I received my Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and I'm currently teaching at Trent University. My current research focuses on ethical and epistemological questions related to information technology, such as AI and social media (especially in connection with the distribution of misinformation). I also work on epistemology and the philosophy of perception more generally.
I can be reached at: millar[dot]boyd[at]gmail[dot]com
"Memory, Luck, and the Laudative Theory of Knowledge." Oxford Studies in Epistemology (forthcoming).
According to the laudative theory of knowledge, “knowledge” is a mere laudative term—a term, such as “athletic,” “artistic,” or “masterpiece,” that expresses merely that some entity is good relative to some domain. (I.e., the laudative theory claims that for you to know some proposition just is for you to believe some true proposition in a good way.) I defend the laudative theory by contrasting inferential knowledge and memory. A central component of what it is for an inferential belief to constitute knowledge is that the subject’s belief being true is due to the subject’s competent reasoning, rather than due to luck (i.e., inferential knowledge is incompatible with veritic luck). Conversely, I argue that many instances of successful memory are accurate due to luck, and that many such instances of successful memory nonetheless constitute (or provide a basis for) knowledge. If so, then there is some feature that is a central component of what it is for an inferential belief to constitute knowledge, but that is not even necessary for a memory (or memory-based belief) to constitute knowledge; and this fact suggests that, rather than picking out a substantive, unitary phenomenon, “knowledge” is a mere laudative term.
"The Value of Knowledge and the Case for Superintelligence." AI and Ethics 6 (2026): 364.
It is widely assumed that the principal reason to pursue or not pursue superintelligent AI (Super-AI) is the impact that such technology would have on the well-being of humans in general. I maintain, to the contrary, that the principal reason to pursue Super-AI is not for our sake, but for its own sake: all else being equal, if one world contains vastly more knowledge than another, then it is significantly better than the other; and a world in which Super-AI exists contains vastly more knowledge than a world in which it doesn’t. Accordingly, I maintain that, to the extent that we are morally obligated to make the world a better place, we are morally obligated to create Super-AI. Moreover, I argue that, because the knowledge that Super-AI would possess is so valuable, we ought to create it even if we knew in advance that doing so would precipitate human extinction: it would no more be reasonable to forgo the existence of Super-AIs in order to preserve the existence of human beings, than it would be to forgo the existence of human beings in order to preserve the existence of chimpanzees. Finally, I argue that, regardless of the threat of extinction, creating Super-AI is in our own best-interests. We all want to help ensure that there is much more knowledge in the future, even a future that we won’t live to see, than there is at present; and the best way to achieve this goal is to create Super-AI.
"The Argument from Imagination." Journal of the American Philosophical Association 12 (2026): 53-71.
Much of the debate between naïve realism and the content view has focused on a particular aspect of perceptual phenomenology: the phenomenal immediacy that distinguishes perceptual experiences from both imagery experiences and conscious thoughts. According to a version of the argument from hallucination, we should prefer the content view to naïve realism because the former, unlike the latter, can provide a unified explanation of the fact that both hallucinatory and veridical experiences possess immediacy. However, the standard variety of the content view that can provide such an explanation is not in a position to provide a unified explanation of a distinct aspect of perceptual phenomenology: perceptual experiences possess a presentational character that they share with imagery experiences (and which distinguishes both from conscious thoughts). Accordingly, I present an argument from imagination in defense of a non-standard variety of the content view—the sensory vehicle theory. Unlike its competitors, the sensory vehicle theory can provide unified explanations of why hallucinatory and veridical perceptual experiences possess immediacy, and why perceptual and imagery experiences possess their presentational character; as such, this theory provides a better explanation of the phenomenal facts than does either naïve realism or the standard variety of the content view.
"Partisan Epistemology and Misplaced Trust." Episteme 22 (2025): 126-146.
The fact that each of us has significantly greater confidence in the claims of co-partisans—those belonging to groups with which we identify—explains, in large part, why so many people believe a significant amount the misinformation they encounter. It’s natural to assume that such misinformed partisan beliefs typically involve a rational failure of some kind; and philosophers and psychologists have defended various accounts of the nature of the rational failure purportedly involved. I argue that none of the standard diagnoses of the irrationality of misinformed partisan beliefs is convincing; but I also argue that we ought to reject attempts to characterize these beliefs as rational or consistent with epistemic virtue. Accordingly, I defend an alternative diagnosis of the relevant epistemic error. Specifically, I maintain that such beliefs typically result when an individual evaluating testimony assigns more weight to co-partisanship than he ought to under the circumstances, and consequently believes the testimony of co-partisans when better alternatives are available.
"Perceiving Secondary Qualities." Philosophical Studies 181 (2024): 2817-2842.
