My areas of specialization are philosophy of mind and epistemology. Most of my philosophical research is aimed at understanding consciousness by addressing both metaphysical and epistemological issues about it. My overall aim is to provide a comprehensive account of the metaphysics of the conscious mind (its nature) and of its epistemology (our knowledge of it). Accordingly, my main research topics are philosophical theories of consciousness, introspection, and self-knowledge. My hypothesis is that a unified account of the metaphysics and the epistemology of consciousness revolves around the mental relation of acquaintance.
As for the metaphysics of consciousness, I make two main claims. First, I argue that consciousness requires a form of self-consciousness, which I call inner awareness. Second, I argue that inner awareness is best accounted for in terms of acquaintance. Besides inquiring on the nature of consciousness as such, I also investigate the nature of some specific mental phenomena, such as the unity of consciousness and moods.
As for the epistemology of consciousness, I argue that the most fundamental ground of our knowledge of our own experiences is a non-classificatory and non-conceptual kind of introspection, which I call primitive introspection. I make three main claims about primitive introspection. First, it exists—it is a psychologically real phenomenon. Second, its nature is best accounted for in terms of introspective acquaintance. Third, it is epistemically significant: it constitutes a sui generis (non-propositional and non-conceptual) kind of knowledge—introspective knowledge by acquaintance; it allows for a complete and perfect grasp of the phenomenology of experience; it is necessary for the acquisition of self-knowledge.
Publications
Books
Primitive Introspection, under contract with Routledge.
Edited books
Consciousness and Inner Awareness (with Davide Bordini and Arnaud Dewalque), under contract with Cambridge University Press.
The Routledge Handbook of Introspection, under contract with Routledge.
Papers
'Inner Acquaintance Theories of Consciousness,' Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind, Volume 4 (forthcoming).
'Acquaintance and the Qualitative Character of Conscious Intentional States,' Argumenta (forthcoming).
'Nature Does not yet Say no To Inner Awareness: Reply to Stoljar,' Erkenntnis 89 (2): 861-871 (2024).
'Introspective Acquaintance: An Integration Account,' European Journal of Philosophy 31(2): 380–397 (2023).
'An Acquaintance Alternative to Self-Representationalism,' Philosophical Studies 179 (12): 3831-3863 (2022).
'Introspective Knowledge by Acquaintance,' Synthese 200, 128 (2022).
'A Defense of Inner Awareness: The Memory Argument Revisited,' Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (2):341-363 (2022).
‘Introspection of Emotions’ (with Bertille de Vlieger), Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 103 (3): 551-580 (2021).
‘Introspection without Judgment,’ Erkenntnis 86: 407-427 (2021).
‘Fact-introspection, Thing-Introspection, and Inner Awareness,’ (with Uriah Kriegel), Review of Philosophy and Psychology 8: 143-164 (2017).
‘Conscious Unity from the Top Down: A Brentanian Approach,’ The Monist. 100 (1): 15-36 (2017).
Book chapters
'Moods and the Salience of Subjectivity,' in Stefan Lang and Maik Niemeck (eds.), Self and Affect (forthcoming).
'Two Kinds of Introspection' (with Uriah Kriegel), in Joshua Weisberg (ed.), Qualitative Consciousness: Themes from the Philosophy of David Rosenthal (2022).
‘Varieties of Self-Apprehension,' in Marc Borner, Manfred Frank, and Kenneth Williford (eds.), Senses of Self. Approaches to Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness (2019).