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397Affective Consciousness and Moral StatusOxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind. forthcoming.Which beings have moral status? This paper argues that moral status requires some capacity for affective consciousness. David Chalmers rejects this view on the grounds that it denies moral status to Vulcans – namely, conscious creatures with no capacity for affective consciousness. On his more inclusive view, all conscious beings have moral status. Although we agree that consciousness is required for moral status, we disagree about how to explain this. I argue that we cannot explain why unconsci…Read more
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377Introspection and Consciousness: An OverviewIn Daniel Stoljar & Declan Smithies (eds.), Introspection and Consciousness, Oxford University Press. 2012.Introspection stands at the interface between two major currents in philosophy and related areas of science: on the one hand, there are metaphysical and scientific questions about the nature of consciousness; and on the other hand, there are normative and epistemological questions about the nature of self-knowledge. Introspection seems tied up with consciousness, to the point that some writers define consciousness in terms of introspection; and it is also tied up with self-knowledge, since intro…Read more
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300Introspection and Consciousness (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2012.The topic of introspection stands at the interface between questions in epistemology about the nature of self-knowledge and questions in the philosophy of mind about the nature of consciousness. What is the nature of introspection such that it provides us with a distinctive way of knowing about our own conscious mental states? And what is the nature of consciousness such that we can know about our own conscious mental states by introspection? How should we understand the relationship between con…Read more
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214Inference Without the Taking ConditionIn Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford & Matthias Steup (eds.), Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles, Routledge. pp. 130-146. 2023.What is involved in making an inference? This chapter argues against what Paul Boghossian calls the Taking Condition: "Inferring necessarily involves the thinker taking his premises to support his conclusion and drawing his conclusion because of that fact" (2014: 5). I won’t argue that the Taking Condition is incoherent: that nothing can coherently play the role that takings are supposed to play in inference. Instead, I’ll argue that it cannot plausibly explain all the inferential knowledge that…Read more
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207The Epistemic Role of ConsciousnessOxford University Press. 2019.What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? Declan Smithies argues here that consciousness is essential to explaining how we can acquire knowledge and justified belief about ourselves and the world around us. On this view, unconscious beings cannot form justified beliefs and so they cannot know anything at all. Consciousness is the ultimate basis of all knowledge and epistemic justification.
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136Discussion of Susanna Siegel's “Can perceptual experiences be rational?”Analytic Philosophy 59 (1): 175-190. 2018.
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101Discussion of James Pryor's “The Merits of Incoherence”Analytic Philosophy 59 (1): 142-148. 2018.
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87Teaching and Learning Guide for Cognitive PhenomenologyPhilosophy Compass 8 (10): 999-1002. 2013.This is a teaching and learning guide that accompanies "The Nature of Cognitive Phenomenology" and "The Significance of Cognitive Phenomenology".
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37DefendingThe Epistemic Role of Consciousness: Replies to Byrne, Gertler and KornblithAnalysis 81 (4): 803-816. 2022.
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33Replies to Feldman, Greco, and MalmgrenPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (3): 804-821. 2023.
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27The epistemic role of consciousnessPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (3): 778-780. 2023.
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20Themes from The Epistemic Role of ConsciousnessAsian Journal of Philosophy 1 (1): 1-3. 2022.In The Epistemic Role of Consciousness, I argue that phenomenal consciousness plays an indispensable role in explaining our knowledge and justified beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. Without phenomenal consciousness, we cannot know anything at all. The book develops a systematic theory of epistemic justification that applies to knowledge of every kind. In this brief summary, however, I will focus on the epistemology of perception, since that is the main topic addressed by the comme…Read more
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18Replies to criticsAsian Journal of Philosophy 1 (1): 1-15. 2022.I reply to my critics in this symposium on my book, The Epistemic Role of Consciousness.
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Why justification mattersIn David K. Henderson & John Greco (eds.), Epistemic Evaluation: Purposeful Epistemology, Oxford University Press Uk. 2015.
Columbus, Ohio, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |