Eric Schwitzgebel

eschwitz at domain- ucr.edu

Professor of Philosophy (Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley, 1997)

Areas of interest: philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, moral psychology,

classical Chinese philosophy, epistemology, metaphilosophy, metaphysics,

science fiction....

My CV:

• Schwitzgebel c.v.

My Blog:

• The Splintered Mind (2006-present).

Broad-Ranging Interviews on My Life and Work:

• On Crazyism, Jerkitude, Garden Snails, and Other Philosophical Puzzles" (Scientific American, Jul. 6, 2020).
• Eric Schwitzgebel (What Is It Like to Be a Philosopher? May 8, 2018)
• The Splintered Skeptic (3:16, Jan. 20, 2012)

Books:

• The Weirdness of the World (in draft)

Comments and suggestions welcome! Draft version here.

• A Theory of Jerks, and Other Philosophical Misadventures MIT Press (2019)

MIT Press website for the book with buying options here. For an abstract and access to chapter drafts from 2018, see here

• Perplexities of Consciousness, MIT Press (2011).

Here at Amazon and here at Barnes & Noble.  For an abstract and access to chapter drafts from 2009 see here.

Philosophical Studies symposium on the book: my Precis, commentaries by Uriah Kriegel, by Declan Smithies, and by Maja Spener, and my reply. 

• Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic, with Russell T. Hurlburt, MIT Press (2007).

Here at Amazon and here at Barnes & Noble.  For an abstract and access to chapter drafts from 2006 see here.

Journal of Consciousness Studies devoted an issue to ten commentaries on this book, with 100 pages of replies by Russ and me: See here.

Essays Sorted by Theme:

Belief:

• "Dispositionalism, Yay! Representationalism, Boo!" (in draft).
• "The Nature of Belief From a Philosophical Perspective, With Theoretical and Methodological Implications for Psychology and Cognitive Science " (2022), Frontiers in Psychology https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.947664.
• "The Pragmatic Metaphysics of Belief" (2021) in Cristina Borgoni, Dirk Kindermann, and Andrea Onofri, The Fragmented Mind (Oxford).
• "Against Intellectualism about Belief" (2015).  [A commentary on Jack Marley-Payne's "Against Intellectualist Theories of Belief"]
• "The Intrinsic Value of Self-Knowledge" (draft from 2015, but I'm thinking of picking it back up).
• "A Dispositional Approach to Attitudes: Thinking Outside of the Belief Box" (2013), in Nikolaj Nottelmann (ed.), Belief (Palgrave).
• (with Blake Myers-Schulz) "Knowing That P Without Believing That P", (2013), Nous, 47, 371-384.
• "Mad Belief?" (2012), NeuroEthics, 5, 13-17.  [A commentary on Lisa Bortolotti, Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs (2010).]
• "Knowing Your Own Beliefs" (2011), Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 35, supplement 41-62.
• "Acting Contrary to Our Professed Beliefs, or the Gulf Between Occurrent Judgment and Dispositional Belief" (2010), Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 91, 531-553.
• "Belief" (2006/2019), entry for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• "A Phenomenal, Dispositional Account of Belief" (2002), Nous, 36, 249-275.  [This is my central essay on the topic.]
  • "In-Between Believing" (2001), Philosophical Quarterly, 51, 76-82.
  • "On Containers and Content, with a Cautionary Note to Philosophers of Mind" (not for print publication).
• "Gradual Belief Change in Children" (1999), Human Development, 42, 283-296.

Our Poor Knowledge about Conscious Experience:

• "Borderline Consciousness, When It's Neither Determinately True nor Determinately False That Experience Is Present" (in draft).
• "Inflate and Explode" (in draft).
• (with David Billy Udell) "Susan Schneider's Proposed Tests for AI Consciousness: Promising but Flawed" (2021), Journal of Consciousness Studies, 28 (5-6), 121-144.
• "Is There Something It's Like to Be a Garden Snail?" (2020), Philosophical Topics, 48, 39-64.
• "Phenomenal Consciousness, Defined and Defended as Innocently as I Can Manage" (2016), Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23, 11-12, 224-235.  (This is a commentary on Keith Frankish, "Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness").
• "If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious" (2015), Philosophical Studies, 172, 1697-1721.
• Objection by Francois Kammerer (2015); and reply by me.
• "Introspection, What?" (2012) in Declan Smithies and Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Introspection and Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford).
• "Self-Ignorance" (2012) in JeeLoo Liu and John Perry (eds.), Consciousness and the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge).
• "Introspection" (2010), entry for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• "The Unreliability of Naive Introspection" (2008), Philosophical Review, 117, 245-273.  [This is my central essay on the topic.]
  • "No Unchallengeable Epistemic Authority, of Any Sort, Regarding Our Own Conscious Experience -- Contra Dennett?" (2007), Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6, 107-113.  (For further thoughts in response to an exchange with Dennett, see here.)
• "Descartes Inverted" (2007), from Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic (with Russell T. Hurlburt).
• "Do You Have Constant Tactile Experience of Your Feet in Your Shoes? Or Is Experience Limited to What's in Attention?" (2007), Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14, no. 3, 5-35.
• "Do Things Look Flat?" (2006), Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, 72, 589-599.
• "Introspective Training Apprehensively Defended: Reflections on Titchener's Lab Manual" (2004), Journal of Consciousness Studies, 11, no. 7-8, 58-76..
  • "Difference Tone Training: A Demonstration Adapted from Titchener's Experimental Psychology" (2005), Psyche, 11, no. 6.
• "Why Did We Think We Dreamed in Black and White?" (2002), Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 33, 649-660.  
  • "Do People Still Report Dreaming in Black and White? An Attempt to Replicate a Questionnaire from 1942" (2003), Perceptual & Motor Skills, 96, 25-29; and 
  • (with Changbing Huang and Zhou Yifeng) "Do We Dream in Color? Cultural Variations and Skepticism" (2006), Dreaming, 16, 36-42.
• "How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Visual Imagery" (2002), Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9, no. 5-6, 35-53.
• (with Michael S. Gordon) "How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Human Echolocation" (2000), Philosophical Topics, 28, 235-246.

The Relationship Between Moral Reflection and Moral Behavior:

• "Does the Heart Revolt at Evil? The Case of Racial Atrocities" (2022) Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, 38, 5-13. [Also listed below under Chinese Philosophy]
• (with Christopher McVey and Joshua May) "Engaging Charitable Giving: The Motivational Force of Narrative Versus Philosophical Argument" (2022), Philosophical Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2022.2088340.
• (with Brad Cokelet and Peter Singer) "Students Eat Less Meat After Studying Meat Ethics" (2021), Review of Philosophy and Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-021-00583-0.
• (with Brad Cokelet and Peter Singer) "Do Ethics Classes Influence Student Behavior? Case Study: Teaching the Ethics of Eating Meat" (2020), Cognition, 203: 104397.
• "Aiming for Moral Mediocrity" (2019), Res Philosophica, 96, 347-368.
• (with Jonathan Ellis) "Rationalization in Moral and Philosophical Thought" (2017), Moral Inferences, ed. J.-F. Bonnefon and B. Tremoliere (Psychology Press).
• (with Joshua Rust) "The Moral Behavior of Ethicists" (2016), Companion to Experimental Philosophy, ed. J. Sytsma and W. Buckwalter (Wiley-Blackwell).
• (with Fiery Cushman) "Philosophers' Biased Judgments Persist Despite Training, Expertise and Reflection" (2015), Cognition, 141, 127-137.
• "Cheeseburger Ethics: Are Professional Ethicists Good People?" (2015), Aeon Magazine (July 14 featured article).
• "The Moral Behavior of Ethicists and the Role of the Philosopher" (2014), Experimental Ethics, ed. H. Rusch, M. Uhl, and C. Luetge (Palgrave).
• (with Joshua Rust) "The Moral Behavior of Ethicists and the Power of Reason" (2014), Advances in Experimental Moral Psychology.
• "A Theory of Jerks" (2014), Aeon Magazine (June 4 featured article).
• (with Joshua Rust) "The Moral Behavior of Ethics Professors: Relationships Among Self-Reported Behavior, Expressed Normative Attitude, and Directly Observed Behavior" (2014), Philosophical Psychology, 27, 293-327.
• "Do Ethics Classes Influence Student Behavior?", (2013 manuscript).
• "Are Ethicists Any More Likely to Pay Their Registration Fees at Professional Meetings?" (2013), Economics & Philosophy, 29, 371-380.
• (with Joshua Rust) "Ethicists' and Non-Ethicists' Responsiveness to Student Emails: Relationships among Expressed Normative Attitude, Self-Described Behavior, and Experimentally Observed Behavior" (2013), Metaphilosophy, 44, 350-371.
• (with Fiery Cushman) "Expertise in Moral Reasoning? Order Effects on Moral Judgment in Professional Philosophers and Non-Philosophers" (2012), Mind & Language, 27, 135-153.
• (with Joshua Rust, Linus Huang, Alan Moore, and Justin Coates), "Ethicists' Courtesy at Philosophy Conferences" (2012), Philosophical Psychology, 35, 331-340.
• (with Joshua Rust) "Do Ethicists and Political Philosophers Vote More Often Than Other Professors?" (2010) Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1, 189-199.
• (with Joshua Rust) "The Moral Behavior of Ethicists: Peer Opinion" (2009) Mind, 118,1043-1059.
• "Do Ethicists Steal More Books?" (2009) Philosophical Psychology, 22, 711-725.
• "Human Nature and Moral Education in Mencius, Xunzi, Hobbes, and Rousseau" (2007) History of Philosophy Quarterly, 24, 147-168.

