•  18
    Skateboarding as Discordant: A Rhythmanalysis of Disaster Leisure
    with Paul O'Connor
    Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 17 (2): 172-184. 2022.
    Research on skateboarding has sought to define it, place it in a spatial-temporal schema, and analyse its social and cultural dimensions. We expand upon skateboarding’s relationship with time using the Marxist theorist Henri Lefebvre’s temporal science of Rhythmanalysis. With the disruption of urban social production of capital by the Covid-19 pandemic, we find skateboarding renewed in urban disjuncture from Capitalism and argue that this separation is central to its performance and culture. We …Read more
  •  8
    Book Review: I Told Me So: Self-deception and the Christian Life (review)
    Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 3 (1): 107-108. 2010.
    I argue that self-deception cannot play a role in a well-examined life, against the author's claim that self-deception is a useful toolkit for a meaningful life of a religious believer.
  •  294
    In 1688 the Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux sent a letter to the philosopher John Locke. In it, he asked him a question: could someone who was born blind, and able to distinguish a globe and a cube by touch, be able to immediately distinguish and name these shapes by sight if given the ability to see? The philosophical puzzle offered in Molyneux’s letter fascinated not only Locke, but major thinkers such as Leibniz, Berkeley, Diderot, Reid, and numerous others including psycholog…Read more
  •  94
    The study of perception and the role of the senses have recently risen to prominence in philosophy and are now a major area of study and research. However, the philosophical history of the senses remains a relatively neglected subject. Moving beyond the current philosophical canon, this outstanding collection offers a wide-ranging and diverse philosophical exploration of the senses, from the classical period to the present day. Written by a team of international contributors, it is divided into …Read more
  •  1101
    The Concept of Affectivity in Early Modern Philosophy (edited book)
    with Gábor Boros, Judit Szalai, and Oliver Toth
    Eötvös Loránd University Press. 2017.
    Collection of papers presented at the First Budapest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy.
  •  19
    Defining Sport: Conceptions and Borderlines (edited book)
    with Shawn E. Klein, Chad Carlson, Francisco Javier López Frías, Kevin Schieman, Heather L. Reid, John McClelland, Keith Strudler, Pam R. Sailors, Sarah Teetzel, Charlene Weaving, Chrysostomos Giannoulakis, Lindsay Pursglove, Teresa González Aja, Joan Grassbaugh Forry, Brody J. Ruihley, Andrew Billings, Coral Rae, and Joey Gawrysiak
    Lexington Books. 2016.
    This book examines influential conceptions of sport and then analyses the interplay of challenging borderline cases with the standard definitions of sport. It is meant to inspire more thought and debate on just what sport is, how it relates to other activities and human endeavors, and what we can learn about ourselves by studying sport.
  •  23
    Book Review (review)
    Journal of Scottish Philosophy 15 (1): 148-151. 2017.
  •  75
    Molyneux's Question
    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2012.
    Molyneux’s Question, also known as Molyneux’s Problem, soon became a fulcrum for early research in the epistemology of concepts, challenging common intuitions about how our concepts originate, whether sensory features differentiate concepts, and how concepts are utilized in novel contexts. It was reprinted and discussed by a wide range of early modern philosophers, including Gottfried Leibniz, George Berkeley, and Adam Smith, and was perhaps the most important problem in the burgeoning disciplin…Read more
  •  665
    Molyneux’s question, whether the newly sighted might immediately recognize tactilely familiar shapes by sight alone, has produced an array of answers over three centuries of debate and discussion. I propose the first pluralist response: many different answers, both yes and no, are individually sufficient as an answer to the question as a whole. I argue that this is possible if we take the question to be cluster concept of sub-problems. This response opposes traditional answers that isolate speci…Read more
  •  60
    Adam Smith and the Problem of the External World
    Journal of Scottish Philosophy 9 (2): 205-223. 2011.
    How does the mind attribute external causes to internal sensory experiences? Adam Smith addresses this question in his little known essay ‘Of the External Senses.’ I closely examine Smith's various formulations of this problem and then argue for an interpretation of his solution: that inborn perceptual mechanisms automatically generate external attributions of internal experiences. I conclude by speculating that these mechanisms are best understood to operate by simulating tactile environments.
  •  104
    Leibniz on Molyneux's Question
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 29 (3): 247-264. 2012.
    Might the once-blind recognize shapes familiar to the touch by sight alone? “Not”, replied both Locke and the question’s designer, William Molyneux. Leibniz, by contrast, replied, “yes” to Molyneux’s Question. However, Leibniz’s reason for his affirmative answer has yet to be discussed directly with any depth, a lacuna this paper seeks to address. The main contention of this paper is that Leibniz cannot think that sensory representations based on the sight and touch of shape sufficient for thi…Read more