Publications

With abbreviated abstracts.

14. "The common kind theory and the concept of perceptual experience," Erkenntnis, forthcoming: I advance a new hypothesis about the ordinary concept of perceptual experience. This hypothesis provides some support for the common kind theory.

13. "Naïve realism with many fundamental kinds," Acta Analytica, forthcoming: Naïve realists usually assume that any perception belongs to exactly one fundamental kind. I find this assumption pernicious.

12. "The fragmentation of phenomenal character," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research," 2021 (online): I argue that philosophers have used the expression "phenomenal character" with at least three very different referents in mind.

11. "A new argument for the rationality of perception," Acta Analytica, 2020: Taking inspiration from Susanna Siegel, I provide a new argument that perceptual experiences can be rational or irrational.

10. "Phenomenal, normative, and other explanatory gaps: A general diagnosis," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2017/2019 (online/print): I suggest that certain anti-reductivist arguments - about consciousness, normativity, intentionality, and more - can be fitted to a common template. I then offer a general, reductivist-friendly response to all arguments fitting that template.

9. "Can grounding characterize fundamentality?," Analysis, 2017: For all that has been said so far - yes.

8. "On the generality of experience," with co-author Todd Ganson, Philosophical Studies, 2016: In my (2014), I argue that external particulars are never part of phenomenal character. Craig French and Anil Gomes (2015) criticize those arguments. Here Todd Ganson and I rebut their criticisms.

7. "Knowledge and other norms for assertion, action, and belief," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2015/2016 (online/print): I advance a unified and knowledge-centered account of the structure of epistemic normativity. It is far superior to extant knowledge-centered accounts primarily because of its fierce pluralism about epistemic norms.

6. “The limited role of particulars in phenomenal experience,” Journal of Philosophy, 2014: I argue that external particulars are sometimes parts of experience but are never parts of phenomenal character.

5. “Beyond transparency: the spatial argument for experiential externalism,” Philosophers’ Imprint, 2013: I argue from the premise that all experiences have a pervasively spatial character to the conclusion that phenomenal character sometimes, and perhaps almost always, consists of properties external to the subject.

4. “Is there a phenomenological argument for higher-order representationalism?,” Philosophical Studies, 2013: There is not.

3. “How to explain the explanatory gap,” Dialectica, 2013: Grant that there is an explanatory gap between the physical and the phenomenal. The best explanation, I argue, is that our phenomenal concepts are semantically basic. This result squares better with physicalism than anti-physicalism.

2. “General and specific consciousness: a first-order representationalist approach,” with George Mashour (neuroscientist/anesthesiologist) as second author, Frontiers in Consciousness Research, 2013: Divide the problem of consciousness in two: what makes a state conscious at all, and what gives a state its specific phenomenal character? We argue that neuroscientific data best support the first-order representationalist's answers to these questions.

1. “Exploring subjective representationalism,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2012: I exhibit several advantages of the view that experiences represent some mind-dependent properties over the view that they exclusively represent mind-independent properties.

Book review

1. Review of Michael Madary's Visual Phenomenology, Philosophical Review, 2019: Madary holds that vision is an ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. I find this thesis to be a promising one.

Unpublished

I quite like the paper below, though I do not expect that it will ever be published.

1. "Humeanism and the categorical character of epistemic normativity." I show how to square three seemingly inconsistent claims. Roughly put: (1) That basic practical reasons are always fully grounded in desires. (2) That basic practical reasons and basic epistemic reasons belong to a genuine kind. (3) That basic epistemic reasons are never even partly grounded in desires.

Manuscripts

Comments are very welcome. You can email me here.

1. The Many Problems of Perception. This book defends a new, pluralist theory of perception, which says that any conscious perception constitutively involves two very different kinds of awareness.

Ch. 1 provides a 4-page overview of pluralism.
Ch. 2 argues that there are many kinds of "phenomenal character."
Ch. 3 discusses an important form of consciousness.
Ch. 4 discusses perception.
Ch. 5 discusses why perceptual experiences seem presentational.
Ch. 6 discusses hallucination.
Ch. 7 explains how perceptions position us to conceive of objects and properties in certain ways.

2. "Invariantism, contextualism, and the explanatory power of knowledge." I argue that contextualism is better suited than invariantism for the project of explaining behavior in terms of knowledge.