Metaphilosophy, Metaphysics, Skepticism, and Cosmology:

• "Let's Hope We're Not Living in a Simulation" (in draft), [commentary on David Chalmers' Reality+].
• "Kant Meets Cyberpunk" (2019), Disputatio, 55, 411-435 [for a special issue on David Chalmers' work on virtual reality. [Chalmers' reply to commenters.]
• "1% Skepticism" (2017), Nous, 51, 271-290.
• "Phenomenal Consciousness, Defined and Defended as Innocently as I Can Manage" (2016), Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23, 11-12, 224-235.  (This is a commentary on Keith Frankish, "Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness"). [Also listed under "Our Poor Knowledge of Our Own Conscious Experience" above]
• (with Alan T. Moore) "Experimental Evidence for the Existence of an External World" (2015) Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 1, 564-582..
• "If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious" (2015), Philosophical Studies, 172, 1697-1721.
• Objection by Francois Kammerer (2015); and reply by me.
• "The Crazyist Metaphysics of Mind" (2014), Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 92, 665-682.
• "The Problem of Known Illusion and the Resemblance of Experience to Reality" (2014), Philosophy of Science, 81, 954-960.
• (with Alison Gopnik) "Whose Concepts Are They, Anyway?  The Role of Philosophical Intuition in Empirical Psychology" (1998),  in M.R. DePaul and W. Ramsey (eds.), Rethinking Intuition (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield).
• "Zhuangzi's Attitude Toward Language and His Skepticism" (1996), in P. Kjellberg and P.J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi (SUNY Press).

Chinese Philosophy:

• "Does the Heart Revolt at Evil? The Case of Racial Atrocities" (2022) Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, 38, 5-13. [Also listed above under The Relationship Between Moral Reflection and Moral Behavior]
• "The Unskilled Zhuangzi: Big and Useless and Not So Good at Catching Rats", (2019) in K. Lai and W. W. Chiu, eds., Skill and Mastery. London: Roman and Littlefield.
• "Death, Self, and Oneness in the Incomprehensible Zhuangzi" (2018) in P.J. Ivanhoe, O. Flanagan, R. Harrison, H. Sarkissian, and E. Schwitzgebel, eds., Oneness in Philosophy, Religion, and Psychology (Columbia University Press).
• "Human Nature and Moral Development in Mencius, Xunzi, Hobbes, and Rousseau" (2007) History of Philosophy Quarterly, 24, 147-168.  [Also listed under "The Relationship Between Moral Reflection and Moral Behavior" above.]
• "Why Don't We Know Our Chinese Philosophy?" (2001), APA Newsletter on the Status of Asian & Asian-American Philosophers & Philosophies, 1, 26-27.
• "Zhuangzi's Attitude Toward Language and His Skepticism" (1996), in P. Kjellberg and P.J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi (SUNY Press).  [Also listed under "Metaphilosophy" above.]

Philosophy of Technology:

• (with David Schwitzgebel and Anna Strasser), "Creating a Large Language Model of a Philosopher" (in draft).
• "The Full Rights Dilemma for A.I. Systems of Debatable Personhood" (in draft).
• (with Olaf Witkowski), "Ethics of Artificial Life: The Moral Status of Life as It Could Be" (2022), Artificial Life Conference Proceedings: ALIFE 2022 (Paper No. 48).
• (with Mara Garza) "Designing AI with Rights, Consciousness, Self-Respect, and Freedom" (2020), in S. Matthew Liao, ed., The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (Oxford).
• (with Mara Garza) "A Defense of the Rights of Artificial Intelligences" (2015), Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 39, 98-119.

