I am currently a graduate student in philosophy at MIT.

I work mainly in epistemology and decision theory.

My dissertation defends the relevance to everyday life of formal Bayesian models of epistemic and practical rationality, which can seem most at home in highly artificial and idealized settings. More specifically, it offers a solution to one obstacle to applying Bayesian models in everday situations, namely, the problem of specifying which actions are to be considered as options for the agent in the context of decision theory. This defense of the normative relevance of formal Bayesian models leads to a rejection of synchronic and diachronic Dutch Book Arguments, which infer principles of epistemic rationality from claims about rational action.

I am also interested in the philosophy of language and will have a minor in linguistics.

Research

• Options and the Subjective Ought, forthcoming in Philosophical Studies


• Incoherence without Exploitability, forthcoming in Noûs


• Options and Diachronic Tragedy


• Self-Reinforcing and Self-Frustrating Decisions (with Caspar Hare)

Presentations

• Options and the Subjective Ought
• Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference, Aug 2011
• MITing of the Minds, Jan 2011
• Incoherence without Exploitability
• CMU Episteme Conference, Jun 2011
• MIT Work in Progress Seminar, Apr 2011
• Decision-Making Under Normative Uncertainty
• Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, Jul 2010
• Rational Failures of Self-Knowledge
• MIT/Institut Jean Nicod Conference on the De Se, Paris, Mar 2010

Further Info

• Teaching Statement
• Dissertation Summary
• Future Research Plans