Thomas Reid famously claimed that our perceptual experiences reveal what primary qualities are in themselves, while providing us with only an obscure notion of secondary qualities. I maintain that this claim is largely correct and that, consequently, any adequate theory of perception must explain the fact that perceptual experiences provide significantly less insight into the nature of secondary qualities than into the nature of primary qualities. I maintain that neither naïve realism nor the standard Russellian variety of the content view can provide a satisfying explanation; instead, in order to provide a satisfying explanation, we must posit that perceptual experiences represent properties via Fregean modes of presentation. Further, I maintain that we must depart from the standard Fregean variety of the content view in two important respects. First, the relevant modes of presentation must be characterized without appealing to causal relations between perceptual experiences and perceived properties; and second, we must posit that primary and secondary qualities are represented via modes of presentation of different kinds. The resulting view is that primary qualities are represented via perceptual modes of presentation analogous to highly detailed descriptions, while secondary qualities are represented via perceptual modes of presentation analogous to impoverished descriptions.
"Epistemic Obligations and Free Speech." Analytic Philosophy 65 (2024): 203-222.
Philosophical discussions of free speech often focus on moral considerations such as the harm that certain forms of expression might cause. However, in addition to our moral obligations, we also have a distinct set of epistemic obligations—and even when a false belief doesn’t harm anyone, it constitutes an epistemically bad outcome. Moreover, the existing psychological evidence suggests that human beings are vulnerable to the influence of a wide variety of false claims via a wide variety of psychological mechanisms. Taken together, these facts suggest that there is a purely epistemic justification for restricting the distribution of misinformation: because each of us has an individual epistemic obligation to avoid unnecessary exposure to misinformation, and because avoiding such exposure is simply too difficult when acting alone, we all have a shared epistemic obligation to establish laws or regulations restricting the widespread distribution of misinformation.
"Epistemic Obligations of the Laity." Episteme 20 (2023): 232-246 .
Very often when the vast majority of experts agree on some scientific issue, laypeople nonetheless regularly consume articles, videos, lectures, etc., the principal claims of which are inconsistent with the expert consensus. Moreover, it is standardly assumed that it is entirely appropriate, and perhaps even obligatory, for laypeople to consume such anti-consensus material. I maintain that this standard assumption gets things backwards. Each of us is particularly vulnerable to false claims when we are not experts on some topic—such falsehoods have systematic negative impacts on our doxastic attitudes that we can neither prevent nor correct. So, when there is clear expert consensus on a given scientific issue, while it is permissible for experts to consume anti-consensus material, laypeople have an epistemic obligation to avoid such material. This argument has important consequences for philosophical discussions of our epistemic obligations to perform or omit belief-influencing actions. Such discussions typically abstract away from the important differences between experts and laypeople. Accordingly, we should reject this typical practice as problematic, and insist instead that laypeople and experts have fundamentally different epistemic obligations.
"Misperceiving Properties." Mind & Language 38 (2023): 431-445.
According to the traditional view, while some of our perceptual experiences of objects constitute illusions or veridical hallucinations, our perceptual experiences of properties engender no analogues of such cases. Recently, however, a number of philosophers have argued that property illusions—cases in which we perceive a property, but that property is not the property it seems to us to be in virtue of our perceptual experience—and veridical illusions—cases in which we perceive an object, the properties our experience presents perfectly match the properties the object possesses, but our experience of some specific property is nonetheless unsuccessful or illusory—can occur. I defend the traditional view against these attacks. First, I maintain that there are compelling reasons to conclude that property illusions and veridical illusions cannot occur; and second, I maintain that the considerations supporting the possibility of such cases are unconvincing. Ultimately, then, we ought to accept the consequence of the traditional view that there are fundamental differences between object perception and property perception—differences that any adequate theory of perception ought to explain.
"Perceiving Properties versus Perceiving Objects." Analytic Philosophy 63 (2022): 99-117.
The fact that you see some particular object seems to be due to the causal relation between your visual experience and that object, rather than to your experiences’ phenomenal character. On the one hand, whenever some phenomenal element of your experience stands in the right sort of causal relation to some object, your experience presents that object (your experience’s phenomenology doesn’t need to match that object). On the other hand, you can’t have a perceptual experience that presents some object unless you stand in the right sort of causal relation to that object (no matter how closely your experience’s phenomenology matches some object). According to the continuity thesis, property perception is similar to object perception in these two respects. A standard reason to reject the continuity thesis is the assumption that the environmental properties that a perceptual experience presents are determined by its phenomenal properties (which are not determined by the environmental properties that cause the experience). I maintain that the continuity thesis is false but for a different reason: perceptual experiences present both objects and properties via manners of presentation; but, whereas perceptual manners of presentation for objects are purely relational, perceptual manners of presentation for properties are satisfactional.
