I am a philosopher of science, specialized in the philosophy of language and formal sciences (mathematics, logic, and computer science). After being a Professor in Philosophy and History of Ideas at MO.CO.ESBA (Montpellier, France) and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at ETH (D-GESS), I decided to pursue a second PhD in Natural Language Processing at the Computer Science Department of ETH.

My interests revolve around the linguistic aspects of formal sciences and the formal aspects of language and other sign systems, from a theoretical, philosophical, and historical perspective. I am also interested in the relationship between language and thought, the nature of meaning, and the possibility that a theory of language can inform both a theory of culture and a theory of science. My current research focuses on the computational and conceptual aspects of segmentation (and tokenization) and their relation to linguistic structure and meaning.

News

24/04/2025

“The Foundations of Tokenization: Statistical and Computational Concerns”
ICLR 2025
Singapore EXPO - 1 Expo Drive, Singapore.
Poster Session, Hall 3 + Hall 2B #561
[Poster]

15/04/2025

Épistémologie de l’apprentissage machine – pour un formalisme critique
Invited lecture at the seminar HiPhiS, (UM, U. Paul Valery, IRES, CNRS)
Université de Montpellier - campus Triolet (bât. 16), Montpellier, France.
5:30 pm CEST. Faculté des Sciences, salle de cours SC-16.01.
[Slides]

11/04/2025

Toward a Critical Formalism: From the Philosophy to the Theory of Distributional Language Models
Invited lecture at the simposium Foundations of AI, ITS (The Graduate Center, CUNY)
365 Fifth Avenue, New York, USA.
10:00 am EDT. Rooms 9206/9207.
[Slides]

25/03/2025

How to Do Maths With Words. The Role of Language in Neural Machine Learning Applications to Mathematics.
Lecture at the seminar Bridging Histories. Literacy, computer science and mathematics in the 20th and 21st centuries..
Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences.
Cambridge, UK.
3:00 (GMT). INI, 20 Clarkson Road, Seminar Room 2, and online.
[Slides]

07/02/2025

The Structure, Not the Prompt. For a Critical Formalism
Lecture at the Vernacular AI Symposium.
Digital Theory Lab, New York University.
New York, U.S.A.
2:00 (EST). The Remarque Institute, 60 5th Avenue, 8th floor, and online (advance registration required).
[Slides]

22/01/2025

Our paper “The Foundations of Tokenization: Statistical and Computational Concerns”
has been accepted to ICLR 2025!

28/11/2024

Sous les distributions, la structure! Unearthing structural(ist) features from linguistic distributions
Lecture at the Workshop on AI & DH (Part 1).
CRIHN, Université de Montréal.
Montréal, Canada.
11:30 (EST). Salle C-3061, Carrefour des arts et des sciences, 3150 rue Jean Brillant, and online (advance registration required).
[Slides]

6/11/2024 - 12/11/2024

I will be visiting the IHES at the Paris-Saclay University.
Le Bois-Marie, 35 route de Chartres, Bures-sur-Yvette, France.

19/09/2024 - 22/10/2024

I will be visiting the ITS at The Graduate Center, CUNY.
365 Fifth Avenue, New York, USA.

14/06/2024

Frege Mathématicien
Lecture at the Workshop Frege dans l’Histoire des Sciences .
UMR STL, Université de Lille.
Lille, France.
10:30 (CEST). Site de Pont de Bois, Salle B1.663.
[Slides, Graph]

28/05/2024

Critique de la Raison Linguistique
Lecture at the Conference Critique de l’Intelligence Artificielle .
LLCP, Université Paris 8.
Paris, France.
9:00 (CEST). 2, rue de la Liberté – 93200 Saint-Denis.
[Slides, Graph 1,Graph 2,Graph 3,Graph 4]

09/04/2024

Notes on Critical AI
Lecture at Meta (New York)
372 Farley, Farley Building, New York, USA.
11:00 am EST.

05/04/2024

Notes on Critical AI
Lecture at the ITS (The Graduate Center, CUNY)
365 Fifth Avenue, New York, USA.
1:00 pm EST. Room 5209.

03/03/2024

New paper out!
“How to Do Maths with Words. Neural Machine Learning Applications to Mathematics and Their Philosophical Significance”. In: Sriraman, B. (eds) Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Springer, Cham. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-19071-2_142-1
[PDF]

28/01/2024

New paper out!
“Introduction to the Semiology of Mathematical Practices”. In: Sriraman, B. (eds) Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Springer, Cham. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-19071-2_130-2.
[PDF]

11/01/2024

New paper out!
With Tai-Danae Bradley and John Terilla
“The structure of meaning in language: parallel narratives in linear algebra and category theory”. Notices of the AMS (February 2024). DOI: 10.1090/noti2868
[PDF]

13/12/2023

New paper out!
“Computing Cultures: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives”.
In: Minds and Machines (2023). ISSN : 1572-8641. DOI : 10.1007/s11023-023-09653-x
[PDF]

10/11/2023

Des statistiques à l’algèbre et au-delà : la logique des normes émergentes en langage naturel. (with John Terilla)
Lecture at the workshop Logique, Langage et Computation .
IRPhiL, Lyon 3.
Lyon, France.
10:45 (CEST). Espace Marc Bloch, MSH-LSE 14, av. Berthelot.
[Slides]

13/09/2023

The Language of Mathematics. Epistemological Consequences of the Application of Neural Models to Mathematics
Lecture at PhilML’23.
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Tübingen, Germany.
14:00 (CEST). AI Research Building, Lecture Hall Maria-von-Linden-Str. 6.
[Slides]

24/05/2023

Structuralisme et Intelligence Artificielle
Lecture at the SPHePS Seminar
Paris, France.
17:00-20:00 (CEST)
[Slides]

02/05/2023

Understanding Language (Models): AI Language Models From a Structuralist Perspective
Lecture at the The Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen.
University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
14:00-19:00 (CEST). Søndre Campus, lokale 4A.0.56.
[Slides]

17/04/2023

The Language of Mathematics: Epistemological Consequences of Applying AI Methods to Mathematics
Lecture at the Research Seminar of the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas.
Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
17:00 pm (GMT+3). Gilman building (Humanities), room 496.
[Slides]

14/04/2023 - 21/05/2023

Visiting researcher at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas.
Exchange Program Knowledge in Society, ETH Zurich-Cohn Institute.

15/02/2023

Peeking into the AI Language Modeling Black Box
Lunch Talk at the Department of Philosophy, CMU.
5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
12:00 pm EST. Baker Hall, room 150.
[Slides]

03/02/2023

Why Can Computers Understand Natural Language?
Lecture at Digital Theory Lab, NYU.
12:00 pm EST. Zoom.
[Slides]

31/01/2023

Neural Approaches to Mathematics
Lecture at the ITS (The Graduate Center, CUNY)
365 Fifth Avenue, New York, USA.
10:00 am EST. Room 5209.

02/12/2022

Content from Expressions: from Distributional Properties of Numerals to Arithmetical Content
Lecture at the OCIE Seminar in the History and Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic (Chapman Universituy)
225 E Palm Ave, Orange, CA, USA. 4:00 pm PST. Doti Hall, Room 105.