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Teaching & Learning Guide for: ‘Border Disputes: Recent Debates along the Perception–Cognition Border’Philosophy Compass 18 (10). 2023.
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Do humans visually adapt to number, or just itemhood?In M. Goldwater, F. K. Anggoro, B. K. Hayes & D. C. Ong (eds.), Proceedings of the 45th Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, . pp. 1-6. 2023.
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The number sense represents (rational) numbersBehavioral and Brain Sciences 44 1-57. 2021.On a now orthodox view, humans and many other animals possess a “number sense,” or approximate number system, that represents number. Recently, this orthodox view has been subject to numerous critiques that question whether the ANS genuinely represents number. We distinguish three lines of critique – the arguments from congruency, confounds, and imprecision – and show that none succeed. We then provide positive reasons to think that the ANS genuinely represents numbers, and not just non-numerica…Read more
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Naïve realism and unconscious perception: A reply to Berger and NanayAnalysis 77 (2): 267-273. 2017.In a recent paper, Berger and Nanay consider, and reject, three ways of addressing the phenomenon of unconscious perception within a naïve realist framework. Since these three approaches seem to exhaust the options open to naïve realists, and since there is said to be excellent evidence that perception of the same fundamental kind can occur, both consciously and unconsciously, this is seen to present a problem for the view. We take this opportunity to show that all three approaches considered re…Read more
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Naïve realism and phenomenal similarityInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 66 (5): 885-902. 2023.It has been claimed that naïve realism predicts phenomenological similarities where there are none and, thereby, mischaracterises the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. If true, this undercuts a key motivation for the view. Here, we defend naïve realism against this charge, proposing that such arguments fail (three times over). In so doing, we highlight a more general problem with critiques of naïve realism that target the purported phenomenological predictions of the view. The probl…Read more
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Cognitive penetration and informational encapsulation: Have we been failing the module?Philosophical Studies 178 (8): 2599-2620. 2021.Jerry Fodor deemed informational encapsulation ‘the essence’ of a system’s modularity and argued that human perceptual processing comprises modular systems, thus construed. Nowadays, his conclusion is widely challenged. Often, this is because experimental work is seen to somehow demonstrate the cognitive penetrability of perceptual processing, where this is assumed to conflict with the informational encapsulation of perceptual systems. Here, I deny the conflict, proposing that cognitive penetrat…Read more
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Beyond the icon: Core cognition and the bounds of perceptionMind and Language 37 (1): 94-113. 2022.This paper refines a controversial proposal: that core systems belong to a perceptual kind, marked out by the format of its representational outputs. Following Susan Carey, this proposal has been understood in terms of core representations having an iconic format, like certain paradigmatically perceptual outputs. I argue that they don’t, but suggest that the proposal may be better formulated in terms of a broader analogue format type. Formulated in this way, the proposal accommodates the existen…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |