Research Overview:
I am primarily interested in the structure of human cognition and agency, the different kinds of minds we find in our world, and the implications of cognitive scientific research for ethical theorizing. The questions I address have a traditional philosophical character. But I approach them from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing heavily upon tools and techniques from the cognitive and biological sciences. In my recent published work and presentations, I have: developed a theory of distributed and situated cognition; investigated the implications of this theory in the domain of moral psychology; and argued that this theory puts significant critical pressure on the appeal to philosophical intuitions. Lately, I've also been exploring the extent to which traditions that have flourished outside of Europe and North America offer unique insights, both in terms of the questions they ask, and in terms of the answers they give. More and more, I have come to think that it's only by studying a wide range of theoretical and empirical traditions that we can ever hope to understand the world in which we live.
Links to my published papers can be found under the Papers heading above.
In 2014, I published a book entitled Macrocognition, which addresses questions about cognitive architecture, and establishes the possibility of group minds. And in 2018, I edited a volume of essays focusing on themes from Dan Dennett's philosophy, with contributions from a wide range of his students, supporters, and critics. With Jay Schulkin, I am currently finishing a manuscript on Biological Cognition, for the Cambridge Elements series. And in the near future, I hope to complete a book that will draw on the commitments of Yogācāra Buddhism to provide a new way of thinking about individual and social cognition.
Books:
I am primarily interested in the structure of human cognition and agency, the different kinds of minds we find in our world, and the implications of cognitive scientific research for ethical theorizing. The questions I address have a traditional philosophical character. But I approach them from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing heavily upon tools and techniques from the cognitive and biological sciences. In my recent published work and presentations, I have: developed a theory of distributed and situated cognition; investigated the implications of this theory in the domain of moral psychology; and argued that this theory puts significant critical pressure on the appeal to philosophical intuitions. Lately, I've also been exploring the extent to which traditions that have flourished outside of Europe and North America offer unique insights, both in terms of the questions they ask, and in terms of the answers they give. More and more, I have come to think that it's only by studying a wide range of theoretical and empirical traditions that we can ever hope to understand the world in which we live.
Links to my published papers can be found under the Papers heading above.
In 2014, I published a book entitled Macrocognition, which addresses questions about cognitive architecture, and establishes the possibility of group minds. And in 2018, I edited a volume of essays focusing on themes from Dan Dennett's philosophy, with contributions from a wide range of his students, supporters, and critics. With Jay Schulkin, I am currently finishing a manuscript on Biological Cognition, for the Cambridge Elements series. And in the near future, I hope to complete a book that will draw on the commitments of Yogācāra Buddhism to provide a new way of thinking about individual and social cognition.
Books:
Macrocognition: A Theory of Distributed Minds and Collective Intentionality
New York: Oxford University Press We live in an age of scientific collaboration, popular uprisings, failing political parties, and increasing corporate power. Many of these kinds of collective action derive from the decisions of intelligent and powerful leaders, and many others emerge as a result of the aggregation of individual interests. But genuinely collective mentality remains a seductive possibility. This book develops a novel approach to distributed cognition and collective intentionality. It argues that genuine cognition requires the capacity to engage in flexible goal-directed behavior, and that this requires specialized representational systems that are integrated in a way that yields fluid and skillful coping with environmental contingencies. In line with this argument, the book claims that collective mentality should be posited where and only where specialized subroutines are integrated to yields goal-directed behavior that is sensitive to the concerns that are relevant to a group as such. Unlike traditional claims about collective intentionality, this approach reveals that there are many kinds of collective minds: some groups have cognitive capacities that are more like those that we find in honeybees or cats than they are like those that we find in people. Indeed, groups are unlikely to be "believers" in the fullest sense of the term, and understanding why this is the case sheds new light on questions about collective intentionality and collective responsibility. Chapter abstracts available via Oxford Scholarship Online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199926275.001.0001 Reviews: Deborah Perron Tollefsen at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Olle Blomberg at Metapsychology Online Reviews Matteo Columbo at Minds and Machines Bill Wringe at The Journal of Social Ontology Bryan Chambliss, Philosophical Psychology |
The Philosophy of Daniel Dennett (ed.)
New York: Oxford University Press. Daniel C. Dennett began publishing innovative philosophical research in the late 1960s, and he has continued to do so for the past 45 years. He has addressed questions about the nature of mind and consciousness, the possibility of freedom, and the significance of evolution to addressing questions across the cognitive, biological, and social sciences. The Philosophy of Daniel Dennett explores the intellectual significance of this research project, bringing together the insights of eleven researchers who are currently working on themes that are relevant to Dennett's philosophical worldview. Some of the contributions address interpretive issues within Dennett's corpus, and aim to bring increased clarity to Dennett's project. Others report novel empirical data, at least in part, in the service of fleshing out Dennett's claims. Some of them provide a fresh take on a Dennettian theme, and others extend his views in novel directions. Like Dennett's own work, these papers draw on a wide range of different methodologies, from appeals to intuition pumps and scientific data, to turning the knobs on a theory to see what it can do. But each of them aims to be readable, and approachable. And as a whole, the volume provides a critical and constructive overview of Dennett's stance-based methodology, as well as explorations of his claims about metal representation, consciousness, cultural evolution, and religion. With new essays from Lynne Rudder Baker, Felipe DeBrigard, Andy Clark, Luc Faucher & Pierre Poirier, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Bryce Huebner, Ray Jackendoff, Rebecca Kukla, Jesse Prinz, David Rosenthal, and Tadeusz Zawidzki, as well as responses from Daniel C. Dennett Reviews: Aline Maya at Metapsychology Online Reviews |