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10Perspectivism, Realism, and PsychotherapyPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 6 (3): 181-186. 1999.This paper examines what exactly amounts to the view commonly known as ‘perspectivism’, sometimes also known as ‘perspectivalism’. Of the various possible conceptions of perspectivism, four are singled out for closer inspection. Each makes clearly separable claims of varying strength. Their strength is judged against how much doubt they throw on key claims made by the view’s presumed arch-nemesis, namely realism. It is argued that the first two offer no serious challenge to realism. To be precis…Read more
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562Transformative Experience and the Problem of Religious DisagreementIn Matthew A. Benton & Jonathan L. Kvanvig (eds.), Religious Disagreement and Pluralism, Oxford University Press. pp. 127-141. 2021.Peer disagreement presents religious believers, agnostics, and skeptics alike with an epistemological problem: how can confidence in any religious claims (including their negations) be epistemically justified? There seem to be rational, well-informed adherents among a variety of mutually incompatible religious and non-religious perspectives, and so the problem of disagreement arises acutely in the religious domain. In this paper, we show that the transformative nature of religious experience and…Read more
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14How the evaluability bias shapes transformative decisionsSynthese 203 (2): 1-22. 2024.Our paper contributes to the rapidly expanding body of experimental research on transformative decision making, and in the process, marks out a novel empirical interpretation for assessments of subjective value in transformative contexts. We start with a discussion of the role of subjective value in transformative decisions, and then critique extant experimental work that explores this role, with special attention to Reuter and Messerli (2018). We argue that current empirical treatments miss a c…Read more
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22The Use of Local and Global Ordering Strategies in Number Line Estimation in Early ChildhoodFrontiers in Psychology 9. 2018.
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34Narrative accounts of illness in schizophrenia: Association of different forms of awareness with neurocognition and social function over timeConsciousness and Cognition 17 (4): 1143-1151. 2008.Awareness of illness in schizophrenia reflects complex storied understanding of the impact of the disorder upon one’s life. Individuals may be aware of their illness in different ways and this may be related to their functioning. A total of 76 adults with schizophrenia were assessed for their awareness of illness, neurocognition, social cognition, and social function concurrently and social function was also assessed at three later time points. A cluster analysis revealed 3 groups: generally ful…Read more
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87Schizophrenia and the experience of intersubjectivity as threatPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 4 (3): 335-352. 2005.Many with schizophrenia find social interactions a profound and terrifying threat to their sense of self. To better understand this we draw upon dialogical models of the self that suggest that those with schizophrenia have difficulty sustaining dialogues among diverse aspects of self. Because interpersonal exchanges solicit and evoke movement among diverse aspects of self, many with schizophrenia may consequently find those exchanges overwhelming, resulting in despair, the sensation of fusion wi…Read more
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48Metacognition, selfexperience and the prospect of enhancing selfmanagement in schizophrenia spectrum disordersPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 24 (2): 169-178. 2017.In general, current biomedical models of schizophrenia focus on distinguishing discrete elements that, on their own or in combination with others, might lead to some form of disability. These different and potentially autonomous aspects of the disorder that might disrupt daily activities include positive and negative symptoms as well as disturbances in neurocognitive and psychobiological processes. Such disturbances include genetic vulnerabilities that increase the risk of abnormalities in brain…Read more
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34Deficits in the ability to recognize one’s own affects and those of others: Associations with neurocognition, symptoms and sexual trauma among persons with schizophrenia spectrum disordersConsciousness and Cognition 20 (4): 1183-1192. 2011.While many with schizophrenia experience deficits in metacognition it is unclear whether those deficits are related to other features of illness. To explore this issue, the current study classified participants with schizophrenia as possessing a deficit in both awareness of their own emotions and those of others , aware of their own emotions but unaware of the emotions of others and aware of their own emotions and of other’s emotions . Groups were compared on assessments of neurocognitive functi…Read more
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61Being interrupted: The self and schizophreniaJournal of Speculative Philosophy 19 (1): 1-21. 2005.
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18A Case of Major Depression: Some Philosophical Problems in Everyday Clinical PracticePhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 24 (3): 215-218. 2017.After the publication of third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980, psychiatry no longer characterized psychological problems as 'reactions,' which seemed to assume unproven psychoanalytically derived explanations, and referred to them instead as 'disorders,' which, it was thought, could be identified phenomenologically and without theoretical 'presuppositions.' Since then, psychiatrists have typically made diagnoses without reflecting on the fact that an…Read more
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16Microglial Priming and Alzheimer’s Disease: A Possible Role for (Early) Immune Challenges and Epigenetics?Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 10. 2016.
