Ethan Nowak

Before coming to Stanford in 2024, I had permanent positions at Cardiff University in Wales and Umeå University in Sweden, after post-docs at University College London and Kings College London. I was a visitor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2023. My PhD is from UC Berkeley, I did the Oxford BPhil, and I have a BA from Reed College. 

Most of my work is in the philosophy of language. Some has to do with the semantics and pragmatics of referring expressions, like names and demonstratives. Some is more socially-inflected. I have projects, for example, on the value of linguistic diversity, on what linguistic justice would be for groups and individuals, and on how we use language to craft ourselves. This last project draws in particular on some themes from Chinese philosophy.