Daniel Hoek

Daniel Hoek researches the philosophy of language and mathematics, and has written about loose talk, questions, choices, probability and infinity. Before coming to Virginia Tech, Hoek was a Louis Skolnick postdoc at Princeton, and completed his PhD at NYU under Cian Dorr. Hoek is a regular visitor of the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris.

Hoek is interested in conversational exculpature, a pragmatic process by which information is subtracted from what we literally say. This can account for a range of linguistic phenomena, including loose talk and some metaphors. His other major research project is on inquisitive decision theory, an account of belief-guided action that emphasises the centrality of questions in decision-making.