My name is Tom Wysocki, and I work on all things causal.
I find causation to be the most exciting concept to investigate because you can ask metaphysical questions about it (e.g., what is causation?), questions in philosophy of science (what is the concept used in the special sciences?), epistemology (how ought we to reason causally?), ethics (is causing an outcome necessary for being responsible for it), philosophy of language (what’s the semantics of counterfactuals?), cognitive science (how do people reason causally?), computer science (how can causal relations be discovered from observational data?). In one way or another, I am engaging with all of these questions.
Currently, I am focusing three projects: investigating underdeterministic causation, developing the causal-causal theory, and a theory of dispositions and their ascriptions. I have also worked on metaphilosophy and philosophy of cognitive science, and I will not abandon these interests lightly.
In August, I graduated with a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pittsburgh and am currently a post-doctoral researcher at Georgia Augusta at Georg-Elias-Müller-Institut für Psychologie. I also have a PhD in economics from the Chair of Mathematical Economics at Wrocław University of Economics and also some other degrees. My research in philosophy of causation has been supported by a fellowship from the Chateaubriand Fellowship (France) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (suprise: Japan); my research in economics has been supported by a grant from the National Science Centre (Poland).
Underdeterministic causation
Orthodoxy seems to have it that there are two causal concepts: deterministic and probabilistic. Daedalus will escape if he jumps and won’t if he doesn’t. He jumps and escapes, and the former deterministically caused the latter. Daedalus is 60% likely to escape if he jumps and 0% likely if he doesn’t. He jumps and escapes, and the former probabilistically caused the latter. But there’s also another species of cases, yet unanalyzed. Daedalus may escape if he jumps and won’t if he doesn’t. He jumps and escapes, and the former underdeterministically caused the latter. (If there’s a probability associated with his escaping given the jump, the cause is also probabilistic. But even if there’s no such probability—maybe because the event is too unique to be ascribed one, or maybe because Zeus banned probabilities from his realm altogether—underdeterministic causation still holds.)
Defining underdeterministic causation in fact turned out to be an entire research project: the framework of causal models, a semantics of underdeterministic counterfactuals, type causation, token causation, decision theory. While constructing these have been fun from a purely theoretical point of view, these theories are also important for understanding scientific models and everyday causal reasoning.
| The underdeterministic framework | |
| Wysocki, T. (2023). The underdeterministic framework. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. doi:10.1086/724450. | |
| This is the paper that lays the foundations for all others within this research program, as here I develop the framework of underdeterministic causal models used in the remaining papers. The models are like their deterministic counterparts but with one consequential difference---an equation can return multiple values, thus encoding what’s possible given the input of the equation. This means that models can have now multiple solutions, each representing a possible way the target situation may develop. What follows is a cascade of notions. Causal possible (necessary) is an event that happens some (all) solutions. A might-(would-)counterfactual is true if its consequent is possible (necessary) after an intervention brings about the antecedent. I also define conditional independence, an underdeterministic analog of probabilistic independence, and prove that underdeterministic models satisfy the causal Markov condition. | |
| An event algebra for causal counterfactuals | |
| Wysocki, T. (2023). An event algebra for causal counterfactuals. Philosophical Studies. doi:10.1007/s11098-023-02015-4. | |
| In this one, I do two things. First, I treat an event just as set of all ways in which the event can be brought about and put forward an event algebra—a set of rules to derive the set from an event description. One benefit of the algebra is that it can represent events that can happen in infinitely many ways. Second, I extend the semantics of counterfactuals from the underdeterministic framework to ones with disjunctive antecedents. I introduce devices that allow for representing such counterfactuals with a single model—something that isn’t possible on previous theories. This compact representation, I claim, has benefits for computer science and cognitive science. | |
| Type causation, underdeterministically | |
| Wysocki, T. (under review). Type causation, underdeterministically. | |
| Here, I use the underdeterministic framework to define type causation: it holds between two variables iff under some contingency, you can wiggle the values of the cause variable so that the set of possible values of the effect variable wiggles too. The concept satisfies three conditions expected from such relations: effects and causes (unconditionally) depend on each other (where dependence is underdeterminisitic); if two variables depend on each other, either one causes the other or they share a common cause (knows as Reichenbach’s principle); and causal intermediaries screen off their effects from their causes. I illustrate the concept with an application to Spence's (1973) seminal job-market signaling theory. | |
