Brown University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2003
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Areas of Interest
Epistemology
Philosophy of Mind
  •  6
    Memory in two dimensions
    Synthese 203 (2): 1-20. 2024.
    Memories can be accurate or inaccurate. They have, then, accuracy conditions. A reasonable picture of the accuracy conditions of a memory is that a memory is accurate just in case the reference of a memory satisfies the information provided by the memory. But how are the references of our memories determined exactly? And what are the accuracy conditions of memories, given their references? In this paper, I argue that the notion of accuracy conditions for memories is ambiguous. There are two type…Read more
  • Volume on Truth (edited book)
    with T. Achourioti, H. Galinon, and K. Fujimoto
    Springer. forthcoming.
  •  49
    The Contents of Imagination
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 52 (8): 828-842. 2022.
    Our imaginings seem to be similar to our perceiving and remembering episodes in that they all represent something. They all seem to have content. But what exactly is the structure and the source of the content of our imaginings? In this paper, I put forward an account of imaginative content. The main tenet of this account is that, when a subject tries to imagine a state of affairs by having some experience, their imagining has a counterfactual content. What the subject imagines is that perceivin…Read more
  •  13
    Epistemic Generation in Memory
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (3): 620-644. 2015.
    Does memory only preserve epistemic justification over time, or can memory also generate it? I argue that memory can generate justification based on a certain conception of mnemonic content. According to it, our memories represent themselves as originating on past perceptions of objective facts. If this conception of mnemonic content is correct, what we may believe on the basis of memory always includes something that we were not in a position to believe before we utilised that capacity. For tha…Read more
  •  9
    Measuring Perceived Research Competence of Junior Researchers
    with Sarah A. Marrs, Carla Quesada-Pallarès, Korinthia D. Nicolai, and Elizabeth A. Severson-Irby
    Frontiers in Psychology 13. 2022.
    Graduates of doctoral programs are expected to be competent at designing and conducting research independently. Given the level of research competence needed to successfully conduct research, it is important that assessors of doctoral programs have a reliable and validated tool for measuring and tracking perceived research competence among their students and graduates. A high level of research competence is expected for all Ph.D. graduates worldwide, in addition to in all disciplines/fields. Mor…Read more
  •  5
    Theoretical, and epistemological challenges in scientific investigations of complex emotional states in animals
    with Yury V. M. Lages, Daniel C. Mograbi, and Thomas E. Krahe
    Consciousness and Cognition 84 (C): 103003. 2020.
  •  78
    Unifying the Philosophy of Truth (edited book)
    with T. Achourioti, H. Galinon, and K. Fujimoto
    Imprint: Springer. 2015.
    This anthology of the very latest research on truth features the work of recognized luminaries in the field, put together following a rigorous refereeing process. Along with an introduction outlining the central issues in the field, it provides a unique and unrivaled view of contemporary work on the nature of truth, with papers selected from key conferences in 2011 such as Truth Be Told (Amsterdam), Truth at Work (Paris), Paradoxes of Truth and Denotation (Barcelona) and Axiomatic Theories of Tr…Read more
  •  176
    Resisting ruthless reductionism: A commentary on Bickle
    with Tim Bayne
    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 4 (3): 239-48. 2005.
    Philosophy and Neuroscience is an unabashed apologetic for reductionism in philosophy of mind. Bickle chides his fellow philosophers for their ignorance of mainstream neuroscience, and promises them that a subscription to Cell, Neuron, or any other journal in mainstream neuroscience will be amply rewarded. Rather than being bogged down in the intricacies of two-dimensional semantics or the ontology of properties, philosophers of mind need to get neuroscientifically informed and ruthlessly reduct…Read more
  •  52
    The Lovász Extension of Market Games
    with E. Algaba, J. M. Bilbao, and A. Jiménez
    Theory and Decision 56 (1-2): 229-238. 2004.
    The multilinear extension of a cooperative game was introduced by Owen in 1972. In this contribution we study the Lovász extension for cooperative games by using the marginal worth vectors and the dividends. First, we prove a formula for the marginal worth vectors with respect to compatible orderings. Next, we consider the direct market generated by a game. This model of utility function, proposed by Shapley and Shubik in 1969, is the concave biconjugate extension of the game. Then we obtain the…Read more
  •  51
    Imagining oneself being someone else
    European Journal of Philosophy 31 (4): 1030-1044. 2023.
    Sometimes, one can imagine, in virtue of having some experience, that one is someone else having some property. This is puzzling if imagination is a guide to possibility, since it seems impossible for one to be someone else. In this paper, I offer a way of dissolving the puzzle. When one claims that, by having some experience, one imagines that one is someone else having some property, what one imagines, I suggest, is that if the other person had the property in question, then having it would be…Read more
  •  220
    The papers in this volume are drawn from a workshop on delusion and self-deception, held at Macquarie University in November of 2004. Our aim was to bring together theorists working on delusions and self-deception with an eye towards identifying and fostering connections—at both empirical and conceptual levels—between these domains. As the contributions to this volume testify, there are multiple points of contact between delusion and self-deception. This introduction charts the conceptual space …Read more
  •  18
    Defending functionalism and self-reference in memory
    Estudios de Filosofía (Universidad de Antioquia) 64 223-236. 2021.
