I work philosophy of mind and cognition, also in metaphysics and philosophy of science. In the field of mind, my research interests tend to involve the relations that may hold between physical entities and mental properties and the way we model cognition. I am also interested in consciousness, mereology, scientific modeling, problems of confirmation, and cognitive bias.

My dissertation, written under the direction of Robert Cummins and Paul Teller, develops a general defense of the computational theory of mind from the objection that the view inadvertently attributes mentality to far too many mundane objects. Hilary Putnam and John Searle pose objections along these lines. As I argue, the problem is not due to the computational theory itself, but to a neglected account of program implementation. I argue that my solution generalizes to related problems for mental representation and scientific modeling.

I taught Critical Thinking over the summer as a visiting lecturer at SCNU in Guangzhou, China.

I recently presented two papers at APA conferences.

2011 Searle's Wall (abstract) at the American Philosophical Association Central Division Meeting

2011 The Physical Realizations of Minds (abstract) at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting

Earlier drafts of these papers are listed below. Please see my CV for other presentations and publications.

10.01.10 Minds and Material Composition at the Northwest Philosophy Conference

07.29.10 Searle's Wall at the North Carolina Philosophical Society Conference