Research

Here's what I've been working on:

Acquaintance: I'm working on a book on acquaintance. Acquaintance is an especially direct form of awareness that we bear to certain things we experience, like colors, shapes, smells, and tastes, as well as (I'll argue) beauty and goodness. I'll defend three claims about acquaintance: (i) it exists, (ii) it is a kind of knowledge, and (iii) it has unique epistemic, aesthetic, and moral significance. The working title of the book is Present to the Mind: Acquaintance and Its Significance.

Knowledge of things: I argue that some knowledge is constituted, not by beliefs in propositions, but by awareness of objects and properties. A key motivation for this view is that conscious awareness plays various philosophical roles of knowledge--having to do with reasoning, justification, action guidance, epistemic praise and blame, and more.

Personal identity and self-knowledge: I argue that we have especially good first-personal evidence about what we are in and through time. And I appeal to this evidence to defend further claims about us (people) and our minds--including a phenomenal theory of personal identity and a (limited) acquaintance theory of self-knowledge .

Publications

"Getting Acquainted with Art: Aesthetics and Knowledge of Things" (with Hannah Nahas) in L. Campbell (ed.) Forms of Knowledge. Oxford University Press (forthcoming).

We learn from art. By viewing, hearing, touching, creating, performing, and in yet other ways interacting with art, we gain new knowledge—knowledge that we wouldn’t have had, and perhaps couldn’t have had, without encountering that art. That’s obvious. But what is less obvious is the nature, or structure, of this knowledge—what constitutes it. A standard assumption in contemporary analytic philosophy is that all knowledge is and must be propositional—that is, constituted by beliefs in propositions. However, this assumption, despite being standard, has come under attack in recent years. One front in this attack comes from aesthetics and philosophy of art, where some philosophers have claimed that some knowledge gained from art is non-propositional. This paper fortifies this front by giving new reasons to think that some knowledge from art is not propositional and is instead “knowledge of things,” which is constituted, not by beliefs in propositions, but by awareness of properties and objects. It also fills a gap in the contemporary literature by giving an account of this knowledge—of its nature, structure, and relation to other knowledge.

"I Feel Your Pain: Acquaintance and the Limits of Empathy," (with Emad Atiq) Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind (forthcoming). Draft

The kind of empathy that is communicated through expressions like “I feel your pain” or “I share your sadness” is important, but peculiar. For it seems to require something perplexing and elusive: sharing another’s experience. It’s not clear how this is possible. We each experience the world from our own point of view, which no one else occupies. It’s also unclear exactly why it is so important that we share others' pains. If you are in pain, then why should it matter, and be a good thing, that I am also in the same pain? Our goal in this paper is to address these questions. Specifically, our goal is to clarify how empathy, in the regimented sense of sharing another’s pain, is possible and why it is important. Central to our account is the concept of being acquainted with—that is, directly aware of—pain. When I feel my own pain, and am acquainted with it, I want the pain to stop, and I’m moved—sometimes compelled—to stop it. My acquaintance with the pain is what reveals that it is no good, to be gotten rid of, and to be avoided in the future. Acquaintance also appears to be implicated in our understanding of, and motivation to relieve, others’ pains. When I say “I feel your pain” I express an awareness of your pain, a direct appreciation of its noxious qualities, and, as with my own pain, an understanding of why it ought to be eased. Explaining how empathy is both possible and important therefore involves clarifying the nature of acquaintance: its limits, epistemic role, and motivational significance. What our analysis reveals is that agents have both epistemic and moral reasons to share other people’s pain because pain-sharing is the source of a species of character-building knowledge that we have no other way of accessing except through direct acquaintance with pain.

"Animalists on the Run," Inquiry (forthcoming). Draft

Animalists claim that we are animals. In a recent paper, I argue that, depending on how this claim is understood, animalism is either false or uninteresting (Duncan, 2021). If it is merely the thesis that we are identical to animals (“Animalism Light”), then it is uninteresting, because it doesn’t address the philosophical question it was supposed to address. If, instead, it is a stronger thesis—i.e., that we are essentially or fundamentally animals (“Robust Animalism”)—then it is false. Even more recently, Andrew M. Bailey, Allison Krile Thornton, and Peter van Elswyk (2021) attempt to defend animalism against each of my two claims. They argue that Animalism Light holds considerable interest and that Robust Animalism can be defended against my arguments. In this article, I contribute to this exchange by defending my claims about animalism against Bailey et al.’s criticisms.

