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45Motivated reasoning and the ethics of beliefPhilosophy Compass 17 (6). 2022.In recent years, motivated reasoning has received significant attention across numerous areas of philosophy, including political philosophy, social philosophy, epistemology, moral psychology, philosophy of science, even metaphysics. At the heart of much of this interest is the idea that motivated reasoning (e.g., rationalization, wishful thinking, and self‐deception) is problematic, that it runs afoul of epistemic normativity, or is otherwise irrational. Is motivated reasoning epistemically prob…Read more
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10Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2012.Based on a conference held in June 2007 at the University of California Santa Cruz.
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8Rationalization in the pejorative sense: Cushman's account overlooks the scope and costs of rationalizationBehavioral and Brain Sciences 43. 2020.According to Cushman, rationalization occurs when a person has performed an action and then concocts beliefs and desires that would have made it rational. We argue that this isn't the paradigmatic form of rationalization. Consequently, Cushman's explanation of the function and usefulness of rationalization is less broad-reaching than he intends. Cushman's account also obscures some of rationalization's pernicious consequences.
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178Rationalization in Philosophical and Moral ThoughtIn Jean-François Bonnefon & Bastien Trémolière (eds.), Moral Inferences, Routledge. 2017.Rationalization, in our intended sense of the term, occurs when a person favors a particular conclusion as a result of some factor (such as self-interest) that is of little justificatory epistemic relevance, if that factor then biases the person’s subsequent search for, and assessment of, potential justifications for the conclusion. Empirical evidence suggests that rationalization is common in people’s moral and philosophical thought. We argue that it is likely that the moral and philosophical t…Read more
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3Color, Error, and Explanatory PowerDialectica 60 (2): 171-179. 2006.Error theorists about color argue that our ordinary judgments ascribing color to material objects are all false. The error theorist proposes that everything that is so, including the fact that material objects appear to us to have color, can best be explained without ever attributing color to objects. The appeal of this view stems in significant part from the prevalent thought that such explanations are strongly suggested by our present scientific conception of the world. Recently, however, Barr…Read more
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Psychological Conditions for Psychological Awareness: Color, Knowledge, and the PhenomenalDissertation, University of California, Berkeley. 2002.In my dissertation, I argue for three theses: color realism is correct; material objects have color; a prevalent position in the philosophy of mind---one that is externalist about thought yet internalist about experience---is unavailable; and certain brain-in-the-vat scenarios commonly employed in service of epistemological skepticism are ineffective. In each of these cases , contemporary philosophy has failed to appreciate the full significance of the following fact: being aware of a particular…Read more
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70Thinking about Thinking about Thinking about Thinking (about Poker)In Eric Bronson (ed.), Poker and Philosophy: Pocket Rockets and Philosopher Kings, Open Court Press. 2006.Remember that childhood game “Odds or Evens” you used to play in order to settle important disputes such as who gets the last slice of pizza? There was only one element of skill to that game: trying to figure out what the other person would throw. But that wasn’t easy. If your opponent was savvy, that meant trying to figure out what he thought you were going to throw. And that sometimes meant figuring out what he thought you thought he was going to throw. Philosophers call this “thought attr…Read more
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8Color, error, and explanatory powerDialectica 60 (2): 171-179. 2006.Error theorists about color argue that our ordinary judgments ascribing color to material objects are all false. The error theorist proposes that everything that is so, including the fact that material objects appear to us to have color, can best be explained without ever attributing color to objects (for instance, by appealing to surface reflectance properties, the nature of light, the neurophysiology of perceivers, etc.). The appeal of this view stems in significant part from the prevalent tho…Read more
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17Phenomenal character, phenomenal concepts, and externalismPhilosophical Studies 147 (2). 2010.A celebrated problem for representationalist theories of phenomenal character is that, given externalism about content, these theories lead to externalism about phenomenal character. While externalism about content is widely accepted, externalism about phenomenal character strikes many philosophers as wildly implausible. Even if internally identical individuals could have different thoughts, it is said, if one of them has a headache, or a tingly sensation, so must the other. In this paper, I arg…Read more
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12The Contents of Hume’s Appendix and the Source of His DespairHume Studies 32 (2): 195-231. 2006.This paper has two goals: first, to show that the footnote and structure of App. 20, to which too little careful attention has been given, ultimately undermine a great many interpretations of Hume’s dissatisfaction with his theory of personal identity; and second, to offer an interpretation that both heeds these textual features and (unlike other interpretations consistent with these features) renders Hume worried about something that would have truly bothered him. Hume’s problem, I contend, con…Read more
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29Colour irrealism and the formation of colour conceptsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (1): 53-73. 2005.According to colour irrealism, material objects do not have colour; they only appear to have colour. The appeal of this view, prominent among philosophers and scientists alike, stems in large part from the conviction that scientific explanations of colour facts do not ascribe colour to material objects. To explain why objects appear to have colour, for instance, we need only appeal to surface reflectance properties, properties of light, the neurophysiology of observers, etc. Typically attending …Read more
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50Sensation, Introspection, and the PhenomenalIn Jonathan Ellis & Daniel Guevara (eds.), Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind, Oxford University Press. 2012.
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91The Significance of Radical Interpretation for Understanding the MindIn J. Malpas (ed.), The Hermeneutic Davidson, Mit Press. 2011.In Davidson's philosophy, one finds a wide variety of rich, provocative, and influential arguments concerning the nature of the mind—that mental states emerge only in the context of interpretation, that belief is "in its nature" veridical, that mental events are physical events, and so on. Most, if not all, of Davidson's conclusions about the mind have their source in discussions about the project of "radical interpretation." They rely upon arguments concerning the conditions on the successful i…Read more
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12Context, indexicals and the soritesAnalysis 64 (4): 362-364. 2004.I defend contextualist solutions to the sorites paradox (according to which solutions vague terms are indexicals) from a recent objection raised by Jason Stanley. Stanley's argument depends on the claim that indexical expressions always have invariant interpretations in "Verb Phrase" ellipsis. I argue that this claim is false.
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59Stroud's Proposal for Removing the Threat of SkepticismIn W. Wong, N. Kolodny & J. Bridges (eds.), The Possibility of Philosophical Understanding: Essays for Barry Stroud, Oxford University Press. 2011.Barry Stroud is well known as a critic of philosophers who purport to answer, or otherwise deflate, the threat of skepticism of the external world. He is most famous in this regard for his seminal paper on transcendental arguments, in which he argues that the prospects of defeating the skeptic with such arguments typically depend upon an implausible form of verification principle. There he mostly focuses upon Strawson and Shoemaker. But since then, Stroud has addressed strategies taken against s…Read more
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23Content externalism and phenomenal character: A new worry about privileged accessSynthese 159 (1). 2007.I argue that, if content externalism is in tension with privileged access to content, then content externalism is also in tension with privileged access to phenomenal character. Content externalists may thus have a new problem on their hands. This is not because content externalism implies externalism about phenomenal character. My argument is compatible with the conviction that, unlike some propositional content, phenomenal character is not individuated by environmental factors. Rather, the…Read more
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10On the Concept of a GamePhilosophical Investigations 34 (4): 381-392. 2011.Thomas Hurka writes, “an anti-theoretical position is properly open only to those who have made a serious effort to theorize a given domain and found that it cannot succeed. Anti-theorists who do not make this effort are simply being lazy, like Wittgenstein himself. His central example of a concept that cannot be given a unifying analysis was that of a game, but in one of the great underappreciated books of the twentieth century Bernard Suits gives perfectly persuasive necessary and sufficient c…Read more
Santa Cruz, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Psychology |
Ethics of Belief |
Philosophy of Mind |