Any philosophical conclusion is tested partly by how well its implications work out throughout the discipline. Rational inquiry comes in many forms. In philosophy reason proceeds in an unusual, indirect manner. The problem is that we can approach philosophy's goal only obliquely. And since we best grasp and analyze our thinking through the language that reports and expresses thought, we look to how we speak, and to what it does and does not make sense to say, about some subject, in order to tell us how we think about that subject.
Philosophy therefore works by means of a rigorous analysis of language.
We reason from how we do think to how we must think. Ultimately we are after necessary presuppositions of basic features of human existence such as knowledge, thought, reason, experience and action. These presuppositions are basic to being a human being and provide grounds for an objective world view. My research is on the nature of presupposition and the nature of necessary presuppositions. Philosophy has always been a search for fundamental commitments, so my research contributes to my teaching of philosophy.