Philosophy of Well-Being:

• (with Seth Margolis, Daniel J. Ozer, Ramona Martinez, and Sonja Lyubomirsky) "The Riverside Eudaimonia Scale and the Rich & Sexy Well-Being Scale" (2022), International Journal of Well-Being, 12 (1), 1-20, https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v12i1.1575.
• (with Seth Margolis, Daniel J. Ozer, and Sonja Lyubomirsky), "Empirical Relationships Among Five Types of Well-Being" (2021), in M.T. Lee, L.D. Kubzansky, and T.J. VanderWeele, eds., Measuring Well-Being (Oxford).
• (with Seth Margolis, Daniel J. Ozer, and Sonja Lyubomirsky) "A New Measure of Life Satisfaction: The Riverside Life Satisfaction Scale" (2019), Journal of Personality Assessment, 101, 621-630.

Demographics and Sociology of Philosophy:

• (with Liam Kofi Bright, Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Morgan Thompson, and Eric Winsberg), "The Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Diversity of Philosophy Students and Faculty in the United States: Recent Data from Several Sources" (2021), The Philosophers' Magazine, 93, 71-90.
• (with Linus Ta-Lun Huang, Andrew Jenkins, and Ivan Gonzalez-Cabrera) "The Insularity of Anglophone Philosophy: Quantitative Analyses" (2018), Philosophical Papers, 47, 21-48.
• (with Carolyn Dicey Jennings) "Women in Philosophy: Quantitative Analyses of Specialization, Prevalence, Visibility, and Generational Change" (2017), Public Affairs Quarterly 31, 83-105.

Foundational Issues in Cognitive Development:

• (with Victoria McGeer) "Disorder in the Representational Warehouse" (2006), Child Development, 77, 1557-1562.  [This is a commentary on an essay by Jacqueline Woolley, but it is written so as to be comprehensible without knowledge of Woolley's paper.]
• "Gradual Belief Change in Children" (1999), Human Development, 42, 283-296.  [Also listed under "Belief" above.]
• "A Difficulty for Simulation Theory Due to the Close Connection of Pretense and Action in Early Childhood" (2000, not for print publication)
• "Children's Theories and the Drive to Explain" (1999), Science & Education, 8, 457-488.
  • "Theories in Children and the Rest of Us" (1996), Philosophy of Science, Supplemental Issue, 63, s202-s210.
• "Representation and Desire: A Philosophical Error with Consequences for Theory-of-Mind Research" (1999), Philosophical Psychology, 12, 157-180.
• "Difficulties in Davidson's Arguments Against Belief Without Language" (1997, not for print publication)

Other:

• (with David Schwitzgebel) "Uncle Iroh, from Fool to Sage -- or Sage All Along?" (forthcoming), in J. De Smedt, H. De Cruz, W. Irvin, and A. Ehasz, eds., Avatar: The Last Airbender and Philosophy, Blackwell.
• (with Amelie Green) "Dehumanizing the Cognitively Disabled: Commentary on David Livingstone Smith's Making Monsters", in draft.
• (with Alan Tonnies Moore) "The Experience of Reading" (2018), Consciousness and Cognition, 62, 57-68.
  • Objection by Russell Hurlburt.  Reply by Alan and me.
• (with Josh Dever) "The Two Envelope Paradox and Using Variables Within the Expectation Formula" (2008), Sorites, 20, 135-140 -- also see our Simple Explanation of the Two Envelope Paradox.

Dissertation:

• Words about Young Minds: The Concepts of Theory, Representation, and Belief in Philosophy and Developmental Psychology (U.C. Berkeley, Philosophy Department, 1997).