"Misinformation and the Limits of Individual Responsibility." Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 10 (2021): 8-21.
The issue of how best to combat the negative impacts of misinformation distributed via social media hangs on the following question: are there methods that most individuals can reasonably be expected to employ that would largely protect them from the negative impact that encountering misinformation on social media would otherwise have on their beliefs? If the answer is “yes,” then presumably individuals bear significant responsibility for those negative impacts; and, further, presumably there are feasible educational remedies for the problem of misinformation. However, I argue that the answer is “no.” Accordingly, I maintain that individuals do not bear significant responsibility for the negative impacts at issue; and, further, I maintain that the only effective remedies for the problem of misinformation involve changing the information environment itself.
"Shared Epistemic Responsibility." Episteme 18 (2021): 493-506.
It is widely acknowledged that individual moral obligations and responsibility entail shared (or joint) moral obligations and responsibility. However, whether individual epistemic obligations and responsibility entail shared epistemic obligations and responsibility is rarely discussed. Instead, most discussions of doxastic responsibility focus on individuals considered in isolation. In contrast to this standard approach, I maintain that focusing exclusively on individuals in isolation leads to a profoundly incomplete picture of what we’re epistemically obligated to do and when we deserve epistemic blame. First, I argue that we have epistemic obligations to perform actions of the sort that can be performed in conjunction with other people, and that consequently, we are often jointly blameworthy when we violate shared epistemic obligations. Second, I argue that shared responsibility is especially important to doxastic responsibility thanks to the fact that we don’t have the same kind of direct control over our beliefs that we have over our actions. In particular, I argue that there are many cases in which a particular individual who holds some problematic belief only deserves epistemic blame in virtue of belonging to a group all the members of which are jointly blameworthy for violating some shared epistemic obligation.
"Learning to See." Mind & Language 35 (2020): 601-620.
The reports of individuals who have had their vision restored after a long period of blindness suggest that, immediately after regaining their vision, such individuals are not able to recognize shapes by vision alone. It is often assumed that the empirical literature on sight restoration tells us something important about the relationship between visual and haptic representations of shape. However, I maintain that, immediately after having their sight restored, at least some newly sighted individuals undergo visual experiences that instantiate basic shape phenomenology but which do not present (that is, neither represent nor involve acquaintance with) the corresponding shape properties. Consequently, the empirical literature on sight restoration tells us something important about the role that perceptual phenomenology plays in our perceptual awareness of an object’s properties—it tells us that the properties presented by perceptual experiences are not determined by or “built into” perceptual phenomenology. In addition, I maintain that the evidence concerning sight restoration suggests an alternative theory concerning the role that sensory phenomenology plays in our perceptual awareness of an object’s properties. Specifically, it suggests that, while not inherently representational, sensory phenomenal properties can serve as vehicles for the representation of an object’s properties.
"The Information Environment and Blameworthy Beliefs." Social Epistemology 33 (2019): 525-537.
Thanks to the advent of social media, large numbers of Americans believe outlandish falsehoods that have been widely debunked. Many of us have a tendency to fault the individuals who hold such beliefs. We naturally assume that the individuals who form and maintain such beliefs do so in virtue of having violated some epistemic obligation: perhaps they failed to scrutinize their sources, or failed to seek out the available competing evidence. I maintain that very many ordinary individuals who acquire outlandish false beliefs thanks to their use of popular social media platforms (and other similar internet technologies) deserve little or no blame for believing these falsehoods. Such individuals would be fully blameworthy only if they had formed or maintained the relevant beliefs partly in virtue of violating some epistemic obligation and had no excuse for violating that obligation. However, the nature of these internet technologies provides excuses for violating the relevant epistemic obligations, and so individuals are excused for holding the resulting false beliefs.
"Thinking with Sensations." The Journal of Philosophy 114 (2017): 134-154.
If we acknowledge that a perceptual experience’s sensory phenomenology is not inherently representational, we face a puzzle. On the one hand, sensory phenomenology must play an intimate role in the perception of ordinary physical objects; but on the other hand, our experiences’ purely sensory element rarely captures our attention. I maintain that neither indirect realism nor the dual component theory provides a satisfactory solution to this puzzle: indirect realism is inconsistent with the fact that sensory phenomenology typically goes unnoticed by perceivers; while, the dual component theory cannot do justice to the important role that sensory phenomenology plays in our perceptual awareness of physical objects. I argue that in order to avoid the difficulties with each of the standard alternatives, we must characterize sensory phenomenology as functioning in the way that linguistic symbols function in thought.
"Frege's Puzzle for Perception." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (2016): 368-392.
According to an influential variety of the representational view of perceptual experience—the singular content view—the contents of perceptual experiences include singular propositions partly composed of the particular physical object(s) a given experience is about or of. The singular content view faces well-known difficulties accommodating hallucinations; I maintain that there is also an analogue of Frege’s puzzle that poses a significant problem for this view. In fact, I believe that this puzzle presents difficulties for the theory that are unique to perception in that strategies that have been developed to respond to Frege’s puzzle in the case of belief cannot be employed successfully in the case of perception. Ultimately, I maintain that this perceptual analogue of Frege’s puzzle provides a compelling reason to reject the singular content view of perceptual experience.
"Naïve Realism and Illusion." Ergo 2 (2015): 607-625.
It is well-known that naïve realism has difficulty accommodating perceptual error. Recent discussion of the issue has focused on whether the naïve realist can accommodate hallucination by adopting disjunctivism. However, illusions are more difficult for the naïve realist to explain precisely because the disjunctivist solution is not available. I discuss what I take to be the two most plausible accounts of illusion available to the naïve realist. The first claims that illusions are cases in which you are prevented from perceiving properties you would ordinarily perceive and subsequently form a mistaken judgment about the perceived object. The second appeals to an unusual look or appearance that the perceived object instantiates. I argue that neither account is satisfactory and, consequently, that naïve realism ought to be rejected.
"The Phenomenological Directness of Perceptual Experience." Philosophical Studies 170 (2014): 235-253.
When you have a perceptual experience of a given physical object that object seems immediately present to you in a way it never does when you consciously think about or imagine it (call this the phenomenological directness of perceptual experience). A number of philosophers maintain that the relational view of perception (or naïve realism) should be preferred to the content view since the former provides a satisfactory account of the phenomenological directness of veridical perceptual experiences while the latter does not. I argue, first, that the only acceptable naïve realist account of this phenomenology is circular, and so the naïve realist does not have an advantage over the content view in this regard. Second, I argue that a certain specific variety of the content view (which I call the direct causal content view) provides a non-circular and thus more satisfactory account of phenomenological directness.
"The Phenomenological Problem of Perception." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (2014): 625-654.
Even if we grant that naïve realism provides a satisfactory account of the phenomenological directness of veridical perceptual experiences, the view cannot provide an account of the phenomenological directness of hallucinations. Conversely, I argue that a particular version of the content view (the direct causal content view) provides a unified account of the phenomenological directness of both veridical and hallucinatory experiences. If so, then the phenomenological facts concerning perceptual experience are explained better by the content view than by naïve realism.
"Colour Constancy and Fregean Representationalism." Philosophical Studies 164 (2013): 219-231.
Fregean representationalism is often held to have an advantage over Russellian representationalism with respect to accommodating purported counterexamples involving spectrum inversion without illusion and colour constancy. I maintain that colour constancy poses a special problem for the Fregean theory in that the features of the theory that enable it handle spectrum inversion without illusion cannot be extended to handle colour constancy. I consider the two most plausible proposals regarding how the Fregean view might be developed in order to handle colour constancy—one of which has recently been defended by Thompson (2009)—and argue that neither is adequate.
"Sensory Phenomenology and Perceptual Content." Philosophical Quarterly 61 (2011): 558-76.
The consensus view in contemporary philosophy of mind is that the way a perceptual experience represents the world to be is built into its sensory phenomenology. I defend an opposing view that I call moderate separatism: the view that an experience’s sensory phenomenology does not determine or fix the way it represents the world to be. I argue for moderate separatism by showing that two experiences of an object reflected in a mirror can possess the same spatial phenomenology while representing that object to occupy different spatial locations.
"Peacocke's Trees." Synthese 174 (2010): 445-61.
In Sense and Content, Christopher Peacocke points out that two equally sized trees at different distances from the perceiver are normally represented to be the same size, despite the fact that in a certain sense the nearer tree looks bigger; he concludes on the basis of this observation that visual experiences possess irreducibly phenomenal properties. Despite its notoriety, the argument is widely misunderstood and underappreciated. I argue that once the structure of the argument is clarified and the replies that have been offered are considered closely, one must conclude that the trees argument is successful.
"The Conflicted Character of Picture Perception." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64 (2006): 471-77.
It is often assumed that there is a perceptual conflict in looking at a picture since one sees both a two-dimensional surface and a three-dimensional scene simultaneously. I argue that it is a mistake to think that looking at pictures requires the visual system to perform the special task of reconciling inconsistent impressions of space, or competing information from different depth cues.