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942Introduction: The Character of PhysicalismTopoi 37 (3): 435-455. 2018.The aim of this editorial introduction is twofold. First, Sects. 1–8 offer a critical introduction to the metaphysical character of physicalism. In those sections, I present and evaluate different ways in which proponents of physicalism have made explicit the metaphysical dependence that is said to hold between the non-physical and the physical. Some of these accounts are found to be problematic; others are shown to be somewhat more promising. In the end, som…Read more
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2880The good of boredomPhilosophical Psychology 31 (3): 323-351. 2018.I argue that the state of boredom (i.e., the transitory and non-pathological experience of boredom) should be understood to be a regulatory psychological state that has the capacity to promote our well-being by contributing to personal growth and to the construction (or reconstruction) of a meaningful life
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906Reasoning About the Mark of the Cognitive: A Response to Adams and Garrison (review)Minds and Machines (2): 1-11. 2013.I critically examine Adams and Garrison’s proposed necessary condition for the mark of the cognitive (Adams and Garrison in Minds Mach 23(3):339–352, 2013). After a brief presentation of their position, I argue not only that their proposal is in need of additional support, but also that it is too restrictive
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870The “New Mind” revisited, or minding the content/vehicle distinction: a response to Manzotti and PepperellAI and Society 28 (4): 461-466. 2013.I argue that Manzotti and Pepperell’s presentation of the New Mind not only obfuscates pertinent differences between externalist views of various strengths, but also, and most problematically, conflates a distinction that cannot, without consequences, be conflated. We can talk about the contents of the mind and/or about the vehicles of those contents. But we should not conflate the two. Conflation of contents and vehicles comes with a price. In Manzotti and Pepperell’s case, it undermines claims…Read more
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384The Upsurge of Spontaneity and the Rise of Undivided Subject: The Role and Place of Merleau-Ponty in the Dreyfus-McDowell DebateIn Lauren Freeman & Andreas Elpidorou (eds.), In/visibility: Perspectives on Inclusion and Exclusion, Institut Für Die Wissenschaften Vom Menschen. 2009.
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12061Affectivity in Heidegger I: Moods and Emotions in Being and TimePhilosophy Compass 10 (10): 661-671. 2015.This essay provides an analysis of the role of affectivity in Martin Heidegger's writings from the mid to late 1920s. We begin by situating his account of mood within the context of his project of fundamental ontology in Being and Time. We then discuss the role of Befindlichkeit and Stimmung in his account of human existence, explicate the relationship between the former and the latter, and consider the ways in which the former discloses the world. To give a more vivid and comprehensive picture …Read more
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126The Bright Side of BoredomFrontiers in Psychology 5. 2014.The essay argues that boredom is an affective state that monitors and regulates our behavior. Boredom informs us when we are out of tune with our interests and motivates us to engage in situations that are perceived by us as fulfilling or meaningful. Boredom is thus important. It promotes our interests by trying to keep us in touch with what we care about. And it safeguards us from emotional traps and long-term dullness.
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549Blocking the A Priori PassageActa Analytica 29 (3): 285-307. 2014.I defend the claim that physicalism is not committed to the view that non-phenomenal macrophysical truths are a priori entailed by the conjunction of microphysical truths , basic indexical facts , and a 'that's all' claim . I do so by showing that Chalmers and Jackson's most popular and influential argument in support of the claim that PIT ⊃ M is a priori, where 'M' stands for any ordinary, non-phenomenal, macroscopic truth, falls short of establishing its conclusion. My objection to Chalmers an…Read more
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2772Horror, Fear, and the Sartrean Account of EmotionsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 54 (2): 209-225. 2016.Phenomenological approaches to affectivity have long recognized the vital role that emotions occupy in our lives. In this paper, I engage with Jean-Paul Sartre's well-known and highly influential theory of the emotions as it is advanced in his Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions. I examine whether Sartre's account offers two inconsistent explications of the nature of emotions. I argue that despite appearances there is a reading of Sartre's theory that is free of inconsistencies. Ultimately, I hi…Read more
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2712The Significance of Boredom: A Sartrean ReadingIn Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Andreas Elpidorou & Walter Hopp (eds.), Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology: Conceptual and Empirical Approaches, Routledge. 2015.By examining boredom through the lens of Sartre’s account of the emotions, I argue for the significance of boredom. Boredom matters, I show, for it is both informative and regulatory of one’s behavior: it informs one of the presence of an unsatisfactory situation; and, at the same time, owing to its affective, cognitive, and volitional character, boredom motivates the pursuit of a new goal when the current goal ceases to be satisfactory, attractive, or meaningful. In the absent of boredom, one w…Read more
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1074Moods and Appraisals: How the Phenomenology and Science of Emotions Can Come TogetherHuman Studies (4): 1-27. 2013.In this paper, I articulate Heidegger’s notion of Befindlichkeit and show that his phenomenological account of affective existence can be understood in terms of contemporary work on emotions. By examining Heidegger’s account alongside contemporary accounts of emotions, I not only demonstrate the ways in which key aspects of the former are present in the latter; I also explicate in detail the ways in which our understanding of Befindlichkeit and its relationship to moods and emotions can benefit …Read more
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227Alva noë: Out of our heads: Why you are not your brain, and other lessons from the biology of consciousness (review)Minds and Machines 20 (1): 155-159. 2010.
