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8Natural MindIn Kelly James Clark (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism, Wiley. 2016.Naturalism concerning the mental is the belief that the tools and concepts of natural science are necessary to achieve an understanding of the mind. After briefly setting the stage of naturalism and the mind, I pose the question of naturalism about the mind in its historical context, comparing the development of naturalist approaches to philosophy of mind to Russell's “hiving off” model of the history of Western philosophy, in which parts of philosophy have split away from the field as we have d…Read more
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83Conspiracy Theory and (or as) Folk PsychologySocial Epistemology 37 (4): 413-422. 2023.One issue within conspiracy theory theory is whether, or to what extent, our central concept – – should map on to the common, lay sense of the term. Some conspiracy theory theorists insist that we use the term as everyday people use it. So, for example, if the term has a pejorative connotation in everyday parlance, then academic work on the concept should reflect that. Other conspiracy theory theorists take a more revisionist approach, arguing instead that while their use of the theoretical conc…Read more
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Nonhuman animal sensesIn Mohan Matthen (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Perception, Oxford University Press Uk. 2015.
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Cognitive Science as the Computational Neuroethology of Intelligent Behavior: Why Biological Facts Are Important for Explaining Intelligent BehaviorDissertation, University of California, San Diego. 1997.Are the details and facts of biology important to Cognitive Science ? Whether biological facts, for example, neurobiological facts, are important to CogSci is a controversial issue. On one side of this debate are those who argue that psychology is independent of neural considerations. They contend that arguments for functionalism in the philosophy of mind show that higher level, "special" sciences, such as psychology, are independent of implementation level sciences, such as neurobiology. On the…Read more
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2504The applied epistemology of conspiracy theories: An overviewIn David Coady & James Chase (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology, Routledge. pp. 284-294. 2018.An overview of the current epistemic literature concerning conspiracy theories, as well as indications for future research avenues on the topic.
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90Neuroethology and the philosophy of cognitive sciencePhilosophy of Science 67 (S1): 404-418. 2000.Neuroethology is a branch of biology that studies the neural basis of naturally occurring animal behavior. This science, particularly a recent program called computational neuroethology, has a similar structure to the interdisciplinary endeavor of cognitive science. I argue that it would be fruitful to conceive of cognitive science as the computational neuroethology of humans. However, there are important differences between the two sciences, including the fact that neuroethology is much more co…Read more
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116Anthropomorphism, primatomorphism, mammalomorphism: Understanding cross-species comparisonsBiology and Philosophy 19 (4): 521-540. 2004.The charge that anthropomorphizing nonhuman animals is a fallacy is itself largely misguided and mythic. Anthropomorphism in the study of animal behavior is placed in its original, theological context. Having set the historical stage, I then discuss its relationship to a number of other, related issues: the role of anecdotal evidence, the taxonomy of related anthropomorphic claims, its relationship to the attribution of psychological states in general, and the nature of the charge of anthropomor…Read more
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48Science at the Frontiers: Perspectives on the History and Philosophy of ScienceLexington Books. 2011.Compiled by an archaeologist and philosopher of science, Science at the Frontiers: Perspectives on the History and Philosophy of Science supplements current literature in the history and philosophy of science with essays approaching the traditional problems of the field from new perspectives and highlighting disciplines usually overlooked by the canon. William H. Krieger brings together scientists from a number of disciplines to answer these questions and more in a volume appropriate for both st…Read more
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63Speculative Fiction and the Philosophy of PerceptionMidwest Studies in Philosophy 39 (1): 169-181. 2015.After first noting that I seek to broaden the definition of science fiction to a little more loosely defined speculative fiction, this essay explores four different ways in which fiction can work together with both the sciences and the philosophy of perception. This cooperation is needed because there is much about the sensory worlds of humans and non-human animals of which we continue to be ignorant. First, speculative fiction can be a source of hypotheses about the nature of the senses. Second…Read more
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54Making Sense of the Senses: Individuating Modalities in Humans and Other AnimalsIn Fiona Macpherson (ed.), The Senses: Classic and Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives, Oxford University Press. pp. 220. 2011.After first noting that I seek to broaden the definition of science fiction to a little more loosely defined speculative fiction, this essay explores four different ways in which fiction can work together with both the sciences and the philosophy of perception. This cooperation is needed because there is much about the sensory worlds of humans and non-human animals of which we continue to be ignorant. First, speculative fiction can be a source of hypotheses about the nature of the senses. Second…Read more
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1723Of conspiracy theoriesJournal of Philosophy 96 (3): 109-126. 1999.As the end of the Millennium approaches, conspiracy theories are increasing in number and popularity. In this short essay, I offer an analysis of conspiracy theories inspired by Hume's discussion of miracles. My first conclusion is that whereas Hume can argue that miracles are, by definition, explanations we are not warranted in believing, there is nothing analytic that will allow us to distinguish good from bad conspiracy theories. There is no a priori method for distinguishing warranted conspi…Read more
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25Against the global replacement: On the application of the philosophy of artificial intelligence to artificial lifeIn C. G. Langton (ed.), Artificial Life Iii: Proceedings of the Workshop on Artificial Life, Reading, Mass: Addison-wesley. 1994.This paper is a complement to the recent wealth of literature suggesting a strong philosophical relationship between artificial life (A-Life) and artificial intelligence (AI). I seek to point out where this analogy seems to break down, or where it would lead us to draw incorrect conclusions about the philosophical situation of A-Life. First, I sketch a thought experiment (based on the work of Tom Ray) that suggests how a certain subset of A-Life experiments should be evaluated. In doing so, I su…Read more
