Tom Kaspers

Tom Kaspers
Collegiate Assistant Professor, Society of Fellows
Gates-Blake Hall, Room 309
Office Hours: Autumn Quarter: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4:00 - 6:00 pm
University of St Andrews, PhD, (2023); University of St Andrews, (MA), 2019; University of Amsterdam, (BA), 2018
Teaching at UChicago since 2024
Research Interests: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Pragmatism, Philosophy of language, Philosophy of science, and Social epistemology

My research explores concepts such as truth, rationality, and objectivity from a pragmatist angle. How do we use such concepts in our daily practices? My focus includes my very own practice: philosophical inquiry. I ask, for instance, whether philosophers are rational, and what it means to say that they are. And I ask whether philosophers aim for truth, which I think they don’t. I’m developing a theory of philosophical progress that can accommodate this insight.

 

Publications

“The Practical Bearings of Truth as Correspondence,” Erkenntnis, (2023)

“Truth and Its Uses: Deflationism and Alethic Pluralism,” Synthese, 202, 130 (2023)

“Speak No Ill of The Dead: The Dead as a Social Group ,” Synthese, 200, 210 (2022), co-written with Jacob LiBrizzi, Duccio Calosi & Yoichi Kobe

“Alethic Pluralism for Pragmatists ,” Synthese, 200, 60 (2022)