Rutgers - New Brunswick
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1999
Los Angeles, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics
Philosophy of Mind
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics
Philosophy of Mind
  •  2123
    Anomalous Monism
    In Brian McLaughlin, Ansgar Beckermann & Sven Walter (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind, Oxford University Press. 2009.
    This is an overview of Davidson's theory of anomalous monism. Objections and replies are also detailed.
  •  729
    Folk Psychology and Moral Evaluation
    Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 24 (2): 237-251. 2004.
    Assessments of an action done intentionally, as we might expect, influence judgments of moral responsibility. What we don't expect is the converse--judgments of moral responsibility influencing assessments of whether an action was done intentionally. Yet this is precisely how people decide, according to Knobe (2003, 2004) and Mendlow (2004) and Nadelhoffer (2004a). I evaluate whether the studies actually support this biasing effect. I argue that the studies are at best inconclusive and that even…Read more
  •  507
    Non-reductive physicalism is committed to two theses: first, that mental properties are ontologically autonomous, and second, that physicalism is true. Jaegwon Kim has argued that this view is unstable – to honor one thesis, one must abandon the other. In this paper, I present an account of property realization that addresses Kim’s criticism and that explains how the two theses are indeed comfortably compatible.
  •  438
    Davidson has been instrumental in dampening the prospect of reductively explaining the mind. The core of his arguments turn upon his insistence that contentful mental states, the bread and butter of folk psychology, have a “normative element.” In spite of its pivotal role, as well as its intrinsic interest, the concept is very poorly developed and understood. This paper attempts to discern four different strands of the normativity of intentionality and to spark a long overdue systematic exami…Read more
  •  87
    Meaning and Normativity (review)
    Analysis 75 (2): 310-324. 2015.
  •  7
    Folk Psychology and Moral Evaluation
    Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 24 (2): 237-251. 2004.
    Assessments of an action done intentionally, as we might expect, influence judgments of moral responsibility. What we don't expect is the converse--judgments of moral responsibility influencing assessments of whether an action was done intentionally. Yet this is precisely how people decide, according to Knobe and Mendlow and Nadelhoffer. I evaluate whether the studies actually support this biasing effect. I argue that the studies are at best inconclusive and that even if they demonstrated that p…Read more
  • Norms and Laws in a Natural World: A Compatibilist Account of Mental Causation
    Dissertation, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick. 1998.
    The classic question about mind-body interaction is now construed as a question about the causal relevance of mental properties. Beyond a materialist account of how reasons can be causes simpliciter, what we seek is a demonstration of how reasons can be causes in virtue of their contentful and rational features. This dissertation attempts to furnish such a demonstration. ;The demonstration falls into two parts: an account of how intentional properties are causally relevant in a metaphysically po…Read more