Curriculum Vitae
James M. Dow
P. O. Box 894
205 Canterbury Rd
Cabin
Fort Montgomery, NY 10922
jmatthiasdow.googlepages.com
jamesmdow@gmail.com
845.446.2080
Education
City University of New York, Graduate Center, Ph. D. in Philosophy, 2010.
University of Massachusetts, Boston, B.A., in Philosophy (with Honors) and English (with Honors), 2002.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Cognitive Science (esp. Philosophy of Psychology), Kant
Areas of Competence
Metaphysics and Epistemology, History of Modern Philosophy, Ethics
Dissertation Title
“Selves and Others: An Interpersonal Account of Self-Consciousness”
Advisor: Jesse Prinz
Committee Members: David Rosenthal, Barbara Montero, Axel Seemann, Michael Devitt
Publications
(2011) “On the Joint Engagement of Persons: Self-Awareness, Symmetry and Person Perception” Philosophical Psychology
(Under Review) “Shoegenstein on Self-Ascription, Immunity to Error and the I-as-Subject”
(Under Review) “Subject to Error: Is Anarchic Hand Syndrome a Counterexample to Immunity to Error through Misidentification?”
(In Preparation) “Just Doing What I Do: Expert Action and Self-Consciousness”
(In Preparation) “Transcendental Arguments in the Philosophy of Self-Consciousness”
Comments and Reviews
(2011) "Self-Consciousness and Concepts" Comments on Stephane Savannah’s “The Concept Possession Hypothesis of Self-Consciousness.” Consciousness and Cognition
(2011) Review of Irwin's Development of Ethics In Philosophical Review.
Presentations and Talks
(2010) “Dissolving the Conceptual Problem of Other Minds: Self-Ascription, Symmetry and Person Perception” at Brooklyn College, Dec. 9th (Invited)
(2010) “Subject to Error: Is Anarchic Hand Syndrome a Counterexample to Immunity to Error through Misidentification?” at NYU, Nov. 11 (Invited)
(2009) “Shoegenstein on Self-Ascription and Immunity to Error” at The Wittgenstein Workshop, at The New School for Social Research, October 29
(2009) “They are One Person, They are Two Alone: Self-Ascription, Identification and Person Perception” at Joint Attention at Bentley University, October 2 (Refereed)
(2009) “Against Cognitive Descriptivism: Self-Ascription, Identification and the Subject Principle” at Perception, Action and Consciousness at University of South Alabama, September 26 (Refereed)
(2009) “They are One Person, They are Two Alone: Self-Ascription, Identification and Person Perception” at The Cognitive Science Symposium, CUNY Graduate Center, September 25
(2009) “Just Doing What I Do: Expert Action, Reflection and Self-Ascription” at The Varieties of Experience Conference at the University of Glasgow, July 7–8 (Refereed)
(2009) “Keeping Humpty Dumpty on the Wall: A Critique of Brandom’s Inferential Reliabilism” at The University of Waterloo Graduate Conference on Epistemology, April 30–May 1
(2008) “Self-Consciousness, Self-Activity and the Agency of the Thinking Subject” at The 3rd International Conference on Philosophy, June 2–5, Athens, Greece (Refereed)
(2007) “Self-Consciousness Ain’t in the Head” at The Cognitive Science Symposium, CUNY Graduate Center, November 9
(2007) “Self-Consciousness Ain’t in the Head” at Cognition: Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Extended, University of Central Florida, October 20–24 (Refereed)
Teaching Experience
(Full responsibility for all aspects of courses: syllabus development, lecture-discussions, assignments, exams and grading)
Lecturer, Philosophy Department Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY 2011-Present
Ethics: Spring 2011
Lecturer, Philosophy Department Brooklyn College, NY: 2005-Present
Existence, Knowledge and Values (Freshman Writing Learning Community): Spring 2005, Fall 2005, Spring 2006, Fall 2006, Spring 2007, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Intersession 2011, Spring 2011
Philosophy of Mind: Spring 2010
Philosophy of Cognitive Science: Fall 2009
Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence: Spring 2010, Spring 2011
Business Ethics: Fall 2006
Lecturer, Philosophy Department Drew University, Madison, NJ 2006-Present
Introduction to Metaphysics and Epistemology: Fall 2008, Spring 2009
History of Ancient Philosophy: Fall 2006
History of Modern Philosophy: Spring 2007, Spring 2009
Senior Seminar in Philosophy of Mind: Mind and World: Intentionality: Fall 2007
Philosophy of Language: Fall 2009
Problems of Metaphysics: Spring 2010
Epistemology: Fall 2010
Senior Seminar in Philosophy of Mind: Selves and Others: Spring 2011
