for example) has pushed the significance of this issue and has proposed that philosophical problems are characteristically the product of our ability to juxtapose our irreducibly subjective and personal point of view with another equally irreducible but purportedly more ‘objective’ point of view – one that is distinct from the viewpoint of ourselves, our culture, our nation or community, or even our very nature or species. Nevertheless, according to Nagel, there are ultimately limits here as well.

I am quite curious as to whether there is some limit to understanding and, if so, whether we can say anything about it (and, if so, how)? There is also the issue of exactly what philosophical significance this might have, if any.

Skepticism
Skepticism comes in many forms. We might, for example, be skeptics when it comes to our knowledge of the external world. Or we might be skeptics about the existence of other minds. We might be skeptics in the Humean sense; that is, skeptical about induction or the reasonableness of certain kinds of expectation. We might be skeptical in Goodman's sense and feel the grip of the so-called New Riddle of Induction even more powerfully. Lastly, we might be skeptical in the way that Kripke suggests certain arguments that he finds in Wittgenstein might be read - which is to say, skeptical about the determinateness of meaning.
These various forms of skepticism seem to threaten our ordinary beliefs about what we know or are justified in believing is the case. They are also almost completely unbelievable in the sense that, though we might appreciate their cogency and force, we find ourselves completely unable to accept the conclusions that they reach.

Attempts to demonstrate that these arguments are simply unsound are generally unconvincing. Attempts to propound "skeptical solutions" (in the Humean sense) seem equally unbelievable. Both of these avenues start, however, with a shared sense that the skeptical arguments are coherent enough to get off the ground in the first place. Perhaps the solution (if one want to call it that) is actually dissolution of the problem before it gets started. I would like to know how that might go.

Other Philosophical Interests
Environmental Ethics
The Gettier Problem
The Philosophy of Biology (especially Darwinism and the tautology problem)
Metaphilosophy
The American Pragmatists (especially Peirce and Dewey)