Durham University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2015
APA Western Division
Azusa, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics
Philosophy of Mind
  •  1582
    The goal of this paper is to critically examine the objections of John Locke’s contemporaries against the theory of substance or substratum. Locke argues in Essay that substratum is the bearer of the properties of a particular substance. Locke also claims that we have no knowledge of substratum. But Locke’s claim about our ignorance as to what substratum is, is contentious. That is, if we don’t know what substratum is, then what is the point of proposing it as a bearer of properties? This questi…Read more
  •  467
    Obituary for Professor E.J. Lowe
    Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 33 (1): 159-162. 2014.
  •  257
    E. J. Lowe's Metaphysics and Philosophical/Analytic Theology. Special Issue.
    TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology 5 (2): 1-216. 2021.
    The essays in this special issue focus on connecting the relevant aspects of Lowe’s metaphysics to issues in philosophical theology. In this regard, the essays focus on Trinity, divine causal agency, atonement, embodied existence, physicalism vs. dualism, natural science, and theological claims.
  •  72
    Physically Sufficient Neural Mechanisms of Consciousness
    Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience 13 (24): 1-14. 2019.
    Neural correlates of consciousness (for brevity NCC) are foundational to the scientific study of consciousness. Chalmers (2000) has provided the most informative and influential definition of NCC, according to which neural correlates are minimally sufficient for consciousness. However, the sense of sufficiency needs further clarification since there are several relevant senses with different entailments. In section one of this article, we give an overview of the desiderata for a good definition …Read more
  •  68
    Personal Identity: Complex or Simple? (review)
    Analysis 74 (2): 356-357. 2014.
    Edited by Georg Gasser and Matthias Stefan. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  •  55
    Consciousness and the Ontology of Properties (edited book)
    Routledge. 2019.
    This book aims to show the centrality of a proper ontology of properties in thinking about consciousness. Philosophers have long grappled with what is now known as the hard problem of consciousness, i.e., how can subjective or qualitative features of our experience—such as how a strawberry tastes—arise from brain states? More recently, philosophers have incorporated what seems like promising empirical research from neuroscience and cognitive psychology in an attempt to bridge the gap betwe…Read more
  •  53
    The Problem of Universals in Contemporary Philosophy. Edited by Gabriele Galluzzo and Michael J. Loux
  •  38
    The essays in this volume focus on the notion of the first-person pro-noun ‘I’, the notion of the self or person,1 and the notion of the first-person perspective. Let us call these the three notions. Ever since Descartes set the initial tone in his Meditations, modern philosophical controversies concerning the three notions have continued unabated. Part of the reason for ongoing debates has to do with the sorts of questions that the three notions give rise to.
  •  17
    Consciousness, First-Person Perspective, and Neuroimaging
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 22 (11-12): 218-245. 2015.
    In this paper, my main goal is to discuss two incompatible answers proposed to what I shall call, the objectivity seeking question (OSQ). The first answer is what I shall call the primacy thesis, according to which the third-person perspective is superior to that of the first-person perspective. Ultimately I will reject this answer. The second answer is what I shall call the skepticism thesis, according to which the distinction between the first-person perspective and the third-person perspectiv…Read more
  •  13
    Selfhood, Autism and Thought Insertion (edited book)
    Imprint Academic. 2021.
    This book presents engaging and informative analysis of three interrelated notions, namely: selfhood, the first person pronoun ‘I’ and the first person perspective. Philosophers have long debated about these notions on non-empirical grounds often focusing on the question of whether the first person pronoun ‘I’, beyond its role as a grammatical term, has an underlying implication for the ontology of selfhood. Philosophers continuously grapple with whether the first person pronoun ‘I’ is a referri…Read more
  •  12
    The Two Natures of the Incarnate Christ and the Bearer Question.
    TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology 3 (1): 113-143. 2019.
    The Chalcedonian Definition states that the incarnate Christ is both fully human and fully divine. But spelling out what the Chalcedonian Definition entails continues to be a subject of intense controversy among philosophers and theologians alike. One of these controversies concerns what I call the problem of the bearer question. At the heart of this question lies whether or not the two natures of Christ require two distinct bearers. In section I, I will explain the problem of the bearer questio…Read more
  •  2
    Frank Jackson's Location Problem and Argument from the Self
    Philosophia Christi 1 (13): 35-58. 2011.
