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675Is the appearance of shape protean?PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 12 1-16. 2006.</b>This commentary focuses on shape constancy in vision and its relation to sensorimotor knowledge. I contrast “Protean” and “Constancian” views about how to describe perspectival changes in the appearance of an object’s shape. For the Protean, these amount to changes in apparent shape; for Constance, things are not merely judged, but literally appear constant in shape. I give reasons in favor of the latter view, and argue that Noë’s attempt to combine aspects of both views in a “dual aspect” a…Read more
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495Phenomenality and Self-ConsciousnessIn Uriah Kriegel (ed.), Phenomenal Intentionality, Oxford University Press. pp. 235. 2013.
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318On the Phenomenology of IntrospectionIn Declan Smithies & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Introspection and Consciousness, Oxford University Press. pp. 129. 2012.
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300In favor of (plain) phenomenologyPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (1-2): 201-220. 2007.Plain phenomenology explains theoretically salient mental or psychological distinctions with an appeal to their first-person applications. But it does not assume that warrant for such first-person judgment is derived from an explanatory theory constructed from the third-person perspective. Discussions in historical phenomenology can be treated as plain phenomenology. This is illustrated by a critical consideration of Brentano’s account of consciousness, drawing on some ideas in early Husserl. De…Read more
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227The Significance of ConsciousnessPrinceton University Press. 1998."This is a marvelous book, full of subtle, thoughtful, and original argument
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198Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First‐Person Perspective (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (3): 840-843. 2008.No Abstract
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165Socratic introspection and the abundance of experienceJournal of Consciousness Studies 18 (1): 63-91. 2011.I examine the prospects of using Hurlburt's DES method to justify his very 'thin'view of experience, on which visual experience is so infrequent as to be typically absent when reading and speaking. Such justification would seem to be based on the claim that, in DES 'beeper' samples, subjects often deny they just had any visual experi-ence. But if the question of 'visual experience' is properly construed, then it is doubtful they are deny-ing this. And even if they were, that would not generally …Read more
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111Attention and sensorimotor intentionalityIn David Woodruff Smith & Amie L. Thomasson (eds.), Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind, Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 270. 2005.
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100For Analytic PhenomenologyIn Harald A. Wiltsche & Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl (eds.), Analytic and Continental Philosophy: Methods and Perspectives. Proceedings of the 37th International Wittgenstein Symposium, De Gruyter. pp. 95-110. 2016.
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98Precis of The Significance of ConsciousnessPSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 6. 2000.The aims of this book are: to explain the notion of phenomenal consciousness in a non-metaphorical way that minimizes controversial assumptions; to characterize the relationship between the phenomenal character and intentionality of visual experience, visual imagery and non-imagistic thought; and to clarify the way in which conscious experience is intrinsically valuable to us. It argues for the legitimacy of a first-person approach to these issues--one which relies on a distinctively first-perso…Read more
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85Review of Evan Thompson, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (1). 2008.
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78Consciousness, Intentionality, and Self-Knowledge Replies to Ludwig and ThomassonPSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 8. 2002.Both Ludwig and Thomasson question my claim that many phenomenal features are intentional features. Further, Ludwig raises numerous objections to my claim that higher order mental representation is not essential to phenomenal consciousness. While Thomasson does not share those objections, she wonders how my view permits me to make first-person knowledge of mind depend on phenomenal consciousness. I respond to these challenges, drawing together questions about the forms of mental representation, …Read more
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75Phenomenal thoughtIn Tim Bayne and Michelle Montague (ed.), Cognitive Phenomenology, Oxford University Press. pp. 236-267. 2011.
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68On needing time to think: consciousness, temporality, and self-expressionPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 19 (3): 413-429. 2020.I examine an argument proposed by Tye and Wright, inspired by Geach, which holds that a correct understanding of how conceptual thought occurs in time demands we expel it from experience. This would imply—pace William James— that the “stream of consciousness” is not, even in part, a “stream of thought.” I argue that if we closely examine what seems to support crucial premises of their argument, we will find this undermines its other assumptions, and points us to a way of placing thought in time …Read more
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64Self-knowledge and rationality: Shoemaker on self-blindnessIn Brie Gertler (ed.), Privileged Access: Philosophical Accounts of Self-Knowledge, Ashgate. pp. 131. 2003.