| Underdeterministic causation: a proof of concept | |
| Wysocki, T. (under review). Underdeterministic causation: a proof of concept. | |
| In this one, I define underdeterministic token causation: a cause elevates the modal status of its effect, either by making possible what otherwise would be impossible or by making necessary what otherwise would be at most possible. In this theory adapts the classic Halpern-Pearl (2005) account to underdeterminism, and in deterministic cases yields the same verdicts as their theory. (The true theory of underdeterministic token causes will have to wait for the causal-causal adaptation.) | |
| Causal decision rheory for the probabilistically blinded | |
| Wysocki, T. (in progress). Causal decision rheory for the probabilistically blinded. | |
|
Here, I use the framework to formulate underdeterministic decision theory. On this theory, a rational agent under uncertainty solves a decision problem in three steps: she represents the decision problem with a causal model, uses it to infer the possible consequences of available actions, and chooses an action whose possible consequences are no worse than the possible consequences of any other action. One of the advantages of the theory is that it applies to decisions with infinitely many possible consequences. I subsequently extend the theory to agents who can’t decide on a single causal model representing the decision problem and to situations where consequences of different decisions aren't independent |
|
The causal-causal theory
The theory of deterministic causation seems—justifiably or not—the Holy Grail of causal literature, and recently a lot of progress has been made. Particularly effective have proven theories formulated within the structural-equations framework. These theories share two dogmas: that any causal claim is equivalent to some counterfactual claim involving the cause and the effect, and that counterfactual relations are adequately represented with structural equations accompanied by a normality order on events. When I first encountered this literature, I saw a project steadily progressing, with increasingly complex theories handling increasingly complex cases—the stead improvement was palatable to an extent that doesn’t often happen to philosophical research programs. However, I now feel like this progress has halted. A solution, I propose, is to replace the two dogmas.
One paper has been published within this project: a negative paper that shows that no normality ordering can save all causal intuitions that normality orderings were intended to save. I am currently working on a positive theory, which replaces the framework of structural equations with one of polymorphic functions and defines causation recursively: a cause causes its distant effects in virtue of causing these effects direct causes. Once the deterministic theory is ready, I’ll apply the causal-causal setup to probabilistic and underdeterministic causation, and possibly to continuous causal systems.
| Conjoined cases | |
| Wysocki, T. (2023). Conjoined cases. Synthese. 201:197 doi:10.1007/s11229-023-04101-w. | |
|
Causal isomorphs are cases that are modelled with the same model but yield different intuitions: causation holds in one but not in the other. These cases imply that causal judgments cannot be inferred from the situation’s causal model alone. A common response has been to incorporate normality ascriptions. A simplified version of this strategy goes as follows: say, causation holds if the effect wouldn’t have happened, had the actual cause not happened. If you require that in this definition only counterfactuals with sufficiently normal antecedents can be entertained, you can evaluate causal isomorphs differently, provided that the events there differ with respect to normality. By conjoining causal isomorphs, I produce cases for which this strategy doesn’t work. Say, the same event is a cause of one event but not of another, but the structural equation governing both event is the same. Then however you ascribe normality to the cause-event and its alternatives, you’re bound to misjudge one causal relation in the case. The actual strategy is more complex than that; what’s important is that it shows that no normality ascription can account for conjoined causal isomorphs. That is, no way of ascribing normality can solve the problem if isomorphs. |
|
| The causal-causal theory | |
| Wysocki, T. (in progress). The causal-causal theory. | |
| Once it was clear that normality ascriptions won’t help with defining causation, I moved on to the positive theory—the causal-causal theory, called so because distant causation is defined in terms of more proximate causation. So, first, I don’t define causation as some complex counterfactual but as a recursive relation, with production as the base step. Second, I use polymorphic functions to express primitive counterfactuals, which I then use to define production. So far, the theory has solved all the notorious cases, including conjoined cases from the previous paper. | |
