Contact info:
email: acahen (at) wustl (dot) edu
Physical: 726 Interdrive 1W, St. Louis, MO 63130
About me -
I am a graduate student working on my dissertation in the philosophy department, PNP (Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology) program, at Washington University, in St. Louis.
My dissertation very broadly
concerns the nature of perception and its relation to thought. More
particularly, I am interested in how we come to be aware of the world as
involving medium sized objects of various types with their various perceptible properties. This
is more than merely to ask how the objects of our awareness come to be these medium
sized objects, table, ashtray, computer...; rather, the question is how we come to be aware of them as
such. How do we come to be aware of the table as a table, in a way
that reflects our understanding of such objects, and what does this
understanding amount to? In other words, how do we
become aware of the world epistemically? One
common answer is that we
are epistemically aware of the world around us only in thought. Perception
merely serves as a source for such an awareness, providing the basis for
perceptual beliefs. The epistemic awareness, in other words, is a product of
conceptualization that at times has perception as a causal antecedent. Alternatively, we may think of perception as itself
constituting an epistemic awareness of the world. As a result, a correct
specification of the content of perception must reflect the perceiver's
understanding of what is represented. My dissertation involves
analyzing the various ways in which perception can be related to an epistemic awareness of the world.
An important component of this investigation concerns the debate
about the nonconceptual content of perception. In particular, one central
consequence of my investigation is that we can sensibly regard perception as
constituting an epistemic awareness of the world even though the contents of
perception are nonconceptual, that is, the subject enjoying the perception need
not have the concepts involved in a specification of its content. In the coming
chapters of the dissertation (which are yet to be written...) I will explore
further theoretical ramifications of these results as well as empirical ones.
Interests:
Philosophy - My current interest is, unsurprisingly, first and foremost to finish the dissertation. But more broadly, I am very interested the metaphysics of the self, time, causation, mental causation, the mind-body problem, and consciousness. I am also interested of course in the relation between theories of concepts and the notion of representational content, and am especially interested in the relations between intentional/representational content and phenomenal content.
Non-Philosophy - I am especially concerned about the political happenings in Israel, my port of exit into the rest of the world, though I tend to gravitate to other global dynamics as well. As a result, I read the news incessantly: Haaretz (Hebrew/English), NY-Times, CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, Jerusalem Post (pretty rarely, frankly), and since I don't have a TV, I'm forced to watch The Daily Show over the internet in the morning with my coffee. I am also an avid bird watcher, though I've seen better days/months/years. Since I don't own a car, I have a difficulty pursuing this hobby of mine at the moment. I am in love with film, though I can also appreciate the 'movies'. Similarly with music, though I can't appreciate pop; I never could and, likely, never will be able to. I have no regrets. Books I used to read quite a lot of, but work has taken reading to a different direction, for the time being. I do miss the fiction. I guess I have a few regrets about that...
Curiculum Vita (in short)
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