The nature of introspection ©

My research contributes to two central issues: first, it argues against skeptical doubts about the reliability of introspection; and second, it proposes a model of the nature of introspection that explains the way in which we are aware of our mental states and we arrive at self-attributions. I offer a new pluralist model according to which introspection operates in tandem with other cognitive processes by combining various sources of information (in contrast with both reductive and standard pluralist accounts). I show that it is by introspection that we become aware of the character and contents of our mental states as well as the changes, transitions, and boundaries among them. ​​The first version of this project can be found on my dissertation.

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2144/

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Addressing Skeptical Challenges to Introspection ©

There are prominent skeptical challenges in current philosophical and scientific debates to introspection. According to these challenges, introspection is generally and frequently unreliable: it yields erroneous judgments, or even yields no judgments at all. I take on these pessimistic claims and show that arguments for the unreliability of introspection miss their mark. I maintain that the skeptical challenges do not pose any real objection; any lingering skeptical doubts are remediable and require merely establishing boundary conditions. I then delineate an alternative account of introspective judgments for conscious experiences that distinguishes between limits of introspection and failures of introspection. Rather than insisting that introspective judgments are entirely either wrong or absent, I argue that we ought to consider different gradations of introspective judgment—i.e., coarse-grained and fine-grained—as well as different degrees of accuracy when judging the broad outlines of our conscious experiences and their fine-grained features.

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Auditory Consciousness ©

My research in this area aims to respond to the question: How are we conscious of our auditory sensations? I investigate the philosophical relevance of being conscious of our auditory sensations, and explore the significance of understanding our auditory states in both our private and public life. I aim to show that understanding our auditory world has important implications for improving our social interactions. In contrast to the vast philosophical research regarding visual states, auditory experience has been constantly neglected in the contemporary literature. This research project attempts to vindicate such a mistake by advancing proposals specific to this neglected but important domain. 

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​Saul Kripke's Philosophy of Mind ©

My research contributes to understand Kripke's position against materialism as presented in lecture III of Naming and Necessity and expanded in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Mind delivered at Princeton University in 1979. In those lectures, which I transcribed based on audio recordings, Kripke offers a knowledge argument against materialism, focusing on deaf people who lack knowledge of auditory experience. Kripke's argument is a precursor of Frank Jackson’s better-known knowledge argument against materialism (1982). I set out Kripke’s argument, highlight its philosophical importance, and explore some similarities and differences between Kripke’s knowledge argument and Jackson’s. 

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