"These disputes about the content of perception are strange:
A disagreement about an unperceived object is settled by perception;
but how is a disagreement that arises about perception settled?​
In disputes about perceptual awareness that take the form, 'This appears; this does not appear,'
people resort to swearing oaths while trying to persuade others.
We, on the other hand, do not lazily continue to just take refuge in oaths. We investigate what is to be known about perception by still another way."
                                                                             --  Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, Nyāyamañjarī  (Mysore ed. vol 1, p. 253)

 My research follows the spirit of Jayanta's suggestion by looking for "another way" to investigate philosophical issues of perceptual content and consciousness. Departing from standard phenomenological and epistemological approaches, my work addresses the implications that empirical studies of visual processing have for debates concerning the existence and nature of non-conceptual perceptual content. The goal is to understand when and how in the functional stages of vision does perceptual consciousness emerge, and what sorts of contents does conscious visual experience represent as a result. Since our philosophical assumptions about concepts, representation, and consciousness inevitably constrain our interpretation of scientific findings, my work additionally broadens these assumptions by drawing upon the theoretical resources of classical and early modern Indian philosophy.

I am also pursuing a second line of research on theories of moral psychology in Indian and Chinese philosophical traditions.

Publications

"Taking Non-conceptualism back to Dharmakīrti." European Journal of Philosophy ​(forthcoming). [pdf with translations]

"Attentional Structuring, Subjectivity, and the Ubiquity of Reflexive Inner Awareness." Inquiry (forthcoming). [pdf]

"There is Something Wrong with Raw Perception, After All: Vyāsatīrtha’s Refutation of Nirvikalpaka-Pratyakṣa." Journal of Indian Philosophy (2020) 48:2, 255-315. [pdf]

"Against a 'Mindless' Account of Perceptual Expertise." Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (2019) 18:3, 509-531. [pdf]

"Mencius and Dewey on Moral Perception, Deliberation, and Imagination." Dao (2012) 11:2, 163–185. [pdf]

Review of Christian Coseru, Perceiving Reality: Consciousness, Intentionality, and Cognition in Buddhist Philosophy, in Philosophy East and West (2014) 64: 506-513. [pdf]