Interviste

1. Dear Agustín, many thanks for accepting our invitation for this interview. You are particularly well-known among analytic philosophers for your extensive works on the philosophy of mathematics, logic, and language. In your recent book, The Construction of Logical Space (OUP, 2013), you offer some novel views on many of these issues. Your interests and views have evolved during your studies at M.I.T, as well as at the Arché center in St.Andrews.Before entering into philosophical details, many readers may be interested in learning how you got interested in these areas of philosophy during your studies and research.

I'm afraid my interests are mostly the result of indecision. When I was an undergraduate I was unsure whether I wanted to be a philosopher or a mathematician. I eventually ended up in a philosophy PhD program. But, unable to give up on my mathematical aspirations, I ended up focusing on logic and the philosophy of mathematics.I finally gave up the dream of becoming a mathematician during a model theory class. Careful examination of the proof of Morley's Theorem convinced me that I wouldn't really be able to learn mathematics properly unless I devoted myself to the project full time. And by then I had fallen in love with philosophy.In retrospect, I don't think I would have been a very good mathematician. So I have come to think that I owe a lot to Morley's Theorem. It's also a beautiful result: if a first-order theory in a countable language is categorical in some uncountable cardinality, then it is categorical in all uncountable cardinalities.