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25Self-Experience in Schizophrenia: Metacognition as a Construct to Advance UnderstandingPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 22 (3): 217-220. 2015.In our original piece, we suggested that contemporary phenomenological models of schizophrenia such as the ipseity-disturbance model emphasize perceptual and cognitive elements of self-disturbances, potentially neglecting the presence and central importance of painful affect in the experience of schizophrenia. We concluded that integrating affect within developing phenomenological models would offer not only a theoretical advance but also a possible path to more effective recovery-oriented treat…Read more
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35Reconciling the Ipseity-Disturbance Model with the Presence of Painful Affect in SchizophreniaPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 22 (3): 197-208. 2015.Theoretical models of schizophrenia have traditionally emphasized the biological social, and environmental forces that lead to the dysfunction that characterizes this disorder. However important these aspects may be, an understanding of schizophrenia is incomplete without attention to the first-person perspective of those who continue to struggle to find meaning and security in the midst of this disorder. Encouragingly, an interest has grown steadily in recent years in understanding subjective e…Read more
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13Experience, Metaphysics, and Cognitive ScienceIn Justin Sytsma & Wesley Buckwalter (eds.), A Companion to Experimental Philosophy, Wiley. 2016.This chapter explores how to understand the contributions of experience, especially with respect to the role of cognitive science, in developing and assessing metaphysical theories of reality. Further, it develops a methodological basis for the idea that, independently of work in experimental philosophy focused on explications of concepts, contemporary metaphysical theories with a role for experiential evidence can be fruitfully connected to empirical work in psychology, especially cognitive sci…Read more
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38The Nature of Proof in PsychiatryPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 16 (3): 225-228. 2009.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Nature of Proof in PsychiatryPaul Lieberman (bio)Keywordspsychotherapy process, knowledge and psychiatry, externalism, WittgensteinThis vivid clinical report illustrates recognizably, and provocatively, a number of routine, but often unexamined, clinical questions. In its few paragraphs, it depicts challenges that each practitioner confronts, and, in the flux of clinical work, addresses, however implicitly and imperfectly, every …Read more
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7Research Quality and International Focus: A Perspective from the NetherlandsIn Heinz Mandl & Birgitta Kopp (eds.), Impulse Für Die Bildungsforschung: Stand Und Perspektivendokumentation Eines Expertengesprächs, Akademie Verlag. pp. 86-92. 2005.
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107The Paradox of EmpathyEpisteme 18 (3): 347-366. 2021.A commitment to truth requires that you are open to receiving new evidence, even if that evidence contradicts your current beliefs. You should be open to changing your mind. However, this truism gives rise to the paradox of empathy. The paradox arises with the possibility of mental corruption through transformative change, and has consequences for how we should understand tolerance, disagreement, and the ability to have an open mind. I close with a discussion of how understanding this paradox pr…Read more
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383Causation and Counterfactuals (edited book)MIT Press. 2004.Thirty years after Lewis's paper, this book brings together some of the most important recent work connecting—or, in some cases, disputing the connection ...
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132Choosing for Changing Selves (review)Philosophical Review 131 (2): 230-235. 2022.Review of Richard Pettigrew, Choosing for Changing Selves
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30Distinguishing self-involving from self-serving choices in framing effectsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 45. 2022.We distinguish two types of cases that have potential to generate quasi-cyclical preferences: self-involving choices where an agent oscillates between first- and third-person perspectives that conflict regarding their life-changing implications, and self-serving choices where frame-based reasoning can be “first-personally rational” yet “third-personally irrational.” We argue that the distinction between these types of cases deserves more attention in Bermúdez's account.
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1964What You Can't Expect When You're Expecting'Res Philosophica 92 (2): 1-23. 2015.It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This su…Read more
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11Causation and PreemptionIn Peter Clark & Katherine Hawley (eds.), Philosophy of science today, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 100-130. 2003.Causation is a deeply intuitive and familiar relation, gripped powerfully by common sense. Or so it seems. As is typical in philosophy, however, that deep intuitive familiarity has not led to any philosophical account of causation that is at once clean, precise, and widely agreed upon. Not for lack of trying: the last thirty years or so have seen dozens of attempts to provide such an account, and the pace of development is, if anything, accelerating. (See Collins et al. [2003a] for a comprehensi…Read more
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191Aspiring to be rational (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2): 481-485. 2021.Review of Agnes Callard’s 2018 OUP book 'Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming'.
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137The First Time as Tragedy, the Second as FarceJournal of Consciousness Studies 27 (11-12): 145-153. 2020.Commentary on Montero, B. (2020) What experience doesn’t teach: Pain-amnesia and a new paradigm for memory research, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 27 (11–12).
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347Whose Preferences?American Journal of Bioethics 20 (8): 65-66. 2020.Commentary on Walsh, E. 2020. Cognitive transformation, dementia, and the moral weight of advance directives. The American Journal of Bioethics. 20(8): 54–64.
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26Précis of "Transformative Experience"Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia 10 (3): 313-319. 2019.
New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Areas of Interest
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Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
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Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
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