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  • Graduate student, Australian National University
  • Postdoc, University of London

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About me
I'm interested in a range of topics, but my main focus these days is representationalism or the relation between consciousness and intentionality. When I'm not racking my brain on this topic, I work on computer projects like this very website you are now enjoying (which I made in a bit of spare time).
My works
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  • David Bourget (2010). Consciousness is Underived Intentionality. Noûs 44 (1):32-58.
    Representationalists argue that phenomenal states are intentional states of a special kind. This paper offers an account of the kind of intentional state phenomenal states are: I argue that they are underived intentional states. This account of phenomenal states is equivalent to two theses: first, all possible phenomenal states are underived intentional states; second, all possible underived intentional states are phenomenal states. I clarify these claims and argue for each of them. I also address objections which touch on a range (...)
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  • David Bourget (2010). The Representational Theory of Consciousness. Dissertation, Australian National University
    A satisfactory solution to the problem of consciousness would take the form of a simple yet fully general model which specifies the precise conditions under which any given state of consciousness occurs. Science has uncovered numerous correlations between consciousness and neural activity, but it has not yet come anywhere close to this. We are still looking for the Newtonian laws of consciousness.

    One of the main difficulties with consciousness is that we lack a language in which to formulate illuminating generalizations (...)
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  • William E. Seager & David Bourget (2007). Representationalism About Consciousness. In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Blackwell.
    A representationalist-friendly introduction to representationalism which covers a number of central problems and objections.
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  • David Bourget (2004). Quantum Leaps in Philosophy of Mind. Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (12):17--42.
    I discuss the quantum mechanical theory of consciousness and freewill offered by Stapp (1993, 1995, 2000, 2004). First I show that decoherence-based arguments do not work against this theory. Then discuss a number of problems with the theory: Stapp's separate accounts of consciousness and freewill are incompatible, the interpretations of QM they are tied to are questionable, the Zeno effect could not enable freewill as he suggests because weakness of will would then be ubiquitous, and the holism of measurement in (...)
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