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On the Myth of PsychotherapyPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology. forthcoming.Thomas Szasz famously argued that mental illness is a myth. Less famously, Szasz argued that since mental illness is a myth, so too is psychotherapy. Szasz’ claim that mental illness is a myth has been much discussed, but much less attention has been paid to his claim that psychotherapy is a myth. In the first part of this essay, I critically examine Szasz’ discussion of psychotherapy in order to uncover the strongest version of his case for thinking that it is a myth. As we’ll see, this involve…Read more
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Austerity and IllusionPhilosophers' Imprint 20 (15): 1-19. 2020.Many contemporary theorists charge that naïve realists are incapable of accounting for illusions. Various sophisticated proposals have been ventured to meet this charge. Here, we take a different approach and dispute whether the naïve realist owes any distinctive account of illusion. To this end, we begin with a simple, naïve account of veridical perception. We then examine the case that this account cannot be extended to illusions. By reconstructing an explicit version of this argument, we show…Read more
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Kant's Aesthetic Epistemology: Form and World. By Fiona HughesHeythrop Journal 50 (2): 336-336. 2009.
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Does Propositional Seeing Entail Propositional Knowledge?Theoria 78 (2): 115-127. 2012.In a 2010 article Turri puts forward some powerful considerations which suggest that Williamson's view of knowledge as the most general factive mental state is false. Turri claims that this view is false since it is false that if S sees that p, then S knows that p. Turri argues that there are cases in which (A) S sees that p but (B) S does not know that p. In response I offer linguistic evidence to suppose that in propositional contexts “see” does not have the sort of meaning (a purely perceptua…Read more
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Perceptual experience and seeing that pSynthese 190 (10): 1735-1751. 2013.I open my eyes and see that the lemon before me is yellow. States like this—states of seeing that $p$ —appear to be visual perceptual states, in some sense. They also appear to be propositional attitudes (and so states with propositional representational contents). It might seem, then, like a view of perceptual experience on which experiences have propositional representational contents—a Propositional View—has to be the correct sort of view for states of seeing that $p$ . And thus we can’t sust…Read more
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Pathology Based Philosophy of MindIcog. 2015.
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The Invalidity of the Argument from IllusionAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 55 (4): 357-364. 2018.The argument from illusion attempts to establish the bold claim that we are never perceptually aware of ordinary material objects. The argument has rightly received a great deal critical of scrutiny. But here we develop a criticism that, to our knowledge, has not hitherto been explored. We consider the canonical form of the argument as it is captured in contemporary expositions. There are two stages to our criticism. First, we show that the argument is invalid. Second, we identify premises that …Read more
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Objectivity and the Parochial, by Charles Travis (review)Mind 124 (494): 693-696. 2015.
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Hallucination: Philosophy and Psychology By Fiona Macpherson and Dimitris Platchias (review)Analysis 75 (3): 528-530. 2015.
Nottingham, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |