I am a Visiting Assistant Professor in the department of philosophy at Binghamton University (SUNY). I previously held an EU mobility research fellowship at the University of Hradec Králové in the Czech Republic and a Junior Research Fellowship at St Hilda's College, University of Oxford. My main interests lie at the intersections of epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind.
Most of my work is on self-knowledge. I'm especially interested in the idea that self-knowledge is important to us, but that its value cannot be accounted for by the familiar idea that we have epistemically privileged access to our own minds. For example, when it comes to knowing your own beliefs, desires, and emotions it seems important to rely on yourself, rather than putting your trust in others. (Following debates about moral testimony, I call this "pessimism" about testimony as a source of self-knowledge. It is an important tenet of much talk therapy.) And when you speak about your own mind there is a presumption that what you say is true, a presumption that doesn't obtain when you speak about another's mind. This places a demand on others to listen to you when forming beliefs about your mind. (This is called "first-person authority". It is an important norm structuring our social interactions.) I don't think we can explain our preferences here by appeal to the idea that each of us is in an especially good position to know our minds. (In part because there is reason to doubt we are in such a position.) In my research I have attempted to specify these phenomena and explain them, as well as to consider other broadly ethical dimensions of how we know our own and other minds. Other topics I'm interested in: mental agency, love, cynicism, perception, and moral knowledge. Historical interests include Kant, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Ryle, and Murdoch. I received my BA in philosophy from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and my PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. My dissertation was titled "Four Essays on Self-Knowledge" because that's what it was. My supervisors were John McDowell and Kieran Setiya. |