•  59
    Why Twitter does not gamify communication
    with Zed Adams
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    1. Social media is an utterly transformative technology. In 1960, A. J. Liebling could truthfully quip, ‘Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one’ (1960, 105). In 2023, this is...
  •  134
  •  29
    The history of qualia and C.I. Lewis’ role in it
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 32 (1): 173-193. 2023.
    In current histories, C.I. Lewis is credited for bringing the strict concept of qualia – concerned solely with sensory states – into contemporary philosophy. It is this strict notion which is then credited with bringing in worries about inverted spectra, philosophical zombies, and the idea that we can individuate the senses introspectively. In this paper, I argue that this is a mistaken reading of Lewis and the history of qualia. I argue that the strict notion of qualia stems from the work of Jo…Read more
  •  92
    Recent artificial intelligence advances, especially those of large language models (LLMs), have increasingly shown glimpses of human-like intelligence. This has led to bold claims that these systems are no longer a mere “it” but now a “who,” a kind of person deserving respect. In this paper, I argue that this view depends on a Cartesian account of personhood, on which identifying someone as a person is based on their cognitive sophistication and ability to address common-sense reasoning problems…Read more
  •  67
    Kant and the determinacy of intuition
    European Journal of Philosophy 31 (1): 65-79. 2022.
    A central issue in debates about Kant and nonconceptualism concerns the nature of intuition. There is sharp disagreement among Kant scholars about both whether, prior to conceptualization, mere intuition can be considered conscious and, if so, how determinate this consciousness is. In this article, I argue that Kant regards pre-synthesized intuition as conscious but indeterminate. To make this case, I contextualize Kant's position through the work of H.S. Reimarus, a predecessor of Kant who infl…Read more
  •  24
    C.I. Lewis: Pragmatist or Reductionist?
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 30 (2): 109-126. 2022.
    Despite its substantial influence, there is surprisingly little agreement about how to read C.I. Lewis’s Mind and the World Order. Lewis has historically been read as a reductionist attempting to g...
  •  42
    There is a current debate about if, and in what sense, machine learning systems used in the medical context need to be explainable. Those arguing in favor contend these systems require post hoc explanations for each individual decision to increase trust and ensure accurate diagnoses. Those arguing against suggest the high accuracy and reliability of the systems is sufficient for providing epistemic justified beliefs without the need for explaining each individual decision. But, as we show, both …Read more
  •  315
    Science and Philosophy of Color in the Modern Age
    with Zed Adams
    In Anders Steinvall & Sarah Streets (eds.), Cultural History of Color in the Modern Age, Bloomsbury. pp. 21-38. 2021.
    The study of color expanded rapidly in the 20th century. With this expansion came fragmentation, as philosophers, physicists, physiologists, psychologists, and others explored the subject in vastly different ways. There are at least two ways in which the study of color became contentious. The first was with regard to the definitional question: what is color? The second was with the location question: are colors inside the head or out in the world? In this chapter, we summarize the most prominent…Read more
  •  26
    The Pittsburgh Kantians: Brandom, Conant, Haugeland, and McDowell on Kant
    History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis (1): 1-32. 2021.
    Over the last thirty years, a group of philosophers associated with the University of Pittsburgh—Robert Brandom, James Conant, John Haugeland, and John McDowell—have developed a novel reading of Kant. Their interest turns on Kant’s problem of objective purport: how can my thoughts be about the world? This paper summarizes the shared reading of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction by these four philosophers and how it solves the problem of objective purport. But I also show these philosophers radicall…Read more
  •  457
    Meier, Reimarus and Kant on Animal Minds
    Kantian Review 26 (2): 185-208. 2021.
    Close attention to Kant’s comments on animal minds has resulted in radically different readings of key passages in Kant. A major disputed text for understanding Kant on animals is his criticism of G. F. Meier’s view in the 1762 ‘False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures’. In this article, I argue that Kant’s criticism of Meier should be read as an intervention into an ongoing debate between Meier and H. S. Reimarus on animal minds. Specifically, while broadly aligning himself with Reimarus,…Read more
  •  73
    How Colour Qualia Became a Problem
    with Z. Adams
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 27 (5-6): 14-25. 2020.
    The meta-problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why we have problem intuitions about consciousness, why we intuitively think that conscious experience cannot be scientifically explained. In his discussion of this problem, David Chalmers briefly considers the possibility of giving a 'genealogical' solution, according to which problem intuitions are 'accidents of cultural history' (2018, p. 33). Chalmers' response to this solution is largely dismissive. In this paper, we defend the …Read more
  •  73
    McDowell and the Contents of Intuition
    Dialectica 73 (1-2): 83-104. 2019.
    In Mind and World, John McDowell provided an influential account of how perceptual experience makes knowledge of the world possible. He recommended a view he called “conceptualism”, according to which concepts are intimately involved in perception and there is no non‐conceptual content. In response to criticisms of this view (especially those from Charles Travis), McDowell has more recently proposed a revised account that distinguishes between two kinds of representation: the passive non‐proposi…Read more
  •  57
    In his work, the philosopher John Haugeland (1945–2010) proposed a radical expansion of philosophy's conceptual toolkit, calling for a wider range of resources for understanding the mind, the world, and how they relate. Haugeland argued that “giving a damn” is essential for having a mind—suggesting that traditional approaches to cognitive science mistakenly overlook the relevance of caring to the understanding of mindedness. Haugeland's determination to expand philosophy's array of concepts led …Read more