Philosophy of cognitive science
| The delusive benefit of the doubt | |
| Wysocki, T. (2023). The delusive benefit of the doubt. Stud Hist Philos Sci. 100:47-55. doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2023.05.001 | |
| In this one, I use practical applications of moral psychology to argue against scientific agnosticism. The agnostic claims that abandoning belief in science’s theoretical posits doesn’t make a difference to anything that matters. I argue that it does: certain uses of moral psychology to reform our moral beliefs and practices are beyond the agnostic’s reach. | |
| Normality: a two-Faced concept | |
| Wysocki, T. (2020). Normality: a two-Faced concept. Rev. Philos. Psychol. 11:689–716. doi:10.1007/s13164-020-00463-z | |
| Here, in two studies, I present empirical evidence that in evaluating how normal an object is, people pay attention to its frequency and its valence. That is, ceteris paribus, the more frequent they take the object to be, and the better they take it to be, the more normal it is for them. In follow up studies, I show that if scenarios are contrasted—presented one after another—only frequency matters. But if scenarios are evaluated alone, both frequency and goodness influence normality evaluations in a single person, although the more a person is sensitive to one dimension, the less she’s sensitive to the other. | |
| Arguments over intuitions? | |
| Wysocki, T. (2017). Arguments over intuitions? Rev. Philos. Psychol. 8:477–499. doi:10.1007/s13164-016-0301-8 | |
| Deutsch (2010) claims that hypothetical scenarios are evaluated using arguments, not intuitions, and therefore experiments on intuitions are philosophically inconsequential. Using the Gettier case as an example, he identifies three arguments that are supposed to point to the right response to the case. In the paper, I present the results of studies ran on Polish, Indian, Spanish, and American participants that suggest that there’s no deep difference between evaluating the Gettier case with intuitions and evaluating it with Deutsch’s arguments. Specifically, I argue that one would find these arguments persuasive if and only if one is already disposed to exhibit the relevant intuition. | |
| Non-transitivity of personal identity | |
| Wysocki, T. (in progress). Non-transitivity of personal identity. | |
| Here, first, I argue that previous empirical studies on personal identity suffer from an error: the vignettes they use already convey to their experimental subjects that the personality change in the agent preserves identity. Second, I present the results of studies that avoid this error. I am especially interested in whether personal identity is transitive—and I argue that it sometimes isn’t. | |
Philosophy of mathematics
I’ve also been interested in whether inductive proofs in formal sciences can explain. The first paper in this project is negative, offering a counterexample to Lange’s (2009) argument that no inductive proofs can explain. In the second paper, I will offer a theory of explanatory formal proofs that follow the construction of the domain.
| Explanatory circles, induction, and recursive structures | |
| Wysocki, T. (2017). Explanatory circles, induction, and recursive structures. Thought 6(1):13-16. doi:10.1002/tht3.229 | |
| Lange (2009) offers an argument that, according to him, “does not show merely that some proofs by mathematical induction are not explanatory. It shows that none are[…]” (p. 210). My aim is to present a counterexample to his argument. | |
I have independently taught morality and medicine a few times and mind and medicine once at the University of Pittsburgh and statistics once at Wrocław University of Economics. For morality and medicine, which is an introduction to medical ethics, I used this syllabus; and for mind and medicine, which is an introduction to philosophy of medicine, I used this one.
At Washington University in St. Louis, I assisted with problems in philosophy, which is an introductory course in philosophy, and present moral problems, which is an introduction to ethics. At Wrocław University of Economics, I assisted a few times with microeconomics, macroeconomics, and international economics.
While assisting with macroeconomics, I developed a list of exercises. I find them more useful than the problems in standard textbooks, for these exercises lead students to develop, step by step, the two standard basic models in economics: the Keynesian cross and the IS-LM model. Someone might find the exercises helpful too. (They are in Polish, though.)
When I teach philosophy, my teaching is structured by three goals: I want my students to internalize the material, be able to produce and evaluate arguments, and write persuasively. Behind these goals stands an assumption: philosophy tackles the most interesting (though abstract) questions that one can ask, yet at the same time it provides practical skills conducive to living an informed, responsible life. Here are some ways in which I pursue these goals.
Internalizing the material
I often use mind maps that we fill out in class. We start with an empty slide, which at the end of the meeting shows a mind map of an argument or a debate between different positions. As I upload the slides after the meeting, students can use the mind map to study for the exam.