"Reasoning with Knowledge of Things," Philosophical Psychology (forthcoming).

In this paper, I focus on the role of visual perception in reasoning to argue that some knowledge is constituted, not by beliefs in propositions, but by awareness of properties and object. I start by introducing a principle about the relationship between knowledge and reasoning, which says that to learn something new by reasoning, one must know the bases of one’s reasoning. Then I argue that in some cases of genuine, knowledge-conferring reasoning, the bases of our reasoning are not propositions that we believe; rather, they’re properties or objects that we see. Thus, I conclude that some such knowledge is non-propositional—it’s what Bertrand Russell (1911, 1912) calls “knowledge of things”.

"Suppose We Know Things," Episteme 20, 2 (2023): 308-323.

When contemporary philosophers discuss the nature of knowledge, or conduct debates that the nature of knowledge is relevant to, they typically treat all knowledge as propositional. However, recent introductory epistemology texts and encyclopedia entries often mention three kinds of knowledge: (i) propositional knowledge, (ii) abilities knowledge, and (iii) knowledge of things/by acquaintance. This incongruity is striking for a number of reasons, one of which is that what kinds of knowledge there are is relevant to various debates in philosophy. In this paper I focus on this point as it relates to the third kind of knowledge mentioned above--knowledge of things. I start by supposing that we have knowledge of things, and then I show how this supposition reshapes various debates in philosophy.

"How You Know You're Conscious: Illusionism and Knowledge of Things," Review of Philosophy and Psychology 14, 1 (2023): 185-205.

Most people believe that consciousness is real. But illusionists say it isn’t—they say consciousness is an illusion. One important illusionist strategy for defending their view involves a debunking argument. They explain why people believe that consciousness exists in a way that doesn’t imply that it does exist; and, in so doing, they aim to show that that belief is unjustified. In this paper I argue that we can know consciousness exists even if these debunking arguments are sound. To do this, I draw on the claim that some knowledge is constituted, not by beliefs in propositions, but by awareness of properties and objects. Then I argue that accepting this claim allows us to evade illusionists’ debunking arguments by allowing us to hold that our knowledge of consciousness does not depend solely on potentially debunked beliefs in consciousness. Finally, while considering potential illusionist responses, I suggest that my strategy also yields a plausible account of our most basic knowledge of consciousness and an explanation for why so few people accept illusionism even when they have (or had) no decisive reply to illusionists’ arguments.

"Externalist Should Be Sense-Datum Theorists," Journal of the American Philosophical Association 8, 2 (2022): 338-355. Draft

One increasingly popular view in the philosophy of perception is externalism about sensible qualities, according to which sensible qualities like colors, smells, tastes, textures, etc., are features, not of our minds, but of mind-independent, external objects in the world. The primary motivation for this view is that perceptual experience seems to be transparent—that is, when we attend to sensible qualities, it seems like what we are attending to are features of external objects, not our own minds. Most (if not all) externalists are either naïve realists or externalist representationalists. However, in this paper, I argue that those who are moved by the primary motivation for externalism should instead be sense-datum theorists. For I argue that externalists’ primary motivation supports the sense-datum theory, not their actually favored views. So I argue that externalists should either focus on different motivations, get new ones, or become sense-datum theorists.

"Animalism is Either False or Uninteresting (Perhaps Both)," American Philosophical Quarterly 58, 2 (2021): 187-200. Draft

“We are animals.” That’s what animalists say—that’s their slogan. But what animalists mean by their slogan varies. Many animalists are adamant that what they mean—and, indeed, what the true animalist thesis is—is that we are identical to animals (human animals, to be precise). But others say that’s not enough. They say that the animalist thesis has to be something more—perhaps that we are essentially or most fundamentally human animals. This paper argues that, depending on how we understand it, animalism is either false or uninteresting. If animalism is just the claim that we are identical to animals, then it is uninteresting. For it doesn’t provide an answer to the question it’s meant to address. On the other hand, if animalism entails a stronger claim, such as that we are essentially animals, then animalism is false. Either way, we should set animalism aside.

"Acquaintance," Philosophy Compass 16, 3 (2021): 1-19. Draft

To be acquainted with something (in the philosophical sense of ‘acquainted’ discussed here) is to be directly aware of it. The idea that we are acquainted with certain things we experience has been discussed throughout the history of Western Philosophy, but in the early 20th century it gained especially focused attention among analytic philosophers who drew their inspiration from Bertrand Russell’s work on acquaintance. Since then, many philosophers—particularly those working on self-knowledge or perception—have used the notion of acquaintance to explain various facts about human experience and knowledge. In this paper, I offer an overview of this work, with particular focus on the resurgent literature on acquaintance in contemporary analytic philosophy. After more fully explaining what acquaintance is (or is supposed to be), I describe some reasons for thinking that we are indeed acquainted with certain things we experience, and then I survey some of the facts about experience and knowledge that acquaintance may help explain.

"Experience is Knowledge," Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind, 1, (2021): 106-129. Draft

It seems like experience plays a positive—even essential—role in generating some knowledge. The problem is, it’s not clear what that role is. To see this, suppose that when your visual system takes in information about the world around you it skips the experience step and just automatically and immediately generates beliefs in you about your surroundings. A lot of philosophers think that, in such a case, you would (or at least could) still know, via perception, about the world around you. But then that raises the question: What epistemic role was the experience playing? How did it contribute to your knowledge of your surroundings? Philosophers have given many different answers to these questions. But, for various reasons, none of them has really stuck. In this paper I offer and defend a different answer to these questions—a solution to the problem—which avoids the pitfalls of other answers. I argue that experience is, all by itself, a kind of knowledge—it’s what Bertrand Russell (1912) calls “knowledge of things”. So I argue that experience helps generate knowledge simply by being knowledge.

"Knowledge of Things," Synthese 197, 8 (2020): 3,559-3,592. Draft

As I walk into a restaurant to meet up with a friend, I look around and see all sorts of things in my immediate environment—tables, chairs, people, colors, shapes, etc. As a result, I know of these things. But what is the nature of this knowledge? Nowadays, the standard practice among philosophers is to treat all knowledge, aside maybe from “know-how”, as propositional. But in this paper I argue that this is a mistake. I argue that some knowledge is constituted, not by beliefs in propositions, but by awareness of properties and objects. Seeing isn’t believing, but it is knowing. After further characterizing this type of knowledge, I make the case for it. Then I consider a variety of objections. Finally, I indicate how our recognition of this knowledge may answer other questions, and solve other problems, in philosophy.

"A New Argument for the Phenomenal Approach to Personal Persistence," Philosophical Studies 177, 7 (2020): 2,031-2,049.

When it comes to personal identity, two approaches have long ruled the roost. The first is the psychological approach, which has it that our persistence through time consists in the continuance of certain of our psychological traits, such as our memories, beliefs, desires, or personality. The second is the biological approach, according to which personal persistence consists in continuity in our physical or biological makeup. Amid the bipartite reign of these approaches, a third contender has emerged: the phenomenal approach. On this approach, personal persistence consists in continuity in phenomenal consciousness or the capacity for phenomenal consciousness. In this paper I introduce and defend a new argument for the phenomenal approach. In the process, I argue against the psychological and biological approaches. I also address some lingering questions and outline further ways to develop the phenomenal approach.

"A Renewed Challenge to Anti-Criterialism," Erkenntnis 85, 1 (2020): 165-182 Draft

In virtue of what do things persist through time? Are there criteria of their identities through time? Anti-criterialists say no. One prominent challenge to anti-criterialism comes in two steps. The first step is to show that anti-criterialists are committed specifically to the claim that there are no informative metaphysically sufficient conditions for identity through time. The second step is to show that this commitment yields absurd results. Each step of this challenge is open to objection. However, in this paper, I redouble this challenge to anti-criterialism by offering new reasons to take each step.

"The Self Shows Up in Experience," Review of Philosophy and Psychology 10, 2 (2019): 299-318.

I can be aware of myself, and thereby come to know things about myself, in a variety of different ways. But is there some special way in which I—and only I—can learn about myself? Can I become aware of myself by introspecting? Do I somehow show up in my own conscious experiences? David Hume and most contemporary philosophers say no. They deny that the self shows up in experience. However, in this paper I appeal to research on schizophrenia—on thought insertion, in particular—to argue that Hume and his follows are wrong: The self does, in fact, show up in experience.

"Propositions Are Not Simple," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97, 2 (2018): 351-366. Draft

Some philosophers claim that propositions are simple—i.e., lack parts. In this paper, I argue that this claim is mistaken. I start with the widely accepted claim that propositions are the objects of beliefs. Then I argue that the objects of beliefs have parts. Thus, I conclude that propositions are not simple. My argument for the claim that the objects of beliefs have parts derives from the fact that beliefs are productive and systematic. This fact lurks in the background of debates about the metaphysics of propositions. But its import for these debates has yet to be fully appreciated. So here I bring the point to the fore, and thus make manifest a powerful argument against simple propositions.

"Subjectivity as Self-Acquaintance," Journal of Consciousness Studies 25, 3-4 (2018): 88-111. Draft

One feature of consciousness that many find mystifying is subjectivity—that feature whereby there is something it is like for a subject to undergo a conscious experience. Many philosophers say that subjectivity is mystifying because of its relation to the physical—because it is hard to see how it could arise from brain activity. But subjectivity itself can also seem mystifying. For it’s not clear how to understand its nature. These two points are distinct, but connected. For in order to address the question of how subjectivity relates to the physical, we must have a clear sense of what subjectivity is. I don’t address how subjectivity relates to the physical here. I address subjectivity itself. Ido this by introducing and defending a model of subjectivity based on self-acquaintance.

"What It's Like To Have a Cognitive Home," European Journal of Philosophy 26, 1 (2018): 66-81. Draft

Many people believe that the mind is an epistemic refuge of sorts. The idea is that when it comes to certain core mental states, one’s being in such a state automatically puts one in a position to know that one is in that state. This idea has come under attack in recent years. One particularly influential attack comes from Timothy Williamson (2000), who argues that there is no central core of states or conditions—mental or otherwise—to which we are guaranteed epistemic access. In Williamson’s words, we are cognitively homeless. In this paper I argue that Williamson’s argument for the conclusion that we are cognitively homeless fails. Then I show that there is a class of phenomenal states that constitutes a substantial cognitive refuge.

"Two Russellian Arguments for Acquaintance," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95, 3 (2017): 461-474.

In The Problems of Philosophy [1912], Bertrand Russell argues that each of us can be directly aware of—that is, acquainted with—our own experiences (sense data, on his view). Many philosophers accept Russell’s conclusion. Many others reject it. Yet very little of this debate has centered on Russell’s actual arguments for acquaintance. So, in this paper, I explore two arguments from Russell [1912] for the claim that we can be, and at least sometimes are, acquainted with our experiences. Then I show that if one of these arguments succeeds, the other doesn’t. So at most one is sound. Finally, I assess these arguments and conclude with my own take on their merits. I have two goals: To unearth two arguments for acquaintance, and to identify good reasons to believe that we can be, and sometimes are, acquainted with our experiences. Russell is my starting point. However, this is not primarily a work of exegesis. It’s an exploration of two arguments for acquaintance.

"Dualists Needn't Be Anti-Criterialists (Nor Should They Be)" Philosophical Studies 174, 4 (2017): 945-963. Draft

Sometimes in philosophy one view engenders another. If you hold the first, chances are you hold the second. But it’s not always because the first entails the second. Sometimes the tie is less clear, less clean. One such tie is between substance dualism and anti-criterialism. Substance dualism is the view that people are, at least in part, immaterial mental substances. Anti-criterialism is the view that there is no criterion of personal identity through time. Most philosophers who hold the first view also hold the second. In fact, many philosophers just assume that substance dualists ought to, or perhaps even have to, accept anti-criterialism. But in this paper I show that this assumption is baseless. Substance dualism doesn’t entail, suggest, support, or in any way motivate anti-criterialism, and anti-criterialism confers no benefit to dualists. Substance dualists have no special reason—and, indeed, no good reason at all—to accept anti-criterialism. Or so I argue. My aim isn’t to defend substance dualism, nor is it to attack anti-criterialism. My aim is to show that, contrary to a long-standing trend, dualists needn’t be anti-criterialists. Nor, as it turns out, should they be.

