Why I am Not a Type-Z Materialist

I have been hearing various and sundry rumors about my being a type-q materialist or perhaps even a type-z materialist and I want to set the record straight. In this post I will talk about some of the things that Dave Bieseker says in his recent Zombies and the Paradox of Phenomenal Consciousness (JSC 17(3-4)). Bieseker’s [...]

Empiricism and A Priori Justification

I sometimes get asked why I take a priori reasoning seriously; after all empiricists should eschew such talk! Real empiricists do not engage the rationalist on their own turf…in true Type-Q style I should deny that there is an a priori/a posteriori or an analytic/synthetic distinction and deny as well that talk of possible worlds [...]

The Singularity, Again

Yesterday I attended Dave Chalmers’ session of the Mind and Language Seminar where we discussed his new paper on the singularity. I have previously seen him give this talk at CUNY and I was looking forward to the commentary from Jesse and Ned and the discussion that followed. Jesse talked for an hour summarizing the argument [...]

Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness and the Phenomenology of Belief

Next week I am heading up to SUNY Freedonia to give two talks as part of the Young Philosophers Lecture Series . Here is a rehearsal of the first talk which is my most recent attempt to show that Rosenthal’s HOT theory is committed to cognitive phenomenology

Fishy & Here

The special issue of The Journal of Consciousness Studies that I edited is now out…it is entitled ‘Fishy and Here’ (from Clare Batty’s paper)…I hope that is meant as an illustration of phenomenal consciousness and not as a comment on the papers contained in the issue

Unconscious Introspection and Higher-Order Thoughts

As I noted previously, I haven’t been all that good at keeping up with the NYU Mind and Language seminar, and I am going to have to miss this one coming up because of committee meetings , which is too bad since this week’s speaker is Alvin Goldman. The paper is a very long defense [...]

Jonathan Dancy on Ferguson

via Brian Leiter via Thom Brooks I saw this neat interview with Dancy on particularism and the role of moral philosophers…very amusing and interesting as well!

Consciousness & the Tribunal of Experience

Here is a video of a recent talk I gave to the psychology department at Columbia University as part of their Cognitive Lunch speaker series. This rehearsal led to me add a few slides and change a few things here and there but I don’t have time to re-record it. Overall it is ok but [...]