My current work is on the nature of the self and mind, which I examine from the vantage point of issues in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics and applied ethics.  In my book on the language of thought, I restructured one influential computational approach to the mind. Lately, I’ve been digging deeper into more general, metaphysical aspects of computational approaches to the mind, as well as investigating the other orthodox approaches to the mind and self. I am currently writing a book for OUP on these themes, and am beginning a related book in metaphysics.   Click here for a longer research statement.

In August and September, I’ll be away giving lectures at seven universities in Australia and New Zealand.

The Language of Thought: A New Philosophical Direction, MIT Press, 2011.

    - Catalog description

    - Book intro and Ch. 1

    - 10 pg. overview of my work on LOT (for WIRES: Cognitive Science)

The Mind-Body Problem: Rethinking the Solution Space. (Oxford University Press, in preparation).  

The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, (with Max Velmans), eds., Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2006. (You can download the introduction below.) Second edition in progress.

Science Fiction and Philosophy, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

      -Arabic translation, (2010).  Portuguese translation, (2011). Second edition in progress.

Articles and Book Chapters:

Papers in the Metaphysics of Mind (New Pieces):

1. • Non-reductive Physicalism and the Mind Problem, Nous, forthcoming.
   

2. • Non-reductive Physicalism Cannot Accept Token Identity, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, forthcoming.
   

3. • Why Property Dualists must Reject Substance Physicalism, Philosophical Studies, Vol. 157, Number 1, Jan. 2012.
   

4. • “Rethinking the Solution Space to the Mind-Body Problem,” in New Waves in Philosophy of Mind, Mark Sprevak and Jesper Kallestrup, eds., New York: Palgrave MacMillan, forthcoming.
   

Reflections on Computational Approaches to Thought:

1. •The Nature of Symbols in the Language of Thought, Mind and Language, Vol. 24, No. 4, Nov., 2009.
   

• LOT, CTM, and the Elephant in the Room, Synthese, Winter, 2009.

1. •Fodor’s Challenge to the Classical Computational Theory of Mind, (with Kirk Ludwig).  Mind and Language, 2008.

   

   
   

• Yes, It Does: A Diatribe on Jerry Fodor’s The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way, Psyche, 2007.

• Direct Reference, Psychological Explanation, and Frege Cases, Mind and Language, Sept., 2005.

1. •Daniel Dennett’s Theory of Consciousness, in my Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, 2007.
   

        - Chinese translation.  In Philosophical Analysis, (Fu Bin, translator). Shanghai People’s Publishing House and Institute of Philosophy of Shanghai Academy of Social Science, 2012.

1. • The Language of Thought, for The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology, John Symons and Paco Calvo, editors, 2009.
   

2. • Rethinking the Language of Thought, (with Matt Katz). WIRES: Cognitive Science, Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming. (Solicited overview of my work on LOT.)
   

3. • Conceptual Atomism Rethought, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, June 2010.
   

Brain Enhancement, the Singularity, and The Nature of the Person:

1. •The Metaphysics of Uploading, forthcoming in a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies. (Symposium on a piece by David Chalmers, with his response.)  To be reprinted in Uploaded Minds (with postscript), forthcoming with Wiley-Blackwell.
   

2. • Transcending and Enhancing the Human Brain, in my Science Fiction and Philosophy. (Note: this is for an interdisciplinary audience.)
   

3. • Essay Award Winner, The Swiss Society for Biomedical Ethics (Topic: “The Future of Bioethics”).
   

4. • Reprinted in, Brain Minds, Selves and Others: Neuroscience, Neurotechnology and the Social Good. James Giordano, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 
   

5. • Cognitive Enhancement and the Nature of Persons, for The University of Pennsylvania Bioethics Reader, Art Caplan and Vardit Radvisky, eds., 2009, pp. 844-856.
   

Pieces Accessible to Nonspecialists (See also my pieces on enhancement):

1. • Thought Experiments: Science Fiction as a Window into Philosophical Puzzles. Introduction to my Science Fiction and Philosophy. 
   

2. • Consciousness Studies: An Introduction to the Issues, (with Max Velmans), introduction to our Blackwell Companion to Consciousness.
   

Topics in Metaphysics (see also “Papers in the Metaphysics of Mind”):

1. • What is the Significance of the Intuition that Laws Govern? Australasian Journal of Philosophy, June, 2007.
   

2. • Events, IEP. (From my graduate school days, but a useful survey of events).
   

3. • Alien Individuals, Alien Universals, and Armstrong's Combinatorial Theory of Modality, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Winter 2002.
   

Media Pieces on my Work:

Discover Magazine

Philosophy Compass -- the Philosopher's Eye

New Books in Philosophy (podcast on my book on LOT).

Penn's SAS Frontiers

Filmed interview by Martha Farah on my work in neuroethics