Philosophical Fiction:

• "Larva Pupa Imago" (2023), Clarkesworld, #197.
• "Let Everyone Sparkle: Psychotechnology in the Year 2067" (2022), Psyche, 12 Apr 2022.
• "Passion of the Sun Probe" (2020), AcademFic, 1, 7-11.
• "Gaze of Robot, Gaze of Bird" (2019), Clarkesworld, issue #141.
• selected for Best of Clarkesworld 2019 at Diabolical Plots
• new audio version at Escape Pod, episode #729
• translated into Chinese for Science Fiction World, Aug. 2020, p. 58-68.
• "Little /^^^\&-" (2017), Clarkesworld, issue #132.
• "THE TURING MACHINES OF BABEL" (2017), Apex Magazine, issue #98.
• "Fish Dance" (2016), Clarkesworld, issue #118. 
• "The Dauphin's Metaphysics" (2015), Unlikely Story, issue #12.  (Locus recommended by Lois Tilton.)
• translated into Hungarian: Galakika, issue 316 (2016).
• translated in Chinese by Fan Yilun, Science Fiction World, issue 367 (2016).
• "Momentary Sage" (2015), The Dark, issue #8, 38-43.
• "Out of the Jar" (2015), Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 128, 118-128.
• "Philosophical Science Fiction / Speculative Fiction: Recommendations from 41 Philosophers" (2015)
• abbreviated version as "Recommended Viewing" (2015), The Philosophers' Magazine, issue #71, 101-106.
• abbreviated version in Susan Schneider, ed., Science Fiction and Philosophy, 2nd ed. (2016, Wiley).
• "The Tyrant's Headache" (2015), Sci Phi Journal, issue #3, 78-83.
• "What Kelp Remembers" (2014), Weird Tales, Flashes of Weirdness (April 14).
• (with R. Scott Bakker) "Reinstalling Eden" (2013), Nature, 503, 562.
• podcast in StarShipSofa (2015), #392.
• reprint in Susan Schneider, ed., Science Fiction and Philosophy, 2nd ed. (2016, Wiley), 19-21.
• Annual ranking of science fiction and fantasy magazines, based on awards nominations and appearance on prominent "best of" lists.

Selected Op-Eds:

• "The COVID Jerk" -- The Atlantic, Feb 3, 2022.
• "The Jerks of Academe" -- Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan 31, 2020.
• "Dreidel: A Seemingly Dumb Game That Contains the Moral World in Miniature" -- Los Angeles Times, Dec 12, 2017.
• "Does It Matter If the Passover Story Is Literally True?" -- Los Angeles Times, Apr. 9, 2017.
• "Like the Oscars, #PhilosophySoWhite" (with Myisha Cherry) -- Los Angeles Times, Mar. 6, 2016.
• "Will Your Driverless Car Kill You So That Others May Live?" -- Los Angeles Times, Dec. 6, 2015.
• "We Have Greater Moral Obligations to Robots Than to Humans" -- Aeon Opinions, Nov. 12, 2015.
• "What's Missing in College Philosophy Classes? Chinese Philosophers" -- Los Angeles Times, Sep. 13, 2015.
• "Philosophy Via Facebook? Why Not?" -- Los Angeles Times, Jul. 17, 2015.

Miscellaneous Thoughts:

• Conjugal love.
• Marilyn Vos Savant on Goliath and Lump1.
• Wundt's Selbstbeobachtung und innere Wahrnehmung

Recent Courses:

Lower Division: 

Evil (Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017, Fall 2015)

Upper Division: 

Philosophy of Mind (Fall 2019, Winter 2017)

Classical Chinese Philosophy (Winter 2020, Winter 2019)

Graduate Seminars:

The Moral Measurement Problem (Winter 2023)

The Metaphysics of Mind (Winter 2022)

The Sparsity or Abundance of Consciousness in the Universe and in Our Minds (Fall 2018)

Red-Hot Philosophy of Mind (Winter 2018)

Monster Rights, Robot Rights, Alien Rights (Spring 2016)

Dissertations completed under my direction:

• Deborah Nelson (2022): How Relative Economic Advantage Affects Agential Reasoning.
• Jeremy Pober (2022): Reduce Them All: A Theory of Psychophysical Reduction of All Mental Phenomena.
• Chris McVey (2020): The Moral Importance of Narrative: A Philosophical Analysis of Narrative Transport.
• Kyle Thompson (2019): Ethics, X-Phi, and the Expanded Metholodological Toolbox: How the Think Aloud Method and Interview Reveal People's Judgments on Issues in Ethics and Beyond.
• Alan T. Moore (2016): The Experience of Reading.
• Nick Baiamonte (2008): On The Possibility of Being Virtuous in a Wicked World: The Nature, Character, and Power of Genuine Moral Reflection.
• Joshua Rust (2005): John Searle's Ideal Type: Max Weber and the Construction of Social Reality.
• Ted M. Preston (2005): Bridging the Gap Between Normative Beliefs and Actions.

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