The following example comes from morality and medicine, a class on past directives:
Another thing I do is test students in low-stakes conditions, which has been shown to facilitate learning (Brown, Roediger, McDaniel 2014). I begin every class with a quiz on any past material. Students jot answers and get cold-called. I don’t grade these answers; what I do, though, is discuss what went well and what went not-so-well.
Something from the beginning of the semester, the last time I taught morality and medicine:
- What’s a normative claim? What’s a descriptive claim? Give me examples of both.
- “Abortion is impermissible because most people think that the fetus is a person.” “Abortion is permissible because as a society we value personal choice.” What’s wrong with these arguments?
Later in the semester, I expect much more of my students:
- Give me two ways in which an agent can act incompetently on the evidentiary view. Illustrate either way with a case.
- Here’s a theory we haven’t discussed: act consequentialism. It recommends an agent under some circumstances to perform an action such that if any agent under such circumstances performed that action, total consequences would be best.
- Devise a case where standard consequentialism and act consequentialism prescribe different actions.
- Devise a case where Kantianism and act consequentialism prescribe different actions.
The most fun is to have them find connections between seemingly unrelated theories:
- How would Thomson respond to Marquis? What would she agree and disagree with?
- How far would Nozick go with along Thomson’s thought experiments? At what point would he disagree?
- What would Rawls say to Thomson’s argument? At what point would he disagree?
Produce and evaluate arguments
I put some stress on formalizing arguments, so that then we can scrutinize each premise. In the following exercise, we reconstructed how Rachel used the argument for passive euthanasia to argue for active euthanasia. I provided the structure, and we filled out the details in class, starting with the conclusions.
Write persuasively
Plato notwithstanding, one isn’t born with the knowledge of how to write papers, philosophical or otherwise. To teach how to write papers, I first ask students to fill out the template I provide for them; the template already contains parts of the introductory section, the plan, and the presentation of the target argument. The task is to fill out the rest, and I don’t grade the quality of the paper or argument, but merely whether the student followed the instructions. I do, however, provide feedback and a simulated grade as if it were the final paper. This way students are prepared for when the actual final paper assignment arrives.
I found this exercise to be very effective, as judged by the quality of the final papers. (I do more, though. There are also outlines for the final paper that I provide feedback on, in-class discussions between students of their outlines and my feedback to them, and then peer-review before the final submission.)
Click here to see the sample first paper assignment for mind and medicine.
It’s too much to call it a paper assignment even: I’m providing you a part of the intro, the whole first section, and parts of other sections. The paper is on the moral permissibility of RCTs. You have two options:
♠ You can argue that they are morally permissible, or
♣ you can argue that they aren’t.
If you argue that they aren’t, you’ll need to change the intro and the first section accordingly, keeping my structure: in the intro, the first short paragraph with the thesis and the second paragraph with the plan.
Whichever option you choose, the paper isn’t a free-floating argument, but it engages with the literature that we read and discussed in class. This is how almost all philosophy is done: you are trying to make a new point—i.e., a new argument for some claim (called a thesis)—but your argument engages with what already had been said on that topic. And remember, you want to come up with something new. You can’t just take what Marquis or Freedman said in response to the Hellmans’ argument as your objection—that’s plagiarism.
- Also, {brackets like that indicate my comments within the actual text that you’ll reuse.} Please delete all my instruction, as this box, and other boxes, and whatever is in {}, from your essay. The essay must read as an essay, something that could be published in a journal.
- Use numbered headlines and keep my formatting (font, text justified to both sides, underlined headings).
- Use § signs. Imagine they are links or they read “see section _.” So, if you write “subsequently (§3), I’ll argue…” and it reads “subsequently (in section 3), I’ll argue… .” §-signs don’t belong in headlines.
- The introduction does not have its own heading. The first section that has a heading is the one where you (i.e., I in this case) describe the Hellmans’ argument.
Grading: this is an exercise for you to learn how to write a paper. So, you’ll be graded only on how well you follow my instructions (do you use §-signs correctly; are there headings; did you delete all instructions together with brackets {} and keep only the text of the actual paper; did you keep the formatting, etc.?). However, I’ll tell also what grade you would get if this was an essay that I graded for content. This way you’ll prepare for the actual essay assignment.
