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96Enactivism and the Perception of Others’ EmotionsMidwest Studies in Philosophy 41 (1): 105-129. 2017.According to ‘direct social perception’ (DSP) accounts of social cognition, perception may be ‘smart’ enough on its own to inform us about other people’s emotions. Some DSP advocates suggest that ‘smart’ social perception should be conceived along ‘enactive’ lines. In this paper, I suggest that DSP needs social perception to have representational content. This seems in tension with the main versions of enactivism, which deny that perception is representational. I thus present the following chall…Read more
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32Backlighting and OcclusionMind 132 (525): 63-83. 2023.In the philosophy of perception, objects are typically frontlit. But according to Roy Sorensen, backlit objects have surprising lessons to teach us about perception. In backlit conditions, ‘the principles of occlusion are reversed’, Sorensen (2008, p. 25) maintains. In particular, he claims we see the back surfaces of backlit objects. But as I argue in this paper, Sorensen’s arguments in support of those claims are flawed. After criticizing Sorensen’s arguments, I attempt to address a residual p…Read more
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13The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology (edited book)Routledge. 2011.Phenomenology was one of the twentieth century’s major philosophical movements and continues to be a vibrant and widely studied subject today. _The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology_ is an outstanding guide and reference source to the key philosophers, topics and themes in this exciting subject, and essential reading for any student or scholar of phenomenology. Comprising over fifty chapters by a team of international contributors, the _Companion_ is divided into five clear parts: main figure…Read more
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75Consciousness, belief, and the group mind hypothesisSynthese 198 (2): 1-25. 2019.According to the Group Mind Hypothesis, a group can have beliefs over and above the beliefs of the individual members of the group. Some maintain that there can be group mentality of this kind in the absence of any group-level phenomenal consciousness. We present a challenge to the latter view. First, we argue that a state is not a belief unless the owner of the state is disposed to access the state’s content in a corresponding conscious judgment. Thus, if there is no such thing as group conscio…Read more
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7Exposing the conjuring trick: Wittgenstein on subjectivityPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 3 (3): 263-286. 2004.Since the publication of the Philosophical Investigations in 1953, Wittgenstein''s later philosophy of mind has been the subject of numerous books and articles. Although most commentators agree that Wittgenstein was neither a behaviorist nor a Cartesian dualist, many continue to ascribe to him a position that strongly resembles one of the alternatives. In contrast, this paper argues that Wittgenstein was strongly opposed to behaviorism and Cartesianism, and that he was concerned to show that the…Read more
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444In the Light of Experience: New Essays on Perception and Reasons (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2018.
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17Disjunctivism and the urgency of scepticismPhilosophical Explorations 14 (1): 5-21. 2011.This paper argues that McDowell is right to claim that disjunctivism has anti-sceptical implications. While the disjunctive conception of experience leaves unaffected the Cartesian sceptical challenge, it undermines another type of sceptical challenge. Moreover, the sceptical challenge against which disjunctivism militates has some philosophical urgency in that it threatens the very notion that perceptual experience can acquaint us with the world around us.
Areas of Specialization
The Nature of Perceptual Experience |
The Perceptual Relation |
The Contents of Perception |