Research 

Most of my research time is dedicated to philosophical questions regarding low mood and depression. Specifically, I am interested in why evolution gave us the capacity for low mood, how low mood plays its functional role in cognition, what the intentional content of low mood is (and whether this explains its aforementioned functional role, and even its phenomenal character), and whether extreme low mood (i.e., depression) is actually a mood disorder, or whether it is an extreme but nonetheless functional response to certain types of adversity. I am also interested in how answering these questions may help us treat and better the lives of those suffering from depression. 

Aside from my main research, I also have a general interest in classifications of disease/disorder more generally, and in teleosemantics and mental causation. See below for a list of published papers and works in progress. 

Bad Feelings, Best Explanations: In Defence of the Propitiousness Theory of the Low Mood System.
(2024) Erkenntnis. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-023-00773-5

Synopsis: The capacity for low mood was selected for (by natural selection) because it helped organisms limit their resource expenditure when there was less chance of making gains (e.g., climbing social hierarchies, improving interpersonal bonds, gathering food, etc.) that were worth the resource investments (e.g., spent energy, eaten food, sacrificed social bonds, etc.) than normal.

On the Intentional Content of Low Mood

Synopsis: Does low mood have intentional content, and, if so, what is it? I argue that not only does low mood have content, but it also has a particular kind of indicative-imperative content, as such content provides the best explanation of low mood's effects on judgement and action-selection.

Is Depression a Psychological Dysfunction?

Synopsis: No. It is a form of extreme and long-lasting, but nonetheless functional, low mood, akin to how severe pain (e.g., the pain one feels when breaking a bone) is functional, even though it too is extreme and long-lasting.

Does Swampman Have Diabetes?
(With Fabian Hundertmark)

Synopsis: Swampman has no history, and therefore is technically incapable of having any disease/disorder, diabetes included. However, he's not best pleased about this, as without insulin, he will die. The doctor agrees to give him insulin. Swampman is baffled. 

Teleosemantics and Mental Causation

Synopsis: We don't need fictional creatures like Swampman or unrealistic leaps in evolution to show us that teleosemantics is incompatible with mental causation; an examination of normal evolutionary process will do just that.