If you choose to argue that RCTs are morally permissible (that is, disagree with the Hellmans), you will have to present their argument (I’ve done that for you), come up with an objection to it, a response on behalf of the Hellmans to that objection (i.e., imagine the Hellmans responding to you), and your response to that hypothetical response. Therefore, your paper will have four main sections: (§1) one on the target argument, (§2) one with your objection, (§3) one with a possible response, and (§4) one with your response to that response. Below is the introduction of the paper that does the smaller version.
What I provided is the introduction. You have to fill out the plan of the paper in the second paragraph to match your paper.
Hellman and Hellman (1991) argue that, in virtue of her special relationship with the patient, in most cases the doctor shouldn’t enroll the patient in a randomized control trial, even if the patient consents. I disagree.
First (§1), I present the Hellmans’ argument. According to their argument, enrolling a patient in an RCT goes against the doctor’s duty to give the patient the best available treatment. Subsequently (§2), I argue that they are wrong: {put your main claim here. It’ can’t be just that the doctor shouldn’t enroll the patient in an RCT—that’s obvious from the sentence ‘I disagree’ in the first paragraph. You want to put the gist of your argument here. For instance, were Marquis writing this paper, he’d say “I argue that they are wrong: the doctor actually has a duty to give the patient the option to enroll in an RCT, because the doctor has a duty to inform the patient of all her options.”} However (§3), the Hellmans could object to my argument. {Now say in a sentence what their objection would be.} But that objection rests on a mistake (§4). {Now say in a sentence what your response would be.}
1. Hellman and Hellman’s argument
The Hellmans (1991) claim that enrolling a patient in an RCT is wrong in most cases. Here’s how their argument goes. They begin with an assumption that, in virtue of her role, the physician has a duty to her patient to give the patient the best care available. What, according to them, follows from that assumption is that it’s morally permissible for the doctor to enroll the patient in an RCT only if the doctor believes that being in the experimental group of the RCT will be as beneficial to the patient as being in the control group. E.g., if two drugs are tested against each other, the doctor must believe that neither drug is better for the patient. If she prefers one drug over another, enrolling the patient in an RCT would violate the doctor’s duty to the patient, as the patient could end up getting the drug that the doctor finds inferior. Since a physician almost always never evaluates two drugs as equally good, it’s almost never permissible for her to enroll a patient in an RCT. And that’s the main conclusion of the Hellmans’ paper.
2. My objection to the Hellmans’ argument
{If Freedman was writing this section, he could begin like this:}
However, the Hellmans’ argument contains an assumption that seems wrong. According to them, to enroll the patient in an RCT, it’s the patient’s doctor who must be in the state of equipoise—i.e., she must think that neither of the two options (being in the control group vs. being in the experimental group) is better. But it’s not the doctor who should be in equipoise about the treatments, but the medical community at large. And if an RCT is run, it typically means that the community is in equipoise. Therefore, it’s typically permissible to enroll a patient in an RCT.
{The paragraph above gives the main argument. But at least two premises in this argument need to be clarified: (1) “but it’s not the doctor who should be in equipoise about the treatments, but the medical community at large,” and “if an RCT is run, it typically means that the community is in equipoise.” Therefore, to get a full grade, Freedman would have to write two more paragraphs; the first one supporting (1) and the second one supporting (2). Notice that you cannot reuse the paragraph above: I wrote it for you as an illustration.}
3. A possible response to my objection
On my objection, the Hellmans are wrong, because {say in one sentence the objection from §2} However, they could respond to my objection—they could say that {here goes your possible response. Think a paragraph long at least.}
4. A rebuttal of the response
{Here goes your possible response.}
5. References
Hellman, S., Hellman, D. (1991), “Of Mice But Not Men: Problems of the Randomized Clinical Trial.” N Engl J Med 324:1585-1589. {Put here everything that you refer to in the format similar to the above.}
Employment
Education
For the explanadum above, click here to see the explanans.
