51cg

Biography

I’m a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the 51cg. My main research interests are in first-person (de se) thought and the philosophy of time. Read more about my research interests .

I teach a first-year course Controversial Questions that considers a different controversial question each week such as: Is it morally wrong to eat meat? Should euthanasia be permitted? Should we be permitted to genetically modify our offspring? I also teach the first-year course Logic and Argument. At years three and four, I teach Free Will and Moral Responsibility and The Metaphysics of Possibility.

Prior to coming to Aberdeen, I was a post-doc with the PERSP project and a member of LOGOS at the University of Barcelona. Before that I was a Junior Research Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford. I received my PhD in 2008 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. My dissertation advisor was Phillip Bricker.

Research Overview

Most of my research falls into one of two areas: first-person thought and the philosophy of time.

In first-person thought, I am interested in arguments for and against uniquely de se content, the role of de se content in action explanation, modelling de se communication and updating, and the relation between de se content and the nature of the self. From 2016 to 2019, I was Principal Investigator for the Leverhulme International Network Project What’s So Special about First-Person Thought? Details on the project are available .

In philosophy of time, I am interested in debates about the nature of persistence, debates about the ontology of time, questions concerning in what sense  the future is open, and questions about how temporal experience squares with our best physical theories of time. Recently I am particularly interested in the inter-relation between the metaphysics of the future, the semantics of future contingents, and future-directed attitudes such as knowledge, belief, and uncertainty about the future.

I welcome enquires from prospective postgraduate students interested in researching these (or related) topics.