I am currently a doctoral candidate at McGill University working with supervisors Ian Gold and David Davies. I previously received a B.A. Honours with high distinction in philosophy and political science from the University of Toronto.
Currently, my primary philosophical interests are in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science. For my doctoral research I am investigating the metaphysical commitments of the extended mind thesis, which maintains that our mental states might be partially instantiated by physical states beyond our brain and body (originally advanced by A. Clark and D. Chalmers 1998).
In my recent work I have been dealing with questions about the normativity of belief and the possibility of extended beliefs. Objectors to the extended mind thesis have argued that there are normative constraints, such as rationality, that extended beliefs would fail to accord with. There is now an ongoing debate between supporters and critics of the extended mind thesis over these issues. Some respond by challenging the viability of normativist accounts of cognitive states. But I see a different strategy for resolving this tension. I see the possibility to advance a new argument for extended beliefs that can still preserve the major tenants of normativist accounts.
I have also worked on other situated views of cognition (including embodied, enactive, and distributed theories), group and social cognition, and consciousness. And I have further research interests in moral philosophy, legal philosophy, and philosophy of neuroscience.
Publications:
“The Parity Argument for Extended Consciousness” Journal of Consciousness Studies. Volume 22, Issue 3-4, 2015, pp. 16-33.