It is a truth universally acknowledged—or at least it was in Poland at the time I was applying to college—that philosophers starve and programmers don’t. So, despite my heart-felt intention to study philosophy, I enrolled in computer sciences studies. (A piece of background: in Poland, you apply to a particular major, which then you can’t switch, and you typically study it for five years and graduate with a master’s.). A year later, I realized I had enough energy to enroll in another major. Yet, since managing programmers makes the prospect of starvation even less likely, I was persuaded to study management. Fast forward two years. It became clear the desire to do philosophy wasn’t a phase I would grow out of or placate with an elective. The philosophy department luckily offered weekend studies—a weekend of classes twice a month. I enrolled. What may seem like lots of work was more like vacations: every other weekend I would forget about the outside world for two days—everyday life would give way to Plato.
Eventually, I graduated with three master’s degrees: management in 2008, computer science in 2010 (it took me some time to finish the thesis), and philosophy in 2011. But I don’t want to imply I did the first two for practical reasons, and only the last reveals my true preferences. That might have been how it started. But in computer science, I took classes in logic, abstract algebra, computational theory, modal logic, and elements of formal semantics; in writing my thesis, I used skills from all these classes. And understating Turing’s proof that there are problems no machine can solve is one of the most philosophically shaking experiences out there. In my management studies, I quickly realized that macro- and microeconomics and econometrics is where all the fun is. I redesigned my studies (thankfully, the university allowed for that if you found a professor who’d OK your plan) to focus on these subjects. Once I graduated, I enrolled in a Ph.D. program in economics. I wrote my thesis on economics of education (for knowledge is the highest good, I read somewhere), and I got a National Science Center grant to fund my empirical research. After what happened next, I put the research on the back burner for some time. Still, in 2018, I defended the dissertation.
In my fourth year of studying philosophy, I googled Bacon’s experimentum crucis while preparing for an exam. Experimental philosophy popped up in search results. Empirical research, but in philosophy—what’s there not to love? I organized an undergraduate interest group; soon enough, we ran our own experiments—the first xphi studies ever conducted in Poland. One of them married philosophy and economics. We put some people behind (our best approximation of) the veil of ignorance and asked them to discuss and decide on a distribution rule of unknown future payoffs. Our subject weren’t very Rawlsian, to be honest, but the results were interesting enough to submit an abstract to a conference in Japan. It got accepted. Months later, I attended my first international academic conference. There, Stephen Stich saw our presentation and suggested I should apply to graduate school in the U.S., eventually sponsoring a year-long visit in 2011 so I could audit classes and get recommendation letters.
That’s about that. I got into the philosophy-psychology-neuroscience program at Washington University; after three years, with a master’s, I transferred to Pitt HPS. There and here, I took some more classes than the curriculum demanded and graduated with a Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science, an M.A. in philosophy fromn HPS's sister philosophy department, and a graduate certificate from the Center for Neural Basis of Cognition.
In my last year in the Ph.D. program, I decided to prostelytize about underdeterministic causation outside of Pittsburgh. In the Fall semester of 2022, I visited Pantheon-Sorbonne as a Chateaubriand Fellow; then, in the Spring semester, I visited Kyoto University as a JSPS fellow. While in Kyoto, I co-organized a conference on causation, which I also used as a sprinboard for establishing the Society for Philosophy of Causation. It remains to be seen whether the society gains momentum or shares the fate of similar endeavors.