    In recent work, Sarah Robins, Gerardo Viera and Steven James have provided some insightful objections to the ideas offered in my book, Memory: A Self-Referential Account. In this paper, I put forward some responses to those objections. Robins challenges the idea that being a memory could be a matter of having a particular functional role within the subject’s cognitive economy. Viera challenges the idea that the content of a memory could explain some of its phenomenological properties. And James …Read more
  •  358
    Memory: A Self-Referential Account
    Oxford University Press. 2019.
    This book offers a philosophical account of memory. Memory is remarkably interesting from a philosophical point of view. Our memories interact with mental states of other types in a characteristic way. They also have some associated feelings that other mental states lack. Our memories are special in terms of their representational capacity too, since we can have memories of objective events, and we can have memories of our own past experiences. Finally, our memories are epistemically special, in…Read more
  •  338
    The functional character of memory
    In Denis Perrin Dorothea Debus Kourken Michaelian (ed.), New Directions in the Philosophy of Memory. pp. 52-72. 2018.
    The purpose of this chapter is to determine what is to remember something, as opposed to imagining it, perceiving it, or introspecting it. What does it take for a mental state to qualify as remembering, or having a memory of, something? The main issue to be addressed is therefore a metaphysical one. It is the issue of determining which features those mental states which qualify as memories typically enjoy, and those states which do not qualify as such typically lack. In sections 2 and 3, I will…Read more
  •  416
    Intentional objects of memory
    In Sven Bernecker & Kourken Michaelian (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory. pp. 88-100. 2017.
    Memories are mental states with a number of interesting features. One of those features seems to be their having an intentional object. After all, we commonly say that memories are about things, and that a subject represents the world in a certain way by virtue of remembering something. It is unclear, however, what sorts of entities constitute the intentional objects of memory. In particular, it is not clear whether those are mind-independent entities in the world or whether they are mental enti…Read more
  •  291
    Self-Referential Memory and Mental Time Travel
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 11 (2): 283-300. 2020.
    Episodic memory has a distinctive phenomenology. One way to capture what is distinctive about it is by using the notion of mental time travel: When we remember some fact episodically, we mentally travel to the moment at which we experienced it in the past. This way of distinguishing episodic memory from semantic memory calls for an explanation of what the experience of mental time travel is. In this paper, I suggest that a certain view about the content of memories can shed some light on the exp…Read more
  •  30
    Replies to Critics
    Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 34 (1): 149-160. 2015.
    Jordi Fernández.
  •  9
    Memory and Perception: Remembering Snowflake
    Theoria 21 (2): 147-164. 2010.
    Memories have the power to elicit certain beliefs in us. These are beliefs about time and beliefs about perception. The aim of this paper is to propose a notion of mnemonic content that can account for the rationality of forming those beliefs on the basis of our memories.
  •  6
    Memory and Perception
    Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 21 (2): 147-164. 2006.
    If I remember something, I tend to believe that I have perceived it. Similarly, if I remember something, I tend to believe that it happened in the past. My aim here is to propose a notion of mnemonic contentaccounts for these facts. Certain proposals build perceptual experiences into the content of memories. I argue that they Have trouble with the second belief. Other proposals build references to temporal locations into mnemonic content. I argue that they have trouble with the second one. I pro…Read more
  •  60
    Introspection
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (1): 385-406
    This paper will argue that there is no such thing as introspective access to judgments and decisions. I t won't challenge the existence of introspective access to perceptual and imagistic states, nor to emotional feelings and bodily sensations. On the contrary, the model presented in Section 2 presumes such access. Hence introspection is here divided into two categories: introspection of propositional attitude events, on the one hand, and introspection of broadly perceptual events, on the other.…Read more
  •  30
    Externalism, self-knowledge and memory
    In S. Goldberg (ed.), Externalism, Self-Knowledge and Skepticism: New Essays, Cambridge University Press. pp. 197-213. 2015.
    Jordi Fernandez.
  •  23
    The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com.
  •  56
    Schopenhauer’s Pessimism
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (3): 646-664. 2006.
    My purpose in this essay is to clarify and evaluate Arthur Schopenhauer's grounds for the view that happiness is impossible. I shall distinguish two of his arguments for that view and argue that both of them are unsound. Both arguments involve premises grounded on a problematic view, namely, that desires have no objects. What makes this view problematic is that, in each of the two arguments, it conflicts with Schopenhauer's grounds for other premises in the argument. I shall then propose a way o…Read more
  •  20
    Jordi Fernández, Suzanne Bliss
  •  79
    Externalism and self-knowledge: A puzzle in two dimensions
    European Journal of Philosophy 12 (1): 17-37. 2004.
    The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com
  •  60
    Transparent Minds: A Study of Self-Knowledge
    Oxford University Press. 2013.
    How do we know our current states of mind--what we want, and believe in? Jordi Fernández proposes a new theory of self-knowledge, challenging the traditional view that it is a matter of introspection. He argues that we know what we believe and desire by 'looking outward', towards the states of affairs which those beliefs and desires are about