Research

Publications:

‘Created, Changeable, and Yet Acausal?’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (2019).  Available here.

PhD: Movers and Makers

When we act intentionally, changes and states in the world come about, and they come about as a result of our intentional actions. We bear a particular kind of responsibility for those changes and states, which I call agential responsibility. What more can be said about what it is to be agentially responsible for some change or state? It is argued here that, contrary to a wide variety of contemporary views, it is not an essential part of what it is to be agentially responsible for a change or state that the agent causes that change or state. It is put forward that agential responsibility is a primitive form of responsibility, not to be accounted for fully in terms of causal responsibility. Agential responsibility is fully accounted for only in terms of explanation — which may include non-causal explanation — by intentional action. 

Talks:

The Strong Corporealist Approach to Intentional Action

  • Human Abilities Colloquium, HU & FU Berlin (Nov 2020).

The First Person in Action

  • Workshop on Subject and Object manuscript by Adrian Haddock, Utrecht University (Feb 2020).

The Significance of Transitive Verbs in Action

  • Humboldt Seminar, University of Leipzig (Jan 2020).

Are Two-Way Powers Causal Powers?

  • ‘Two-Way Powers’, Action-Network Annual Meeting, University of Leipzig (Jul 2019).

No Objection to Object-Causation

  • Humboldt Seminar, University of Leipzig (Nov 2018)

The Importance of Being Creative

  • Humboldt Colloquium, University of Leipzig (Feb 2018).
  • Agency Workshop, University of Tübingen (Apr 2019).

Created, Changeable, and Yet Acausal?

  • Postgraduate Session, Joint Session of Aristotelian Society & Mind Association (Jul 2018).

The Causal Interaction Problem for Abstracta

  • Departmental Symposium, UCL (November 2017)

Agency, Causation, and Deviance

  • UCL-Leipzig Workshop, Leipzig University (June 2017)
  • The Cognitive Science Research Group, New College of the Humanities (June 2017)

Movement of the Body and Causation by the Agent

  • Graduate Philosophy Conference, University of London (March 2017)

Davidson’s Challenge for Irreducible Agent-Causation

  • Workshop on Agency and Causation: Formal and Conceptual Issues, Ghent University (October 2016)

Demystifying the Agent-Causation Debate

  • Cumberland Lodge UCL Philosophy Weekend (October 2016)

The Agent’s Causal Role in Action

  • London-Warwick Mind Forum (November 2015)
  • Open Minds X, University of Manchester (July 2015)

Getting Over the Overdetermination Argument

  • Philosophy Graduate Conference, UCL (September 2015)