Max Parks

The recent development of AI art systems like DeepAI (2024), DALL-E (2024), and Stable Diffusion (2023) has brought increased attention to the nature of artistic creativity. While much discussion has focused on whether AI systems can be truly creative or whether their outputs qualify as art (see for example Hertzmann, 2018), this paper takes a different approach. Drawing on philosophical frameworks for understanding different types of imagination, I argue that analyzing AI art systems through established taxonomies of imagination reveals fundamental truths about both the nature of machine creativity and human imaginative faculties.

Artificial intelligence systems increasingly mediate decisions in domains from healthcare and education to law enforcement, but they often inherit historical biases. This paper examines how AI can reproduce and even amplify discrimination at the intersection of transgender identity and neurodivergence. Drawing on evidence that transgender individuals exhibit higher rates of neurodivergence (Pasterski et al. in Arch Sex Behav 43:387–393, 2014) and on the historical pathologization of both identities (Conrad and Schneider in Deviance and medicalization: from badness to sickness, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992), I focus on two domains, healthcare and language processing, to illustrate how choices in data collection, model training, and algorithm design can perpetuate harmful biases. I also evaluate restrictive state policies as exemplified by the U.S. executive order “Defending Women…” (Trump Executive Order. Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government. 2025a) while exploring how regulatory frameworks may complicate efforts toward inclusive AI design. I conclude with technical and policy recommendations intended to promote fairness while acknowledging the potential benefits and risks of AI systems, and suggest avenues for future research.

In this dissertation, I address the issue of whether thoughts have proprietary phenomenal character, concluding that we have no good justification for holding such a view. After a brief introduction, in Chapter 2, I discuss the distinction between cognitive and noncognitive mental states, according to which cognitive mental states are conceptual and noncognitive mental states are not. I then provide an overview of the cognitive phenomenology debate, arguing that the debate should be understood based on the metaphysical nature of thought and its relationship with phenomenal character. Finally, I introduce views I call phenomenal cognitive phenomenology (phenomenal CP), moderate cognitive phenomenology (moderate CP), and strong cognitive phenomenology (strong CP). I then argue that the denial of any of these positive views offers a better explanation for any phenomenal character associated with thought. In Chapter 3, I critically evaluate various arguments for and against the various views on cognitive phenomenology, including self-knowledge arguments, phenomenal contrast arguments, introspection-based arguments, and content-grounding arguments. I conclude that the arguments are seldom well-justified but that the simplest explanation—that proprietary cognitive phenomenology does not exist—should be defaulted to. In Chapter 4, I describe the debate on the phenomenal intentionality thesis (PIT) and arguments in favor of the PIT. Moreover, I argue that views on phenomenal intentionality entail views on cognitive phenomenology; however, given that such PIT views are not well-justified or even circular, at best, they offer no overriding reason to endorse a positive view on cognitive phenomenology. In Chapter 5, I assert that whether one endorses strong PIT or moderate PIT comes down to one’s views on strong CP. I also discuss the implications of the other chapters, including that the PIT and cognitive phenomenology thesis (CPT) debates are not as independent as previously suggested. I then consider that the different views may amount to introspective differences, and while some may be right and some may be wrong concerning introspecting about the nature of certain mental states, that the metaphysical relationship between cognitive or intentional states on the one hand and phenomenal states on the other hand may simply not be accessible through introspection. Such considerations do not entail that no view offers the best explanation of the relevant phenomena, and I conclude by defending the view on cognitive phenomenology that I endorse: proprietary phenomenal character of thought does not exist. Several of the appendices contain original artwork intended to help illustrate various thought experiments, different views, and more. Other appendices contain derivations in modal logic intended to support the claims made about entailment relations between different views.

The present paper will be primarily concerned with criticizing the defense of cognitive phenomenology presented by David Pitt’s (2011) self knowledge argument, focusing on his response to Joseph Levine (2011). In this essay, I argue that Pitt’s self-knowledge argument appears to presuppose that a person makes voluntary judgments about their beliefs on the basis of recognition of distinctive phenomenal states, the way we recognize what we see, hear, or smell. However, many of those who reject the existence of cognitive phenomenology (e.g., those who endorse Non-Phenomenal Functional Representationalism) would deny this assumption. Thus, I argue Pitt’s self-knowledge arguments do not seem to be as general as may have been intended, as only a relatively narrow audience who already endorse Pitt’s controversial assumptions will find the arguments convincing. However, while Pitt is unable to argue decisively that there exists a distinctive cognitive phenomenology, the same might be said of Levine’s argument that no cognitive phenomenology is required to explain how a person comes to have knowledge of her thoughts. I attempt to offer a defense of Levine’s account of self-knowledge of one’s thoughts, but I ultimately suggest that the literature surrounding the self-knowledge argument for cognitive phenomenology appears to collapse into an argumentative impasse, as both sides appear to rely on controversial assumptions that their opponents take to be false. In the last section of this essay, I discuss the implications of these conclusions.