Research
My research interests are in philosophy of cognitive science (especially concerning Artificial Intelligence and Dynamical Systems Theory), in philosophy of science (especially concerning the concept of explanation) and in philosophy of mind (especially concerning emergence, reductionism and the "extended mind" hypothesis).
I'm currently thinking about emergence, worrying about AI, doing some historical work on the lamentably neglected philosopher C.D. Broad (for which I was fortunate enough to receive some funding from Tim Crane's New Directions in the Study of the Mind project, see here for more details) and dabbling in experimental work on the way we attribute motives (and make moral judgments about them). I am also red-green colour-blind, and so I've started to think and write about that too.
Here's some recent media appearances:
Out Standing in a Field Podcast, with Danny Forde. (July 2023)
Deepfake AI on Cork's 96fm Opinion Line with PJ Coogan (April 2023)
What is it like to be colour blind? RTÉ Brainstorm, on YouTube. (May 2022)
"Colour Blind rugby fans to struggle with Ireland v. Wales at Six Nations" The Times, February 5th, 2022
"Why do we use time-saving devices to work longer?" Irish Times, August 15th, 2014
Here are my books:
(2022) (Editor) C.D. Broad: Key Unpublished Writings (Routledge)
(2012) Mind and Machine (Palgrave-Macmillan) (Here's a review.)
(2006) Mind: A Historical And Philosophical Introduction to the Major Theories (Hackett) (Co-authored with André Kukla)
Here are papers, chapters, and other bits & bobs:
(2023) "The right to freedom of thought: an interdisciplinary analysis of the UN special rapporteur’s report on freedom of thought" The International Journal of Human Rights. (Co-authored with Patrick O’Callaghan, Olga Cronin, Brendan D. Kelly, Bethany Shiner, and Simon McCarthy-Jones)
(2023) "ChatGPT and the Philosophers" The European Actuary No.133, pp.23-25
(2023) "We shouldn't fear ChatGPT in education — we need to work with it" Irish Examiner March 26, 2023
(2021) "Thinking Machines" in The Actuary (July 2021), p.22-23. (Also here)
(2021) "What is it like to be colour blind?" RTÉ Brainstorm, October 13th, 2021
(2021) "Artificial Intelligence and the Value of Transparency" AI & Society, 36:585-595
(2020) "Why do we assume the worst about other people's motives?" RTÉ Brainstorm, December 3rd, 2020.
(2020) "The Worst Motive Fallacy: A Negativity Bias in Motive Attribution" (with Cathal O'Madagain) Psychological Science 31(11), 1430-1438
Media coverage: Der Bund (in German).
(2020) "Crystal Clear: AI and Transparency" in The Actuary (March 2020), p.18-19
(2019) "Verso una riconsiderazione dell'Emergentismo Britannico" in Philosophy Kitchen, VII, n.11, Settembre 2019, 11-27
(2017) "Artificial Intelligence: Recent Work" in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online (Taylor & Francis)
(2016) "Why? Why? Why? Louis C.K. on Explanatory Regress" in Mark Ralkowski (Ed.) Louis C.K. and Philosophy(Chicago: Open Court Press)
(2015) "Emergence, Group Judgment and the Discursive Dilemma" Mind and Society, 14(2): 185-201
(2014) "The Emergence of Borders: Moral Questions Mapped Out." (co-authored with Cara Nine) Russian Sociological Review, 13(4):42-59
(2012) "Mind, Death and Supervenience: Towards a Comparative Dialogue" Proceedings of the 2nd International Association of Buddhist Universtities Conference (Co-authored with I. Greenberg)
(2010) "Emergence and Reduction in Dynamical Cognitive Science." New Ideas in Psychology, 28 :274-282
(2008) "Explanation in Dynamical Cognitive Science." Minds and Machines, 18(3):331-348.
(2007) "Methodological Situatedness; or, DEEDS worth doing and Pursuing." Cognitive Systems Research, 9(1-2):150-159.
(2004) "Mysticism and Social Epistemology." Episteme: A journal of social epistemology, 1(2):139-158 (Co-authored with A. Kukla)
(2004) "A theory's predictive success does not warrant belief in the unobservable entities it postulates." in C. Hitchcock (Ed.) Contemporary debates in the philosophy of science. (London: Blackwell) pp.40-56 (co-authored with A. Kukla)