"I Think, Therefore I Persist," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93, 4 (2015): 740-756. Draft

Suppose that you’re lying in bed. You just woke up. But you’re alert. Your mind is clear and you have no distractions. As you lie there, you think to yourself, ‘2+2=4.’ The thought just pops into your head. But, wanting to be sure of your mathematical insight, you once again think ‘2+2=4’, this time really meditating on your thought. Now suppose that you’re sitting in an empty movie theatre. The lighting is normal and the screen in front of you is blank. Then at some point an image of a peach is flashed on the screen. The image isn’t up there for long. In fact, it’s only on the screen for what seems like an instant—just long enough for you to see it. These two scenarios are a bit mundane. But, as I show, reflection on them can yield significant results concerning the nature of people and their persistence through time. First I show that thought and perception have temporal constraints whereby your thinking or perceiving in the above scenarios implies that you exist through a temporally extended interval. Then I argue that this allows us to rule out several prominent theories of personal identity.

"We Are Acquainted With Ourselves," Philosophical Studies 172, 9 (2015): 2,531-2,549. Draft

I am aware of the rain outside, but only in virtue of looking at a weather report. I am aware of my friend, but only because I hear her voice through my phone. Thus, there are some things that I’m aware of, but only indirectly. Many philosophers believe that there are also some things of which I am directly aware (i.e., acquainted). The most plausible candidates are experiences such as pains, tickles, visual sensations, etc. In fact, the philosophical consensus seems to be that experiences are the only plausible candidates for acquaintance. But here I argue that we are also acquainted with ourselves. After outlining what it means to be acquainted with oneself, I introduce, develop, and defend a commonly used test for acquaintance. Then I apply this test to us and show that we pass. I consider various objections to my argument. But ultimately I conclude that we can be, and often are, acquainted with ourselves.

"Consumerism, Aristotle, and Fantastic Mr. Fox," Film-Philosophy 19 (2015): 249-269.

Mr. Fox is a wild animal, but he lives in a modern, consumerist society. More precisely, Mr. Fox is Vulpes vulpes—a common red fox—but he lives with his family in a good tree in a nice area; he wears designer slacks, a neatly pressed white collared shirt, and a tie; he talks about rising housing costs and falling interest rates; he worries about job security and the quality of the things he buys. In short, Mr. Fox is both a wild animal and a consumer. Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox is (at least partly) about Mr. Fox’s attempt to flourish in this dual role. As such, this film raises some interesting and difficult questions about what it means to be a member of a certain kind, what is required to flourish as a member of that kind, and how consumerism either promotes or inhibits such flourishing. In this paper I use Fantastic Mr. Fox as an entry point into an examination of the relationship between consumerism and human flourishing. Specifically, I offer a novel approach to the film—one that emphasizes the conflict between consumerism and Mr. Fox’s ability flourish—as a way of engaging with the worry, which many philosophers have expressed, that consumerism threatens the identities of individual consumers.

"A Challenge to Anti-Criterialism," Erkenntnis 79, 2 (2014): 283-296. Draft

Most people who exist right now expect to exist for a while longer. That is, they expect to persist through time, at least for a few moments, but probably for longer—for days, years, even decades or more. Some people even expect to exist forever. They expect to live out their lives on earth and then persist into an afterlife. In light of these expectations, one might ask: how—or, in virtue of what—do people persist through time? Many different answers to this question have been proposed. Some philosophers claim that personal persistence consists in something, such as psychological or biological continuity. They think that there are informative necessary and sufficient conditions—i.e., a criterion—for personal identity through time. These philosophers are criterialists. Other philosophers are anti-criterialists. They agree that people persist through time, but they deny that there is a criterion of personal persistence. In this paper I develop a challenge to anti-criterialism. I begin by spelling out the commitments of anti-criterialism. Then I argue that there are good reasons for anyone to reject anti-criterialism. And then I argue that those who believe in an afterlife have special reasons to reject anti-criterialism. I conclude that there is an informative criterion of personal persistence, even if we haven’t heard of it yet.

"Review of Stephan Blatti and Paul F. Snowdon (eds.) Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Animals, and Identity," Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2017).