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. 2. 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. 1. "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. |