When we listen to music, we feel a beat under the sounds. But you can feel a beat differently under a given piece of music while hearing it as otherwise unchanged. Heard each way, things sound different--what it is like to hear the music changes. But the music doesn't seem to have changed--the song is manifestly the same. How is this possible? My answer is that feeling a beat is not perceiving features of sounds. Instead, it is organizing the sounds within periods of time, or units of time. After defending and clarifying this answer, I explain its significance for broader debates about the nature of perceptual experience.

Final draft (pdf) 

Distant things look smaller, in a sense. Why? I argue that the reason is not that our experiences have a certain subject matter, or are about certain mind-independent things and features. Instead, distant things look smaller because of our way of perceiving them. I go on to offer a hypothesis about which specific way of perceiving explains why distant things look smaller.

Final draft (pdf) 

A critical discussion of Tyler Burge's argument for the content view in Origins of Objectivity. 

Published version 

Shapes can be seen and felt. So why are colors visible only? I argue that if colors, like shapes, are mind-independent, then there is no good answer. And there are good reasons to think that mind-independent colors could not only be seen, but also felt. I conclude that mind-independent colors are probably not only visible, but also tangible. This might sound like a Berkeleian reductio, but I hope to explain why my conclusion isn't absurd. So, if you already think colors are mind-independent, you should embrace the conclusion rather than changing your mind.

Draft (pdf) 

Illusionists say color experience represents objects as colored, but that nothing is colored. I argue that illusionists can’t explain how we manage to experience the colors, rather than other features. I then assess the remaining options for an illusionist theory of color experience, and argue that they are worse than rival theories. 

(Please email me for a draft if you're interested)

There is something it's like to be you. That is, you have conscious experiences. And what it's like to have those experiences is their phenomenal character.

A lot of the philosophy of mind is about experiences and their character. But when most authors introduce the topic, they are uncharacteristically terse. They define these technical terms as I just did. They offer a couple metaphors and examples of experiences. They cite "What is it like to be a bat?" by Thomas Nagel. And that is all. From here, authors go on to offer theories of experiences and their character. 

I argue that we can and should do better. So, I revisit Nagel's paper, the source of the standard introduction. And I argue that, unless further specified, what it is like to be a thing is extremely broad, even in the usual philosophical context. It includes all of the subject matter of a kind of imaginative perspective-taking that we use in ordinary life. 

Clarifying the topic pays off in a few ways. First, it is easier to see that the topic is not obviously a natural kind that deserves a unified theory. Second,  it is easier to clarify and in some cases dissolve disagreements about which mental states "have character". But third, we can replace those unclear and controversial questions about the more general usual topic with more precise and uncontroversial questions about sub-topics--we can more clearly distinguish different aspects of what it is like to be a thing and ask better questions about each one. 

(Please email me for a draft if you're interested)

When facing some of our most important decisions---the traditional matters of the heart---we show a deep trust in our feelings as a guide to value. In particular, we sometimes act on our feelings instead of acting on our considered judgments: we follow our hearts. But should we? Going by existing accounts of our feelings and their role in deliberation, it is hard to see why we should: our trust in our feelings is mysterious. I think this is a shortcoming in those accounts. My project aims to improve on them and explain why our trust is deserved: why following your heart is not only a common but reasonable way to decide matters of the heart. 

Longer abstract here (pdf)