    E. J. Lowe argues in Personal Agency that the self is physically embodied yet not identical with any physical body, nor with any part of a physical body, such as the brain. For Lowe, the self is an agent that is capable of carrying out intentional actions. Call this the thesis about the self (TS). In this paper my purpose is to develop and defend TS and argue that Frank Jackson’s serious metaphysics (SM) fails to account for the nature of the self. This paper is outlined as follows: Section I pr…Read more
  • Metaphysics, Natural Science and Theological Claims: E. J. Lowe’s Approach.
    TheoLogica: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology 5 (2): 129-160. 2021.
    In this paper, I aim to discuss E. J. Lowe's view of the synergy between metaphysics and natural science. In doing so, I will extend Lowe’s synergistic model to develop a realist account of theological claims thereby responding to Byrne’s strong form of eliminativism and agnosticism about theological claims. The paper is divided up as follows. In section 1, I will discuss Lowe’s view of metaphysics. In section 2, I will explain how Lowe thinks metaphysics and natural science are related. In sect…Read more
  • Neuroscience or Neuroscientism? ’A Response to Paul Moes and D. Gareth Jones‘
    Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 63 (1): 69-70. 2011.
  • The Soul, Mental Action and the Conservation Laws
    In Brandon Rickabaugh and J. P. Moreland- The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism)., Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. pp. 344-360. 2024.
    In what follows, I will respond to three interrelated but distinct questions which collectively focus on whether the soul exerts causal influences upon the physical states or activities of the brain. Here are the three questions: 1. If the soul is constantly acting upon the brain, then why don't we see physically uncaused spikes in the energy level of the brain? 2. Are the neurons in the brain sufficiently sensitive to respond to such tiny stimuli as would be within the range of energy fluctuati…Read more
  • Mirror Neurons, Consciousness, and the Bearer Question
    In Angus J. L. Menuge, Brian R. Krouse & Robert J. Marks (eds.), -Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science, Discovery Institute Press. pp. 185-208. 2023.
    In this chapter, I aim to examine the two central properties that are said to underlie the theory of mirror neurons, namely action execution and action observation. I shall call these the functional properties of mirror neurons. I will argue that attributing the functional properties of mirror cognition, as many neuroscientists do, to the so-called ‘mirror neurons’ suffers from the problem of misidentification. This is the problem of incorrectly identifying an object or a property of one sort wi…Read more
  • Objects, Dispositions and Lockean Person-Making Properties.
    APPRAISAL The Journal of the British Personalist Forum 11 (1 Boston Issue). 2016.
    This paper examines certain influential contemporary philosophical analyses of the notion of a person and show why they are misguided. Inspired by the Lockean conception of a person, some philosophers claim that personhood must be attributed only to those human beings who can meet certain criteria required for it. Here the views of Tooley, Dennett and Singer will be discussed against the backdrop of the metaphysics of powers ontology as advocated by contemporary philosophers: C. B. Martin, John …Read more
  • E. J. Lowe's Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology (edited book)
    Routledge. forthcoming.
    Edward Jonathan Lowe was one of the most distinguished metaphysicians of the last fifty plus years. He made immense contributions to analytic philosophy in as diverse areas as metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, modern philosophy (especially on John Locke) and philosophy of religion. Lowe was a realist metaphysician. Like Aristotle, he thought that, with sustained reflection and responsible engagement with empirical research, the nature of a mind in…Read more
  • How Far Can Science Take US? A Response to Craig M. Story
    Journal of American Scientific Affliation 62 (2): 143-144. 2010.
  • Jehovah’s Witnesses
    In Mark A. Lamport (ed.), Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 415-417. 2018.
  • Zoroastrianism and Christianity
    In Mark A. Lamport (ed.), Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 879-881. 2018.
  • Taking Persons Seriously: Where Philosophy and Bioethics Intersect (edited book)
    with Scott B. Rae
    Pickwick Publications, Wipf and Stock Publishers.. forthcoming.
    This volume attempts to show why ontology matters for a proper grasp of issues in bioethics. Contemporary discussions on bioethics often focus on seeking solutions for a wide range of issues that revolve around persons. The issues in question are multi-layered, involving such diverse aspects as the metaphysical/ontological, personal, medical, moral, legal, cultural, social, political, religious, and environmental. In navigating through such a complex web of issues, it has been said that the cent…Read more
  • In this paper, I will give a three-stage analysis of the origin of phenomenal consciousness. The first one has to do with a non-causal stage. The second one has to do with a causal stage. The third one has to do with a correlation stage. This paper is divided into three sections. In section I, I will discuss a non-causal stage which focuses on finite consciousness as an irreducible emergent property—i.e., a simple non-structural property that is unique to the “emergent” level of reality. I will …Read more