Research

Publications:

Kraepelin's Psychiatry in the Pragmatic Age. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. 2022.

In progress & under review:

Plasticity, Novelty, and Aetiological Function. (Email for a draft.)

Aetiological accounts of biological function say that the function of a character is tied to how it contributed to fitness in the past. While aetiological approaches enjoy considerable popularity, it is still an open question whether they apply to all characters, or whether some characters possess non-historical functions. An old objection to the aetiological approach is that it doesn't seem to allow for the possibility that phenotypic novelties play novel functional roles. While aetiological theorists have typically been unmoved by this problem of novel function, the discussion has centred on traditional assumptions from evolutionary theory and has not engaged with more recent work in evolutionary developmental biology. In this paper, I suggest that some cases of developmental plasticity generate a heightened version of the novel function objection. Use-dependent plasticity seems to be reliably adaptive, such that when it gives rise to the development of a novel form, the traditional reasons to deny function to the form are unpersuasive. I end by discussing the upshots of recognizing properly forward-looking functions alongside historical ones. 

Towards a Dispositionalist Theory of Function. (In preparation.)

Argues for a novel forward-looking theory of biological function grounded in the purposive properties of organisms. By articulating what it is for an organism to pursue its various biological goals in its environment, we can simultaneously recognize the functional role of characters. In outline, the view says that (i) being goal-directed consists in an organism's exercise of certain controlled capacities; and (ii) that a function of a character x is to F relative to some goal-directed capacity just in case, and because, x is disposed to F and F-ing is part of how that capacity is may be successfully performed. 

[A paper that argues that for a constitutive understanding of some reasons for action, one that problematizes the thesis that reasons are causes of their actions.] (Under review.)

The Capacity to Represent. (Email for a draft.)

What is the relationship between purposive behaviour and subdoxastic representational content, if content plays the explanatory role envisaged by the cognitive and biological sciences? According to a venerable tradition, content is prior to any kind of action: to act, an organism must first be capable of forming and trading on representational states. My aim, in this paper, is to motivate and articulate an opposing, 'purpose-first' view: representing environmental features is a species of action. For an organism to represent is for it to encounter the world in the pursuit of its goals. I argue that this proposal dovetails with recent advances in the biological and cognitive sciences, and promises to answer traditional questions about the determinacy and normativity of representation.

Purposes and Structured Thought. (Email for a draft.)

What marks an advance from perception to singular demonstrative thought, if perceptual processing is goal-directed? This paper presents two possible extensions, and offers preliminary reason to prefer the latter. The first articulates the difference between perceptual content and demonstrative thought in terms of different vehicles of representation. An upgrade from perception to demonstrative thought involves a process of “re-formatting”. The upshot of this strategy, I argue, is that it locates an explanatory role for consciousness in thought. The second articulates the difference between perception and demonstrative thought in terms of the sophistication of our rational capacities. On this view, demonstrative thought is also purposive. The upshot is that it deflects some problems with the vehicle-based strategy, but the price of entry is that it may blur traditional lines between perception and cognition.