Research

My current research focuses on philosophy of perception, particularly philosophy of color perception. My approach is empirically-guided: instead of leading with intuitions, conceptual analysis, and other a priori methods, I ask what visual ecology, psychophysics, and neuroscience can tell us about the fundamental "goal" of color visual systems. I suggest that the conception that best accommodates and explains the available empirical data is the idea that the goal of color visual systems is to help animals better perceive their environments and satisfy their ecological needs rather than to track and register some stable properties of distal objects and scenes.

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I further argue that color vision plays an enhancement role with respect to certain important (species-specific) perceptual competences. The notion of competence-embeddedness helps make sense of a wide variety of color perceptual phenomena, including many problem cases. For example, we can understand many textbook color illusions as special cases where the relevant perceptual competences place divergent demands on the color visual system and where the color visual system is forced to "choose" between those demands. 

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The notions of perceptual competence and competence-embeddedness can also be used to reconceptualize the early modern distinction between primary and secondary qualities. I suggest that we understand primary qualities as the kinds of properties that we can competently perceive and secondary qualities as the kind of properties that are involved in the competent perception of primary qualities. 

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I also use the notion of competence-embeddedness to approach pain. I argue that whereas the competences that embed color vision are perceptual competences (in most animals), the competences that embed pain are behavioral or cognitive ones. Pain is not a bodily disturbance detector but a sophisticated context-dependent security system. In addition, I have ongoing interest in the phenomenon of chronic maladaptive pain and the testimonial exchanges involving chronic pain patients.

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Papers

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[1] "Color and Competence: A New View of Color Perception" (forthcoming in José Manuel Viejo & Mariano Sanjuán (eds.), Life and Mind - New Directions in the Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences, Springer)

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[2] "Seeing with Color: Psychophysics and the Function of Color Vision (forthcoming in Synthese)

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[3]  [Removed for blind review] 

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[4] "Philosophy of Color: A Novel Typology" (in progress)

[5] "Perceptual Competences and the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction" (in progress)

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[6] "How is Pain Like Color?" (in progress)

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Recent and Upcoming Presentations

(Selected) 

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"Perceptual Competences and the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction"

-- Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. 2023.

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"Pain is not a Bodily Disturbance Detector"

--Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SSPP) Annual Conference, Louisville, KY, USA. 2023.

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"Pain is not a Bodily Disturbance Detector"

--Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences (PBCS) XI, University of Salamanca-ECyT, Spain. 2022.

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“Seeing with Color: Insights from Psychophysics” link 

--The 3rd Context, Cognition and Communication Conference: Varieties of Meaning and Content, University of Warsaw, Poland. 2022.

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“Seeing with Color: Insights from Psychophysics” 

--The 3rd Joint Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) and the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP), University of Milan, Italy. 2022.

“Seeing with Color: Insights from Psychophysics” 

--Language, Culture and Mind 9: Sensory Experience and Communication, University of Almería, Spain. 2022

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Comments on Christopher Masciari's "Contingent Perceptual Experience"

-- Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SSPP) Annual Conference, Mobile, AL, USA. 2022.

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"What (on Earth) Are Color Visual Systems Doing?"

--Virtual Vision Futures, York University, Canada. 2021 (delivered virtually).

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"Color Illusions and the "Competence-Embeddedness" of Color Perception"

--Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences (PBCS) X, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. 2021 (delivered virtually).

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“Philosophy of Color: Lessons from Neuroscience?”

--6th Annual Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN) Retreat, University of Pennsylvania, USA. 2020.

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Dissertation Summary

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The mainstream view in contemporary analytic philosophy is that perception is primarily in the business of representing the mind-independent world as it is. My dissertation explores an alternative conception: that the goal of perception is to guide successful action and that perceptions do not need to track mind-independent properties to play this action-guiding role. I focus on two types of perception: color perception and pain perception. I start with the former and advocate a pragmatist, empirically-guided approach which begins by inquiring into the function of color vision. After arguing that none of the extant philosophical views of color are satisfactory, I answer the function question by focusing on systematic color perceptual phenomena investigated by psychophysicists. I argue that the human color visual system is an enhancement system: that is, its job is to help us better discriminate, track, and recognize meaningful objects, properties, and relations. I then build on this idea using the notion of ‘competence-embeddedness.’ I propose that color vision is embedded in a network of competences: the aim of color vision is to help organisms manifest these competences, and color experiences are correct when they result from competence-enhancing processing. The framework is explanatorily robust. For example, it allows me to conceptualize many textbook color illusions as special cases of successful color perception where the demands of the relevant competences clash. Finally, I use the notion of ‘competence-embeddedness’ to develop a new account of pain. I argue that the pain system is not a bodily disturbance detector, but a sophisticated, context-responsive security system whose primary goal is to help organisms manifest important behavioral and cognitive competences. 

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