I am an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Most of my research is motivated in some way or other by my interest in scientific method. I've been interested in methodological issues for a long time, but it was reading Hume's Enquiry and C.S. Peirce's Illustrations of the Logic of Science as an undergraduate that made me concerned about the foundations of scientific reasoning and hopeful that honest skeptical challenges could be met.

The 1748 edition of Hume's Enquiry is available here. Peirce's Illustrations appeared in six installments in the Popular Science monthly in 1877 and 1878. They have been reprinted many times in many different collections since then, but Google Books has them as they originally appeared: The Fixation of Belief, How to Make Our Ideas Clear, The Doctrine of Chances, The Probability of Induction, The Order of Nature, and Deduction, Induction, and Hypothesis.

I am probably best known as an experimental philosopher. You can purchase my book with Justin Sytsma on the subject here. But I really think of experimental philosophy as an excursion, driven by concerns about methodology in philosophy on the theoretical side and by interest in statistics and experimental design on the practical side.

I have several on-going research projects falling under the umbrella of causal reasoning. Some of my research concerns the psychology and semantics of causal concepts, causal attributions, and causal language. Some of my research concerns normative questions about causal inference from data. And some of my research concerns the role and legitimacy of causal reasoning in science. Over the last few years, I have thought more explicitly about the problems of induction, and I have started thinking about abductive reasoning and its relationship to creativity more generally. In my view, the widespread conflation of abductive reasoning with inference to the best explanation is a serious error that has led many philosophers into bad errors regarding the nature of both scientific and philosophical method (insofar as there is any such thing). Abduction is, I think, a very important mode (or pair of modes) of reasoning that happens at the beginning of inquiry; whereas, inference to the best explanation is better understood as an element of or a constraint on inductive reasoning that happens at the end of inquiry.

In addition to interests in methodology, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about computation, mathematics, cognitive science, and biomedical ethics. I have (I think) peculiar views on the nature of mathematics (i.e. it is an empirical science studying an object having a definite causal structure) and on phenomenal consciousness (i.e. we don't have any rational entitlement to believe that we have phenomenally conscious states). I am interested in the practical limits of informed consent and in several issues related to public health and healthcare, especially the moral and legal status of abortion and the question of whether contraception should be provided to the public by the state at low or no cost.

When I am not reading or talking about philosophy, I enjoy playing chess, bouldering, and spending time with my family.