Writing Fellow, Philosophy Department Brooklyn College, NY: 2007-2009
Philosophy Writing Resource Book: A Collection of Writing Handouts
Leader of Faculty Workshops:
“Responding to Student Writing”
“Writing to Learn: Low-stakes Writing to Engage with Course Content”
“Designing Writing Assignments”
“Teaching Avoiding Plagiarism Not Merely Avoiding Punishment”
“Using Writing to Read Difficult Texts”
Research Assistant to Michael Devitt and Saul Kripke, Philosophy Dept. CUNY Graduate Center, NY: 2003–2004
Professional Service
Consciousness and Cognition, Reviewer
Consciousness Online, Reviewer and Commenter, 2009 and 2010
Metapsychology Online, Reviewer
Executive Committee, CUNY Graduate Center (2005-2007)
References
Jesse Prinz, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Email: jesse@subcortex.com
David Rosenthal, Professor of Philosophy and Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Concentration in Cognitive Science, CUNY Graduate Center
Email: davidrosenthal@nyu.edu
Barbara Montero, Professor of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Email: bmontero@gc.cuny.edu
Teaching References
Emily Michael, Deputy Chair and Professor of Philosophy, Brooklyn College
Email: emichael@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Erik Anderson, Chair and Associate Professor of Philosophy, Drew University
Email: eanderso@drew.edu
Matt Moore, Chair and Professor of Philosophy, Brooklyn College
Email: matthewm@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Graduate Courses (Audited*)
Psychological Reality of Language, Michael Devitt
Philosophy of Mind, David Rosenthal
Philosophy of Language, Saul Kripke and Paul Horwich
Teaching Philosophy, Steven Cahn
Advanced Logic, Richard Mendelsohn
Nothing, Stephen Grover
Epistemology, Michael Levin
Philosophy of Art, Steven Ross
Kant’s Ethics, Sibyl Schwarzenbach
Metaphysics, Claudine Verheggen
Systematic Metaphysics, Doug Lackey
Ethics, Stephan Baumrin
Representing Mental States, Christopher Peacocke
Kant, Arnulf Zweig
Consciousness, Thought and Language, David Rosenthal
Mind and Reality, Alice Crary and Richard Bernstein
Self: Metaphysics and Phenomenology, Galen Strawson
The Platonic-Aristotelian Conception of the Good, Claudia Barrachi
Reference, Michael Devitt
Quine and Sellars on Thought and Language, David Rosenthal
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit*, Doug Lackey
Kant and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind*, Beatrice Longuenesse and Christopher Peacocke
Bodily Awareness*, Barbara Montero
Dissertation Abstract
My dissertation presents an argument for the claim that awareness of oneself and awareness of others is symmetrical and mutually dependent. My work challenges the traditional account of self-consciousness according to which individuals can be aware of themselves even though they have never been aware of individuals like themselves. First, I provide an analysis of self-consciousness as the self-ascription of experiences that shows that if a subject is to be able to think “I am experiencing F,” then he must be able to ascribe experiential predicates, e.g., “b is F,” “c is F,” to arbitrarily distinguishable individuals. Second, I argue that in order for one to be self-conscious, one must be able to identify oneself as a subject of experience. However, the traditional account of self-ascription holds that self-ascriptions do not involve identification of a subject, because ‘I’ is immune to error through misidentification. Contrary to universal opinion, I argue that self-ascriptions are not immune to error through misidentification through a conceptual and empirical argument. Third, I argue that the identification of the subject of self-ascription is only possible given the perception of oneself as a person among persons, which I call the Persons Theory. The Persons Theory provides us with a genuinely unique account of thought about other minds that differs from two extant accounts of experience ascription— the simulation theory and the theory-theory. According to the Persons Theory, rather than imagination or thought, perception of persons enables the self-ascription and other-ascription of experiences. I elucidate types of recognition and acknowledgement between subjects in joint perception, action and emotion that are pivotal for self-awareness. An implication of the Persons Theory is that awareness of oneself and awareness of others develops in tandem and involves interaction between persons.