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573The Embodied and Social Dimensions of Free Will: The Value of PhenomenologyAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 6 (2): 23-24. 2015.
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825The New Science of the Mind: From Extended Mind to Embodied PhenomenologyPhilosophical Psychology 25 (5): 771-774. 2012.Philosophical Psychology, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-4, Ahead of Print
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255Dan Zahavi (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2013.
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1621Affectivity in Heidegger II: Temporality, Boredom, and BeyondPhilosophy Compass 10 (10): 672-684. 2015.In ‘Affectivity in Heidegger I: Moods and Emotions in Being and Time’, we explicated the crucial role that Martin Heidegger assigns to our capacity to affectively find ourselves in the world. There, our discussion was restricted to Division I of Being and Time. Specifically, we discussed how Befindlichkeit as a basic existential and moods as the ontic counterparts of Befindlichkeit make circumspective engagement with the world possible. Indeed, according to Heidegger, it is primarily through moo…Read more
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1052Having it Both Ways: Consciousness, Unique Not OtherworldlyPhilosophia 41 (4): 1181-1203. 2013.I respond to Chalmers’ (2006, 2010) objection to the Phenomenal Concept Strategy (PCS) by showing that his objection is faced with a dilemma that ultimately undercuts its force. Chalmers argues that no version of PCS can posit psychological features that are both physically explicable and capable of explaining our epistemic situation. In response, I show that what Chalmers calls ‘our epistemic situation’ admits either of a phenomenal or of a topic-neutral characterization, neither of which suppo…Read more
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60In/visibility: Perspectives on Inclusion and Exclusion (edited book)Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen. 2009.
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1095Phenomenal ConceptsOxford Bibliographies Online. 2015.Phenomenal concepts are the concepts that we deploy when – but arguably not only when – we introspectively examine, focus on, or take notice of the phenomenal character of our experiences. They refer to phenomenal properties (or qualities) and they do so in a subjective (first-personal) and direct (non-relational) manner. It is through the use of such concepts that the phenomenal character of our experiences is made salient to us. Discourse about the nature of phenomenal concepts plays an i…Read more
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1458A Posteriori Physicalism and IntrospectionPacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (1): 474-500. 2017.Introspection presents our phenomenal states in a manner otherwise than physical. This observation is often thought to amount to an argument against physicalism: if introspection presents phenomenal states as they essentially are, then phenomenal states cannot be physical states, for we are not introspectively aware of phenomenal states as physical states. In this article, I examine whether this argument threatens a posteriori physicalism. I argue that as along as proponents of a posteriori phys…Read more
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1591The Moral Dimensions of Boredom: A call for researchReview of General Psychology 21 (1): 30-48. 2017.Despite the impressive progress that has been made on both the empirical and conceptual fronts of boredom research, there is one facet of boredom that has received remarkably little attention. This is boredom's relationship to morality. The aim of this article is to explore the moral dimensions of boredom and to argue that boredom is a morally relevant personality trait. The presence of trait boredom hinders our capacity to flourish and in doing so hurts our prospects for a moral life.
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1069Embodied Conceivability: How to Keep the Phenomenal Concept Strategy GroundedMind and Language 31 (5): 580-611. 2016.The Phenomenal Concept Strategy offers the physicalist perhaps the most promising means of explaining why the connection between mental facts and physical facts appears to be contingent even though it is not. In this article, we show that the large body of evidence suggesting that our concepts are often embodied and grounded in sensorimotor systems speaks against standard forms of the PCS. We argue, nevertheless, that it is possible to formulate a novel version of the PCS that is thoroughly in k…Read more
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618The Phenomenology and Science of Emotions: An IntroductionPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13 (4): 507-511. 2014.Phenomenology, perhaps more than any other single movement in philosophy, has been key in bringing emotions to the foreground of philosophical consideration. This is in large part due to the ways in which emotions, according to phenomenological analyses, are revealing of basic structures of human existence. Indeed, it is partly and, according to some phenomenologists, even primarily through our emotions that the world is disclosed to us, that we become present to and make sense of ourselves, and…Read more
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44Gdzie jest mój umysł? Mark Rowlands o nośnikach poznaniaAvant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 3 (1). 2012.[Przekład] Czy nasze umysły wykraczają poza nasze mózgi? W serii swoich publikacji Mark Rowlands argumentuje za pozytywną odpowiedzią na to pytanie. Zgodnie z Rowlandsem pewne typy działań w cielesnych lub materialnych układach należy rozpatrywać jako właściwe i dosłowne elementy naszych procesów poznawczych czy mentalnych. W niniejszym artykule dokonuję krytycznego omówienia stanowiska Rowlandsa
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22Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology: Conceptual and Empirical Approaches (edited book)Routledge. 2015.This volume identifies and develops how philosophy of mind and phenomenology interact in both conceptual and empirically-informed ways. The objective is to demonstrate that phenomenology, as the first-personal study of the contents and structures of our mentality, can provide us with insights into the understanding of the mind and can complement strictly analytical or empirically informed approaches to the study of the mind. Insofar as phenomenology, as the study or science of phenomena, allows …Read more
Louisville, Kentucky, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
3 more
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Phenomenal Concepts |
Formulating Physicalism |
Boredom |
Explaining Consciousness? |
Consciousness and Materialism |
Emotions, Misc |
PhilPapers Editorships
Physicalism |
Dualism |
Psychophysical Supervenience |
Moods |
Boredom |