Jean-Philippe Narboux & Erich Reck
Biography
Jean-Philippe Narboux is professor of contemporary philosophy in the Research Centre for Contemporary and German Philosophy (CRePhAC) of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Strasbourg. His areas of specialization are the philosophy of language, the philosophy of logic and mathematics, and the philosophy of action.
His research is primarily focused on Wittgenstein and other key figures in the history of analytic philosophy from Frege to the present day, typically in confrontation with central figures from the phenomenological tradition.
A former student of the École normale supérieure (ENS-Ulm), he holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Picardy Jules Verne (2003) and a Master in logic from the University Paris 1 (1998). After obtaining his PhD, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago (2004). Before joining the University of Strasbourg, he was associate professor at the Bordeaux Montaigne University from 2005 to 2023.
His research has been supported by a number of grants, fellowships and visits at research institutes, including the Institut universitaire de France (IUF) in 2009-2014, the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study/Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (WIKO) in 2017-2018, and the Forschungskolleg Analytic German Idealism (FAGI) in 2020-2021. He has taught at various foreign universities. In recent years, he was Humboldt guest professor at the University of Leipzig (2021) and visiting professor at the University of Chicago (2025).
Project summary
CAVAILLÈS AND CURRENT PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS
A hero of the French Resistance against Nazi occupation and an illustrious figure of the University of Strasbourg, Jean Cavaillès (1903-1944) is widely regarded in France as one of the most original philosophers of his generation, and as a main inspiration of the French tradition in epistemology. Despite this and to this day, his writings remain little known within the contemporary philosophy of mathematics at large, especially among philosophers trained in the analytic tradition. This is all the more perplexing as some of the most fecund trends in recent anglophone philosophy of mathematics, as it gradually moved away from its positivist origins, directly resonate with Cavaillès’ distinctive synthesis of the history and philosophy of mathematics. The present project aims to trace and study these connections, and also bridge the gap between the French and anglophone traditions in the philosophy of mathematics.
The mutual relevance of Cavaillès’ philosophy of mathematics and contemporary anglophone philosophy of mathematics is particularly salient with respect to such topics as the primacy of mathematical practice, concept formation in mathematics, the genesis and nature of mathematical structures, the significance of the axiomatic method, the history of set theory, the varieties of structuralism. Moreover, Cavaillès’ anti-foundationalist standpoint bears striking affinities with that of the later Wittgenstein, a key figure in the analytic tradition.
In addition to systematically exploring this web of connections, we propose to make Cavaillès’ thought available to an English-speaking readership by publishing scholarly editions and annotated translations of his first two books, Méthode axiomatique et formalisme (1938) and Remarques sur la formation de la théorie abstraite des ensembles (1938), hitherto untranslated into English.
Biography
Erich Reck is professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside (United States). His research concerns the history and philosophy of logic, mathematics, and science, with special focus on the rise of ‘modern mathematics’ in the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, as well as its impact on the development of philosophy, including its English-, French-, and German-speaking traditions.
He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago, after an earlier M.S. degree in mathematics from the University of Bonn (Germany). His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH), and a number of grants, fellowships, and visits at research institutes, in the US, Canada, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany, including the Institut d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences et des techniques (IHPST) in Paris and the Archives Henri-Poincaré (AHP-PReST) in Nancy.
In his work so far, a main theme has been the rise of ‘conceptual’ and ‘structuralist’ approaches to mathematics, as exemplified by the works of the mathematician Richard Dedekind and as highlighted by the philosopher Ernst Cassirer, among others. Another main theme has been the rise of modern logic and its impact on philosophy, here especially in the writings of Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Carnap.
His current goal is to connect these themes with the development of French thought, especially the philosopher Jean Cavaillès, the mathematician (or group of mathematicians) Nicolas Bourbaki, and others influenced by them. Besides making the works of Cavaillès available to a broader audience, also outside France, this is meant as a contribution to building bridges between neighbouring traditions in philosophy.
During his USIAS Fellowship, he will be hosted by the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Strasbourg.
Fellowship 2026
Dates - 01/10/2026-30/09/2028