Publications
Grants and fellowships
Presentations
| Type causation, underdeterministically | |
| 2024 | Pacific APA. San Francisco, USA. |
| 2023 | 10th Biennial Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Philosophy of Science Association, Hanoi, Vietnam. |
|
|
| The causal-causal theory | |
| 2023 | European Philosophy of Science Association meeting, Belgrade, Serbia. |
|
|
| Underdeterministic causation with string diagrams | |
| 2023 | Kyosation, Kyoto, Japan. |
| 2023 | Japan Association for Philosophy of Science Annual Meeting, Tokyo, Japan. |
|
|
| Personal identity, personality changes, and fission | |
| 2022 | 2nd European Experimental Philosophy Conference, Granada, Spain. |
|
|
| Causal decision theory for the probabilistically blinded | |
| 2024 | Central APA. New Orleans, USA. Symposium. |
| 2022 | Philosophy of Science Association Biennial Meeting, Pittsburgh, USA. |
| 2022 | 6th IIFs-UNAM Philosophy Graduate Student Conference. Online. |
| 2022 | Society for Philosophy and Psychology Conference, Milan, Italy. Poster. |
|
|
| The underdeterministic framework | |
| 2022 | Formal Epistemology Workshop, Irvine, USA. |
| 2022 | North American Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information, Los Angeles, USA. Poster. |
|
|
| Conjoined cases, causation, and normality | |
| 2022 | Central APA, Chicago, USA. |
| 2022 | Society for Philosophy and Psychology Conference, Milan, Italy. Poster. |
| 2021 | Philosophy of Science Association Biennial Meeting, Baltimore, USA. Poster. |
|
|
| Underdeterministic causation: a proof of concept | |
| 2021 | Philosophy of Science Association Biennial Meeting, Baltimore, USA. Online. |
| 2021 | Eastern APA, New York, USA |
|
|
| Underdeterministic counterfactuals | |
| 2022 | Philosophy of Language Association Conference. Online. |
| 2022 | Philosophy of Language and Mind Network Conference, Warsaw, Poland. |
| 2021 | Central APA, New Orleans, USA. Online. Symposium. |
|
|
| The delusive benefit of the doubt | |
| 2019 | Central APA, Denver, USA |
| 2018 | The Neurobiology of Moral Conscience Workshop, Tübingen, Germany |
|
|
| Causal judgments and model implementation | |
| 2019 | International Association for Computing and Philosophy Meeting, Mexico City, Mexico |
|
|
| How to measure norms? A tool for an identity economist | |
| 2019 | Philosophy of Social Science Roundtable, Burlington, USA |
|
|
| Production explanations in formal sciences | |
| 2019 | Philosophers’ Rally, Cracow, Poland. |
| 2018 | International Association for Computing and Philosophy Meeting, Warsaw, Poland |
|
|
| Causes, cycles, equilibria | |
| 2018 | Philosophy of Science Association Biennial Meeting, Seattle, USA. |
| 2018 | Pacific APA, San Diego, USA |
| 2017 | Philosophers’ Rally, Wrocław, Poland |
|
|
| Intensions and intuitions | |
| 2018 | Chalmers and Carnap on Metaphilosophy, Vienna, Austria. |
| 2018 | Philosophers’ Rally, Łódź, Poland. |
|
|
| Norms and college major choice | |
| 2018 | Annual Meeting of American Economic Association, Philadelphia, USA, Poster. |
| 2017 | Conference of Economics Departments, Międzyzdroje, Poland. |
|
|
| Normality: a two-faced concept | |
| 2017 | Eastern APA, Baltimore, USA. |
| 2016 | Experimental philosophy conference, Buffalo, USA. |
| 2015 | European Society for Philosophy and Psychology conference, Tartu, Estonia. |
| 2015 | CUNY Graduate Conference: Normativity and the Human Sciences, New York, USA. |
| 2014 | Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Moral Psychology, Seoul, South Korea (poster) |
|
|
| Seeing unreliably | |
| 2017 | Southern Society of Philosophy and Psychology conference, Savannah, USA. |
| 2015 | Experimental philosophy conference, Buffalo, USA. |
|
|
| Mathematical induction, grounding, and causal explanations | |
| 2016 | Central APA, Chicago, USA. |
|
|
| The evidential value of p-values | |
| 2016 | Pacific APA, San Francisco, USA. |
| 2015 | Central States Philosophical Association conference, Lexington, USA. |
|
|
| Arguments over intuitions? | |
| 2015 | Pacific APA, Vancouver, Canada. |
| 2014 | Experimental philosophy conference, Buffalo, USA. |
| 2014 | Experimental Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind and Action, Bristol, UK |
|
|
Teaching
| independent | |
| University of Pittsburgh | |
| morality and medicine | F2019 S2020 S2021 |
| mind and medicine | F2021 |
| teaching assistantship | |
| University of Pittsburgh | |
| morality and medicine | F2018 |
| mind and medicine | S2018 |
| Washington University in St. Louis | |
| present moral problems | S2016 F2016 |
| problems in philosophy | S2015 F2015 |
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Georg-Elias-Müller-Institut für Psychologie
Goßlerstraße 14
37073 Göttingen, Deutchland.