John Marvin

I am a PhD Candidate at the University of Chicago, jointly in Philosophy of Religions at the Divinity School and in the Department of Philosophy, primarily interested in approaching the philosophy of mathematics and logic (and philosophical areas at large for which it has important implications) with critical attention to the broader context of intellectual history surrounding mathematical/logical practice.  

My dissertation examines the evolution of mathematics and the formalization of logic from the 19th century to the present alongside the development of intellectual currents such as the emergence of phenomenology, the divergence of analytic philosophy, and developments in the philosophy of science. Through a reexamination of the history of the ideas, questions, framing, and desiderata of philosophical reflections on mathematics and logic in their entanglements with both the wider intellectual forces bearing upon them and the surprises of mathematical research itself, my work attempts to find new routes to address—or dissolve—longstanding issues and problems occupying the literature. In part drawing inspiration from comparative study of Buddhist and Daoist thought, the semiotics of so-called "mystical" texts, and oft-forgotten thinkers like C.S. Peirce, I challenge the consensus that “realism” about the objectivity of mathematical knowledge requires a metaphysics of abstract entities, instead arguing that mathematics’ distinctive evasion of ontology is key to explaining its special epistemic virtues. 

Along with directly philosophical work and these more expansive interests in intellectual history, the comparative analysis of (anti-)religious thought and language with abstract mathematical reasoning, and the study of their intersections, I am also interested in working on concrete problems in philosophical logic, especially in areas like computability theory, set theory, type theory, and reverse mathematics. 

I am a passionate teacher, especially of mathematical logic and its intellectual history, and with my faculty mentors I have spent years thinking seriously about how to improve the usual curricula to better guide humanities students into the rigorous modes of thinking these disciplines require.

Personal Website: http://jmarv.in/