Most of McFarlane's work is in the
philosophy of logic and language. Other research interests include
metaphysics and
epistemology, the
philosophy of mathematics,
philosophical logic, the
history of logic,
Frege,
Kant and
ancient philosophy particularly
Aristotle.
Normativity of Logic With respect to the
normativity of logic for human thought, MacFarlane defends a certain claim made by
Frege, a German mathematician and logician. In his book "
The Foundational Laws of Arithmetic", which is a follow-up work to "
The Foundations of Arithmetic" (1884), Frege claims to have overcome the limitations of
Kant's logic, and MacFarlane acknowledges this. MacFarlane elaborates the idea in
Frege, Kant, and the Logic in Logicism (2002): The comparability of Frege's and Kant's systems is disputed in scholarly discourse. MacFarlane argues that the systems are indeed comparable, because both thinkers Kant and Frege define logic fundamentally by its generality as a central characteristic. Accordingly, Frege's approach is suited to overcome Kant's. In "
In What Sense (If Any) Is Logic Normative for Thought?" (2004), MacFarlane turns to a problem raised by
Gilbert Harman of the fundamental relationship between logic and human thought. He develops an approximative methodology that seeks to contain Harman's position: that there are no bridging principles. MacFarlane proposes an improved principle as a starting point for further conceptual research in the field. Normativity of logic is a basic theme of MacFarlane's philosophy and was already on his mind while he was doing his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh in 2000.
Linguistic Relativism In his 2014 book titled
"Assessment Sensitivity", MacFarlane elaborates a three-layered theory of
linguistic relativity (
Semantics proper, Semantics post, Pragmatics). The project seeks to unify the respective advantages of the three traditional semantic positions — Objectivism, Contextualism, and Expressivism — into one Assessment-
Relativist position. Thus MacFarlane circumvents the respective disadvantages of the three existing positions. To this end, after rejecting the standard arguments against relativist positions, MacFarlane extends the established context sensitivity of the established non-relativist semantics to include judgment sensitivity in an analogous handling. In doing so, the thinker avoids the problems normally associated with semantic relativism. The technical underpinning that seeks to achieve judgment sensitivity of
propositions using an index-based semantics is based on
David Kaplan and
David Lewis.
Assessment Sensitivity has been extensively reviewed in philosophical journals, and has been the subject of a book symposium with Diana Raffman, Jason Stanley, and Crispin Wright. Unusually, it has been made available as
open access (as cited below).
Publications His books and monographs include: • • Paperback edition. His articles include • Future contingents and relative truth • Making sense of relative truth • Nonindexical contextualism == References ==