-
113Practical rationality is a problem in the philosophy of mindPhilosophical Issues 20 (1): 394-409. 2010.The philosophy of mind encompasses a familiar set of topics: consciousness, intentionality, mental causation, emotion, whatever topics in psychology happen to capture our interest (concepts, mindreading . . .), and so on. There is a topic deserving of addition to this list, a topic that should be receiving regular attention from philosophers of mind but is not: practical rationality. The philosophy of mind bears directly upon what can be called the ‘meta-theory’ of practical rationality, and met…Read more
-
100Moral responsibility and tourette syndromePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (1). 2005.Philosophers generally assume that individuals with Tourette syndrome are not responsible for their Tourettic tics, and so not blameworthy for any harm their tics might cause. Yet this assumption is based largely on ignorance of the lived experience of Tourette syndrome. Individuals with Tourette syndrome often experience their tics as freely chosen and reason-responsive. Yet it still seems wrong to treat a Tourettic individual’s tic as on a moral par with others’ actions. In this paper, I exami…Read more
-
310DesireStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 1 (6): 631-639. 2006.To desire is to be in a particular state of mind. It is a state of mind familiar to everyone who has ever wanted to drink water or desired to know what has happened to an old friend, but its familiarity does not make it easy to give a theory of desire. Controversy immediately breaks out when asking whether wanting water and desiring knowledge are, at bottom, the same state of mind as others that seem somewhat similar: wishing never to have been born, preferring mangoes to peaches, craving gin, h…Read more
-
110Unexpected pleasureIn Luc Faucher & Christine Tappolet (eds.), The modularity of emotions, University of Calgary Press. pp. 255-272. 2008.As topics in the philosophy of emotion, pleasure and displeasure get less than their fair share of attention. On the one hand, there is the fact that pleasure and displeasure are given no role at all in many theories of the emotions, and secondary roles in many others.1 On the other, there is the centrality of pleasure and displeasure to being emotional. A woman who tears up because of a blustery wind, while an ill-advised burrito weighs heavily upon her digestive tract, feels an impressive numb…Read more
-
65Reasons, Causes, and the Extended Mind HypothesisErkenntnis 81 (1): 41-57. 2016.In this paper we develop a novel argument against the extended mind hypothesis. Our argument constitutes an advance in the debate, insofar as we employ only premises that are acceptable to a coarse-grained functionalist, and we do not rely on functional disanalogies between putative examples of extended minds and ordinary human beings that are just a matter of fine detail or degree. Thus, we beg no questions against proponents of the extended mind hypothesis. Rather, our argument consists in mak…Read more
-
18Review of Graham MacDonald, David Papineau (eds.), Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (4). 2007.
Houston, Texas, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
2 more
Desire |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Action |
Moral Psychology |
Moral Reasoning and Motivation |
Musical Works |