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143Shocking lessons from electric fish: The theory and practice of multiple realizationPhilosophy of Science 67 (3): 444-465. 2000.This paper explores the relationship between psychology and neurobiology in the context of cognitive science. Are the sciences that constitute cognitive science independent and theoretically autonomous, or is there a necessary interaction between them? I explore Fodor's Multiple Realization Thesis (MRT) which starts with the fact of multiple realization and purports to derive the theoretical autonomy of special sciences (such as psychology) from structural sciences (such as neurobiology). After …Read more
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361Making Sense of the SensesJournal of Philosophy 99 (1): 5-28. 2002.How ought we differentiate the senses? What, say, distinguishes vision from audition? The question comes in two versions. First, there is the traditional problem of individuating the senses in humans. Second, there is also an important question about what sensory modalities we ought to attribute to non-human animals, a version of the question that has been virtually ignored by philosophers. Modality ought to be construed as an “avenue into” an organism for information external to the central ne…Read more
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42In Western common sense, one speaks of there being five human senses, a claim apparently challenged by the biological and psychological sciences. Part of this challenge comes in the form of claiming the existence of additional senses. Part of the challenge comes from positing multiple senses where common sense only speaks of one, such as with the fractionation of “touch” into pressure and temperature senses. One conceptual difficulty in thinking about the number and division of senses is that it…Read more
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127Paul Churchland (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2005.This collection offers an introduction to Churchland's work, as well as a critique of some of his most famous philosophical positions.
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68Fixing content and function in neurobiological systems: The neuroethology of electroreception (review)Biology and Philosophy 14 (3): 395-430. 1999.Are attributions of content and function determinate, or is there no fact of the matter to be fixed? Daniel Dennett has argued in favor of indeterminacy and concludes that, in practice, content and function cannot be fixed. The discovery of an electrical modality in vertebrates offers one concrete instance where attributions of function and content are supported by a strong scientific consensus. A century ago, electroreception was unimagined, whereas today it is widely believed that many species…Read more
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1The Early History of the Quale and Its Relation to the SensesIn Sarah Robins, John Symons & Paco Calvo (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology, Routledge. 2009.
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168Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition! More thoughts on conspiracy theoriesJournal of Social Philosophy 34 (1): 104-110. 2003.Largely a response to Lee Basham’s essay “Malevolent Global Conspiracy.” After presenting an update on the status of conspiracy theories surrounding the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, I agree with Basham that falsification and paranoia are not effective ways to criticize conspiratorial thinking. However, I am not convinced with the case Basham presents against worries that conspiracy theories often falter by overestimating the ability of large, public institutions to be secretly and effectively co…Read more
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92Artificial life for philosophersPhilosophical Psychology 11 (2). 1998.Artificial life (ALife) is the attempt to create artificial instances of life in a variety of media, but primarily within the digital computer. As such, the field brings together computationally-minded biologists and biologically-minded computer scientists. I argue that this new field is filled with interesting philosophical issues. However, there is a dearth of philosophers actively conducting research in this area. I discuss two books on the new field: Margaret A. Boden's The philosophy of art…Read more
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1The unexpected realistIn Brian L. Keeley (ed.), Paul Churchland, Cambridge University Press. 2006.There are two ways to do the unexpected. The banal way—let's call it the expectedly unexpected—is simply to chart the waters of what is and is not done, and then set out to do something different. For a philosopher, this can be done by embracing a method of non sequitor or by perhaps inverting some strongly held assumption of the field. The more interesting way— the unexpectedly unexpected—is to transform the expectations themselves; to do something new and contextualize it in such a way that it…Read more
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78Review of Leslie Brothers' mistaken identity: The mind-brain problem reconsidered (new York: Suny, 2001) (review)Brain and Mind 3 (3): 409-412. 2002.
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309God as the Ultimate Conspiracy TheoryEpisteme 4 (2): 135-149. 2007.Traditional secular conspiracy theories and explanations of worldly events in terms of supernatural agency share interesting epistemic features. This paper explores what can be called “supernatural conspiracy theories”, by considering such supernatural explanations through the lens of recent work on the epistemology of secular conspiracy theories. After considering the similarities and the differences between the two types of theories, the prospects for agnosticism both with respect to secular c…Read more
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15The role of neurobiology in differentiating the sensesIn John Bickle (ed.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and neuroscience, Oxford University Press. pp. 226--250. 2009.It is common to account for our senses on the basis of our sensory organs. One way of glossing why Aristotle famously counted five senses—and why his count became common sense in the West and elsewhere—is because there are five rather obvious organs of sense. In more modern accounts, this organ criterion of the senses has transformed into a neurobiological criterion; that is to say, part of what it means to be a sense is to have an associated organ with appropriate physiological properties. For …Read more
Claremont, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Biology |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |