Professor
Department Chair
Dedman Family Distinguished Professor
Contact
| Office: | Hyer Hall 210B |
| Phone: | 214-768-3063 |
| Email: | rhowell[@]smu.edu |
Educational Background
Ph.D., Brown University
About
Profile
My work mostly concerns the nature of subjectivity, the self and the mind. As a result, I wind up working in metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. I have recently published a book, Consciousness and the Limits of Objectivity (Oxford University Press, 2013) that develops a view called subjective physicalism, which maintains that while everything is physical, some physical states cannot be fully grasped unless they are occupied. I am currently at work on a book on the self, and am beginning to dip my toes into the emerging field of neuro-ethics.
Publications (Selected)
Consciousness and the Limits of Objectivity: The Case for Subjective Physicalism (Oxford University Press, 2013).
The God Dialogues, with Torin Alter (Oxford University Press, 2011).
A Dialogue on Consciousness, with Torin Alter (Oxford University Press, 2009).
"Google Morals, Virtue, and the Asymmetry of Deference," Noûs (forthcoming). Prepublished online 29 July 2012, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0068.2012.00873.x.
"Emergentism and Supervenience Physicalism," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (2009): 83-98.
"The Ontology of Subjective Physicalism," Noûs 43 (2009): 315-45.
"Subjective Physicalism," in The Case for Qualia, ed. Edmund Wright (MIT Press, 2008).
"The Two-Dimensionalist Reductio," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 89 (2008): 348-58.
"Immunity to Error and Subjectivity," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (2007): 581-604.
"Self-Knowledge and Self-Reference," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2006): 44-70.
Courses Taught
PHIL 3381: Neuroethics
PHIL 3351: History of Western Philosophy (Ancient)
PHIL 3310: Advanced Topics in Philosophy: The Self
PHIL 3310: Advanced Topics in Philosophy: Neuroethics
PHIL 1305: Introduction to Philosophy