I’m thinking about emotion, to complement perception and action, for the purpose of advancing our understanding of what sorts of things we can sense as real in experience. Not only things we perceive and act upon can furnish that which we sense as real. Also, the significances these things possess, over which we get emotional, can. For example, one may fear a spider and sense as real its threatening character, even if one believes that it is harmless.

I’m interested in how emotional significance should be characterized. How does it relate to the propositional content of attitudes like belief and desire? How might understanding emotion open entry points upon these issues, which aren’t opened by extant ideas of this theoretical context, like those of affordances and knowledge-how?

Philosophy of art and the history of science (especially of psychology and psychiatry) are also important to me. I have side projects on epistemological issues pertaining to placebo effects, among other rhetorical devices. Feel free to email about any of these things!