(last updated: January 30, 2026)

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

forthcoming 'Explications in Mathematics', with Deniz Sarikaya, The Philosophical Quarterly (accepted January 23, 2026)
Carnap introduced his notion of explication to arrive at concepts that are precise enough for scientific purposes.
As Carnap wants to precisify concepts, his notion of explication has to target less precise concepts which means
that explications within mathematics are not possible. However, we argue that explications of formal and precise
mathematical concepts are both possible and, in mathematical practice, even quite widespread. This paper
focuses on foundational work especially as done in the context of interactive theorem proving. If foundational
work is taken seriously, it enforces the explicit decisions which are generally ignored by mathematical practice -
and such developments are not captured by our usual notions of explication. To see this, we introduce Carnapian
and Quinean explication and argue that they are not capable of accounting for intra-mathematical conceptual
changes. If these changes are best understood as explications, as we argue they are, we need a different notion
of explication. We suggest one candidate, called tolerant explication, and briefly sketch how it handles the intra-
mathematical cases.

forthcoming 'Modal QUARC and Barcan', Erkenntnis (accepted September 6, 2025), doi: 10.1007/s10670-025-01019-2
(open access)
I develop a modal extension of the QUantified ARgument Calculus (QUARC) - a novel logical system introduced
by Hanoch Ben-Yami. QUARC is meant to better capture the logic of natural language. The purpose of this paper
is to evaluate this claim by considering how modal QUARC (M-QUARC) handles the Barcan and Converse
Barcan Formulas and how this correlates to surrounding debates. To do so, I develop a variable domain
semantics for M-QUARC and show that even if the usual domain conditions are imposed on models with
variable domains, simple M-QUARC-analogues of the Barcan and Converse Barcan Formulas are not
valid. I introduce new conditions and show that they validate the formulas. I go on to extend the language
of M-QUARC to simulate unrestricted quantification and show that in this setting the domain conditions
validate the Barcan and Converse Barcan Formulas. Based on these results, I evaluate the relationship of the
formal systems M-QUARC and standard quantified modal logic with respect to one another and to natural
language. I argue that if M-QUARC does capture the logic of natural language, then natural language is capable
to express neither the Barcan and Converse Barcan Formulas nor counterexamples to them. Given that, I
raise doubts that M-QUARC captures quantification as it occurs in natural language.

forthcoming 'QUARC and Classical Logic', Studia Logica (accepted February 8, 2025), doi: 10.1007/s11225-025-10169-x
(open access)
I show that Hanoch Ben-Yami's so-called QUantified ARgument Calculus (QUARC) can be extended to what I
call QUARC+ which I show to be intertranslatable with a version of first-order logic in which unary predicates
are non-empty. Given this result, I show that QUARC+ is complete, propose an axiomatization of QUARC,
and discuss the resulting expressive limitation of QUARC.

2024 'Quine on Explication', Inquiry 67(6), 2043-2072, doi: 10.1080/0020174X.2021.1982763
The main goal of this paper is to work out Quine's account of explication. Quine does not provide a general
account, but considers a paradigmatic example which does not fit other examples he claims to be explications.
Besides working out Quine's account of explication and explaining this tension, I show how it connects to
other notions such as paraphrase and ontological commitment. Furthermore, I relate Quinean explication to
Carnap's conception and argue that Quinean explication is much narrower because its main purpose is to be a
criterion of theory choice. 

2021 'The Unbearable Circularity of Easy Ontology', Synthese 199(1-2), 3527-3556, doi: 10.1007/s11229-020-02946-z
(open access)
In this paper, I argue that Amie Thomasson’s Easy Ontology rests on a vicious circularity that is highly
damaging. Easy Ontology invokes the idea of application conditions that give rise to analytic entailments.
Such entailments can be used to answer ontological questions easily. I argue that the application conditions
for basic terms are only circularly specifiable showing that Thomasson misses her self-set goal of preventing
such a circularity. Using this circularity, I go on to show that Easy Ontology as a whole collapses. 