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62Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First‐Person PerspectivePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (3): 840-843. 2008.
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61What Dennett can't imagine and whyInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 36 (1-2): 93-112. 1993.Woven into Dennett's account of consciousness is his belief that certain possibilities are not conceivable. This is manifested in his view that we are not conscious in any sense in which we can imagine that philosophers? ?zombies? might not be conscious, and also in his claims about ?Hindsight?, and what possibilities this can coherently suggest to us. If the possibilities Dennett denies none the less seem conceivable to us, then if he does not give us reason to think they are actually incoheren…Read more
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51Why we need descriptive psychologyEuropean Journal of Philosophy 31 (2): 341-357. 2023.This article defends the thesis that in theorizing about the mind we need to accord first-person (“introspective” or “reflective”) judgments about experience a “selective provisional trust.” Such an approach can form part of a descriptive psychology. It is here so employed to evaluate some influential interpretations of research on attention to conclude that—despite what conventional wisdom suggests—an “introspection-positive” policy actually offers us a better critical perspective than its cont…Read more
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50First-Person Reflection and Hidden Physical Features: A Reply to WitmerPSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 9. 2003.My response to Witmer comes in three sections: In the first I address concerns about my book's blindsight thought-experiment, remarking specifically on the role imagination plays in it, and my grounds for thinking that a first-person approach is valuable here. In Section Two I consider the relation of the thought-experiment to theses regarding possibility and necessity, and Witmer's discussion of ways of arguing for the impossibility of "Belinda-style" blindsight, despite its apparent conceivabi…Read more
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47Who's Afraid of Phenomenological Disputes?Southern Journal of Philosophy 45 (S1): 1-21. 2007.There are general aspects of mental life it is reasonable to believe do not vary even when subjects vary in their first‐person judgments about them. Such lack of introspective agreement gives rise to “phenomenological disputes.” These include disputes over how to describe the perspectival character of perception, the phenomenal character of perceptual recognition and conceptual thought, and the relation between consciousness and self‐consciousness. Some suppose that when we encounter such disput…Read more
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41Respecting Appearances: A Phenomenological Approach to ConsciousnessIn Dan Zahavi (ed.), The Oxford handbook of contemporary phenomenology, Oxford University Press. 2012.This chapter reports the philosophy focusing mainly on just three foundational concerns. These are: the character of a phenomenological approach; its use to clarify the notion of phenomenal consciousness ; and its application to questions about a specifically sensory phenomenality and its ‘intentionality’ or ‘object-directedness’. Phenomenology involves the use of ‘first-person reflection’. The ways into the notion of phenomenality are elaborated. The ‘subjective experience’ conception of phenom…Read more
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29The Phenomenal basis of intentionality, by Angela A. Mendelovici. Oxford University Press, 2018. 296 pages. ISBN:9780190863807 (review)European Journal of Philosophy 27 (4): 1097-1100. 2019.
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22Book reviews (review)Philosophical Psychology 9 (3): 391-410. 1996.The engine of reason, the seat of the soul: a philosophical journey into the brain, Paul M. Churchland. Cambridge: Bradford Books, MIT Press, 1995 ISBN: 0–262–03244–4Cognition in the wild, Edwin Hutchins. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. ISBN: 0–262–08231–4Dimensions of creativity, Margaret A. Boden, (Ed.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994 ISBN 0–262–02368–7Contemplating minds: a forum for Artificial Intelligence, William J. Clancey, Stephen W. Smoliar & Mark J. Stefik (Eds) Cambridge: Bradford Book…Read more
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20Eliminativism, First-Person Knowledge and Phenomenal Intentionality A Reply to LevinePSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 9. 2003.Levine suggests the following criticisms of my book. First, the absence of a positive account of first-person knowledge in it makes it vulnerable to eliminativist refutation. Second, it is a relative strength of the higher order representation accounts of consciousness I reject that they offer explanations of the subjectivity of conscious states and their special availability to first-person knowledge. Further, the close connection I draw between the phenomenal character of experience and intent…Read more
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