Papers and Talks

PAPERS

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Talks and Visiting Appointments

Why Broad Content Can't Influence Behaviour (download)
Synthese, August 2017, Volume 194, Issue 8, pp 3005–3020.
This article examines one argument in favour of the position that the relational properties of mental states do not have causal powers over behaviour. This argument states that we establish that the relational properties of mental states do not have causal powers by considering cases where intrinsic properties remain the same but relational properties vary to see whether, under such circumstances, behaviour would ever vary. The individualist argues that behaviour will not vary with relational properties alone, which means that they don’t have causal powers. Four replies are presented which all reject the premise that under such conditions behaviour can never be different, and each of these are refuted. The article concludes by arguing that knowing about the relational properties of mental states gives no predictive advantage over (and, in fact, is predictively worse than) knowing about the intrinsic properties of mental states plus context.
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We Shouldn't Assume Concepts Are Shared (download)
Under Review.
Internalist theories of concepts are often taken to be inadequate because they cannot explain how concepts can be shared. I argue that, while it may appear obvious that people can share concepts, the evidence we have for concept sharing is behavioural and any account of concepts that purports to explain concept sharing cannot explain this behavioural evidence. Therefore, we should rethink whether being able to account for concept sharing is a genuine requirement for a theory of concepts.

Privacy and the Importance of to 'Getting Away With It' (download)
Under Review.
One reason people value privacy is that it gives them to do or think bad things – things that, if made public, would warrant blame, censure or punishment. Privacy protects several types of freedom – and one of these is the freedom to be bad. This paper will argue that this is a good thing.
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Individualism Entails Concept Particularism (download)
Under Review.
Individualism about mental content states that only elements internal to the mind can contribute to the content of thought. While accounts of individualism vary, individualists agree that two individuals who are molecule-for-molecule identical will have the same mental content, regardless of differences in their environments or histories. This paper argues that, if one accepts the individualist premise, one must also accept that concepts must be individuated internally, for to do otherwise is inconsistent with the motivation for adopting the individualist position. However, internal individuation of concepts entails concept particularism -- two concept tokens that differ in the slightest cannot be members of the same concept type.​


​Rule Utilitarianism as a Tie-Breaker
Under Review.
I suggest a modest way in which, even if the Rule Utilitarian chooses to avoid rule worship at all costs, committing herself to the central utilitarian principle that the best actions are always those that maximise overall utility, Rule Utilitarianism could still avoid the charge of ‘collapsing’ into Act Utilitarianism. This is because two theories can be extensionally equivalent in terms of total utility generated by the actions they prescribe and yet still prescribe different actions. This is the case for Act and Rule Utilitarianism.​
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​​Type-Token Distinctions and the Internalism Mix-Up
Under Review.
Yli-Vakkuri (2018) argues that semantic externalism can be established deductively on the basis of widely accepted general principles. This paper shows that Yli-Vakkuri’s argument rests on a mistake by equivocating the type- and token-claims that an internalist would endorse.

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IN PROGRESS

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“Bad Thoughts”
I argue that our thoughts and emotions, even when not voluntary, can be morally blameworthy.

“Where do Twin Earth Intuitions Come From?”
I argue that the fact that we have externalist intuitions in response to Twin Earth thought experiments cannot be explained by the truth of externalism, so such intuitions cannot be understood as providing a reason in favour of externalism.

“So Many Good Ways to Be Bad”

“What Reverse Frege Puzzles Tell Us About Mental Content”
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2019 (upcoming)
March - April - Visiting Fellowship 
     ConceptLab, University of Oslo, Norway.

March - "Privacy and the Importance of 'Getting Away With It'" 
     Philosophy Departmental Seminar, University of Stirling, Scotland.

2018
October - "Privacy and the Importance of 'Getting Away With It'" 
     Moral Philosophy Seminar, University of Oxford.

2017
December - "Can We Communicate If We Don't Share Concepts?"
     Variation in Language, Literature, Folklore, and Music Conference, University of Tartu, Estonia.

October - "You Cannot Share Concepts." 
     Philosophy of Mind Work in Progress Reading Group, Oxford University.

January - "Having the Right Emotions: An Account of What it is to be Good." 
     Hertford College Student Philosophy Society, Oxford University.

January - "How to Individuate Concepts." 
     Philosophy of Mind Work in Progress Reading Group, Oxford University.

2016
November - "Having the Right Emotions" 
     New College of the Humanities Philosophy Research Seminar, London. 

November - Faculty commentary, Oxford Graduate Conference in Philosophy, Oxford University. Talk by Arieh G. Schwartz, “The Inimitable Function of Memory”.

August - "Internalism Entails That Concepts Are Idiosyncratic" 
     European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, University of St Andrews, Scotland.  

August - "How (Not) to Individuate Concepts." 
     Early Career Mind Network, Cambridge University.

2015
May - "Empathy as Morality." 
     Departmental Seminar, The University of Iceland, Reykjavik.

2014
December - Commentary, Rethinking the Senses Project Seminar Series, London. Talk by Yann Coello: “Embodiment in Perception and Language”.

October - "'Negative Empathy' as the Moral Emotion." 
     Departmental Seminar, University College London.

September - "Against Publicity: Why Externalist Theories of Concepts Cannot Account for Concept Sharing." 
     European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Noto, Italy.

2013
May - “Against Publicity: How the publicity requirement can actually support perceptually-based theories of concepts and undermine their rivals.”
     9th International Symposium of Cognition, Logic and Communication: Perception and Concepts, Riga, Latvia. 

2011
March - “The Value of Taste for Hume.”
     British Society for the History of Philosophy Annual Conference, Sussex, UK. 

2010
July - “The Value of Taste for Hume.”
     37th International Hume Society Conference, Antwerp, Belgium.