2018 'Aristotle, Logic, and QUARC', History and Philosophy of Logic 39(4), 305-340, doi:
10.1080/01445340.2018.1467198
The goal of this paper is to present a new reconstruction of Aristotle's assertoric logic as he develops it in
Prior Analytics, A 1-7. This reconstruction will be much closer to Aristotle's original text than other such
reconstructions brought forward up to now. To accomplish this, we will not use classical logic, but a novel
system developed by Ben-Yami (2004, 2014) called 'QUARC'. This system is apt for a more adequate
reconstruction since it does not need first-order variables ('x', 'y', ...) on which the usual quantifiers act - a
feature also not to be found in Aristotle. Further, in the classical reconstructions, there is also the need for
binary connectives ('and', 'if ... then') that don't have a counterpart in Aristotle. QUARC, again, does not
need them either to represent the Aristotelian sentence types. However, the full QUARC is also not called
for so that I develop a subsystem thereof (QUARCAR) which closely resembles Aristotle's way of developing
his logic. I show that we can prove all of Aristotle's claims within this systems and, lastly, how it relates to
classical logic.

Chapters

forthcoming 'Mathematical Theories and Informal Mathematics', in: Fairhurst Chilton, Jordi, José Antonio Pérez Escobar,
Deniz Sarikaya, and Mira Sarikaya (eds.), Discourses on Mathematical Practice in Education and Society,
Cham: Springer

forthcoming 'Quine, Explication, and Communication', in: Kemp, Gary and Ali Hossein Khani (eds.), The Quinean Mind,
London: Routledge

forthcoming 'Natural Language, Explication, and Overfitting', with Norbert Gratzl, in: Stalmaszczyk, Piotr (ed.), Semantic
Theory, Metasemantics and Metaphilosophy (working title), Paderborn: Brill Mentis
When studying natural languages, we generally use formal languages which allow for the application of
formal machinery. However, in order for the formal tools to allow us to draw conclusions about the natural
languages, we need to ensure that the formal languages fit. Put differently, we should aim for a close
representation of natural languages. However, there are many respects in which a formal language can
be close to a natural language. We consider several possible explications and argue that even in simple
cases, there are several problems. We argue that the explications often also pull into different directions
and that there is no global way to claim that a formal language is closer to a natural language than another
one. Moreover, we argue that a close fit beyond a certain level is often not desirable, but rather creates the
danger of overfitting. We argue that explication is a means to counteract this danger and that we should
understand the study of natural languages via formal languages as modelling the natural languages. 

forthcoming 'Metaphysics', with Chris Daly, in: Rossberg, Marcus (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Analytic Philosophy,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
This entry considers the philosophical subject called metaphysics. There have been many conceptions of
metaphysics, and metaphysics has faced severe criticism throughout the history of philosophy and continues
to do so. Besides discussing some major trends in analytic metaphysics - understood as 'metaphysics done
by analytic philosophers' - we consider some of the criticisms and possible responses.

2024 'Aristotle, Term Logic, and QUARC', in: Englebretsen, George (ed.), New Directions in Term Logic, London:
College Publications, pp. 427-503
Aristotle counts as the founder of formal logic. The logic he develops dominated until Frege and others
introduced a new logic. This new logic is taken to be more powerful and better capable of capturing inference
patterns. The new logic differs from Aristotelian logic in significant respects. It has been argued by Fred
Sommers and Hanoch Ben-Yami that the new logic is not well equipped as a logic of natural language, and
that a logic closer to Aristotle's is better suited for this task. Each of them developed their own formalism -
Sommers in form of term logic, Ben-Yami in form of his Quantified Argument Calculus (QUARC). I discuss
Aristotle's logic - a term logic - and attempt a comparison between Aristotelian logic and (i) the new logic,
(ii) Sommers' term logic, and (iii) Ben-Yami's QUARC. I consider differences between the systems, and show
how they are related to and diverge from the new logic.

Others

2023 'Conference Report: The Fourth International Conference of the German Society for Philosophy of Science
(GWP.2022),  15-17 August, 2022', Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 37(1), 61-64, 2023, doi:
10.1515/krt-2022-0031 (open access)

Work in Progress

• A paper arguing that essentialism can answer the criticisms of anti-essentialism

• Papers on ontological commitment

• Papers on core topics of philosophy of science (old evidence, Dutch Book arguments, etc.)

• Papers on explication and conceptual engineering

• Papers on the Quantified Argument Calculus