•  577
    Comments on Ismael's "double-mindedness: A model for a dual content cognitive architecture?"
    PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 12. 2006.
    Two general worries are raised for the dual content approach to consciousness as presented by Ismael in
  •  389
    The Spatial Content of Experience
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (1): 146-184. 2010.
    To what extent is the external world the way that it appears to us in perceptual experience? This perennial question in philosophy is no doubt ambiguous in many ways. For example, it might be taken as equivalent to the question of whether or not the external world is the way that it appears to be? This is a question about the epistemology of perception: Are our perceptual experiences by and large veridical representations of the external world? Alternatively, the question might be taken as askin…Read more
  •  318
    Representationalism and the argument from hallucination
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 89 (3): 384-412. 2008.
    Phenomenal character is determined by representational content, which both hallucinatory and veridical experiences can share. But in the case of veridical experience, unlike hallucination, the external objects of experience literally have the properties one is aware of in experience. The representationalist can accept the common factor assumption without having to introduce sensory intermediaries between the mind and the world, thus securing a form of direct realism
  •  298
    Moral value, response-dependence, and rigid designation
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 36 (1): 71-94. 2006.
    Furthermore, moral facts do seem to bear an intimate relationship to our moral attitudes and capacities. It is perhaps inconceivable that, at the end of moral deliberation and inquiry, fully rational human beings invested with our moral concepts could be radically incorrect in their moral beliefs. Moral properties seem to be essentially knowable. We hope that the fundamental truths of physics are epistemically available to us, but our conception of the physical world certainly does not guarantee…Read more
  •  242
    Most philosophers who have endorsed the idea that there is such a thing as phenomenal content—content that supervenes on phenomenal character—have also endorsed what I call Standard Russellianism. According to Standard Russellianism, phenomenal content is Russellian in nature, and the properties represented by perceptual experiences are mind-independent physical properties. In agreement with Sydney Shoemaker [Shoemaker, S. (1994). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 54 249–314], I argue th…Read more
  •  240
    Shoemaker on phenomenal content
    Philosophical Studies 135 (3): 307--334. 2007.
    In a series of papers and lectures, Sydney Shoemaker has developed a sophisticated Russellian theory of phenomenal content. It has as its central motivation two considerations. One is the possibility of spectrum - inversion without illusion. The other is the transparency of experience
  •  240
    Color constancy and Russellian representationalism
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (1): 75-94. 2006.
    Representationalism, the view that phenomenal character supervenes on intentional content, has attracted a wide following in recent years. Most representationalists have also endorsed what I call 'standard Russellianism'. According to standard Russellianism, phenomenal content is Russellian in nature, and the properties represented by perceptual experiences are mind-independent physical properties. I argue that standard Russellianism conflicts with the everyday experience of colour constancy. Du…Read more
  •  201
    Senses for senses
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (1). 2009.
    If two subjects have phenomenally identical experiences, there is an important sense in which the way the world appears to them is precisely the same. But how are we to understand this notion of 'ways of appearing'? Most philosophers who have acknowledged the existence of phenomenal content have held that the way something appears is simply a matter of the properties something appears to have. On this view, the way something appears is simply the way something appears to be . This identification…Read more
  •  167
    Phenomenally Mine: In Search of the Subjective Character of Consciousness
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 8 (1): 103-127. 2017.
    It’s a familiar fact that there is something it is like to see red, eat chocolate or feel pain. More recently philosophers have insisted that in addition to this objectual phenomenology there is something it is like for me to eat chocolate, and this for-me-ness is no less there than the chocolatishness. Recognizing this subjective feature of consciousness helps shape certain theories of consciousness, introspection and the self. Though it does this heavy philosophical work, and it is supposed to…Read more
  •  11
    Moral Value, Response-Dependence, and Rigid Designation
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 36 (1): 71-94. 2006.
    It is part of our notion of moral properties (certain forms of relativism to the contrary) that they are in some sense independent of our moral beliefs. A murderer cannot make his action moral simply by believing that it is so. Slavery was immoral even if a large number of people once believed that it was permissible, and it would remain so in the future even if every person came to believe that it was morally acceptable. But views that take moral properties to be objective and thoroughly mind-i…Read more
  •  2
    Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind (review)
    The Philosophers' Magazine 93 112-114. 2021.