I am an associate professor of philosophy at Yale-NUS College.
My main research project is to defend the pluralist theory of perception. According to pluralism, when I see an orange mango, my conscious perception consists of two importantly different kinds of direct awareness that are exercised in concert. First, I deploy a successful sensory representation of the mango and its instances of orange. This explains various differences between perception and hallucination. Second, I am non-representationally aware of the universal orange itself in a way that reveals part -- but not all -- of its essence. This deep awareness explains various similarities between perception and hallucination. I also have some side projects. One is to consider questions about grounding and fundamentality. Another is to offer a reductive theory of normativity, with emphasis on epistemic normativity. On my telic internalist view, any subject's having a foundational reason to φ is grounded primarily in her having a final personal aim of φ-ing. Roughly, whether this aim is conative or cognitive then determines whether the foundational reason is practical or epistemic. In my spare time, I do improv comedy and run role-playing games. My current campaign follows a team of superheroes in the fictional Shark City, California. I dance salsa and bachata, too: 2019 mix; 2019 ballroom; 2018 bachata; 2018 salsa. |