I'm in my final year of the PhD in Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

PhD Dissertation

Title: ‘Dispositional Interference and the Mind: Desire, Perception and Rules’

For a more detailed abstract, see my CV

Dispositional ascriptions cannot be reduced to counterfactuals; an object might have a disposition yet interfering factors may prevent it from manifesting. There is a general assumption, though, that these interfering factors must be extrinsic to the disposition bearer; if they are intrinsic, then the object cannot have the disposition in question. I argue that there are cases of dispositional interference by intrinsic properties of the disposition bearer, and show how this conclusion plays out with regards to several different dispositional theories of mental faculties.

The possibility of intrinsic dispositional interference is very important to the philosophy of mind; many dispositional theories of the mind face insurmountable problems given the assumption that there is no intrinsic dispositional interference. I argue that rejecting the assumption that finks and masks must be extrinsic means that we can solve several established philosophical problems – that of how to understand perception's contents, and that of giving a dispositional solution to Kripke's rule following problems. I also argue that the assumption that dispositions cannot be intrinsically interfered with gives rise to a new problem with dispositional accounts of desires. This problem can be dissolved given a more sophisticated understanding of dispositions.

Masters Thesis: Conceivability and Modal Error (2002)

In this thesis I looked at David Chalmers' work on conceivability. I showed that, even assuming Chalmers’ framework, there are strong counterexamples to the entailments he sees between the different kinds of conceivability which he identifies; idealisations are required that are tantamount to already possessing complete modal knowledge. Though the thesis was largely concerned with examining the technical apparatus which Chalmers uses in explaining how we can have a priori access to modality, I also gave a specific reason why materialists should not find his conceivability arguments for dualism at all worrying. Chalmers replies to this last claim here.
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Honours Dissertation: Hybrid Temporal Interval Logics (2001)

I applied the techniques of hybrid modal logic to formalise reasoning about temporal intervals. Hybrid modal logic, a very recent development in modal logic, allows reference to points in a model without the full apparatus of predicate logic. It is more expressive than a purely propositional modal logic and more computationally tractable than general predicate logic. The increase in expressive power allows simple solutions to old problems in temporal logic, such as the axiomatisation of irreflexive temporal relations. I developed axioms for a hybrid logic of temporal intervals and showed that they are complete for an appropriate class of models. ___________________________________________________________________

Conference Papers and Talks:

'Superficial Dispositionalism' - presented at the University of Bristol 2008

'Is all Wrong-Doing Self-Objectification?' - presented at the United Kingdom Kant Society Graduate Conference, University of Manchester 2008; the AAP conference, Sydney 2005; University of Auckland, 2005; University of Waikato, 2005; Workshop on gender and philosophy (WOGAP), 2005.

'Masking Desire (and perhaps finking it too)' - presented at the Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP), Armidale, Australia 2007; University of Auckland, 2007

‘Feminine Responses: What Women Want in a Metaethical Theory’ - presented at Workshop on gender and philosophy (WOGAP), 2007

Reply to Alex Byrne's 'Possibility and Imagination' - presented at the MITing of the Minds conference, MIT 2007

'Admitting Defeat' - presented at the AAP conference, NZ division, Dunedin 2005

'Conception by Omission'- presented at MITing of the Minds conference, MIT 2005

'Aristotelian Ends' - presented at the University of Auckland, 2004

'Metaphysical Mix-ups' - presented at the RSSS, ANU 2002; the AAP conference, Christchurch 2002