hello, world
David Bourget
Philosophy RSSS, Coombs Building, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 2601
+61 2 6125 2345 /
What I do
I'm currently working toward a PhD in philosophy at the Australian National University, under the supervision of David Chalmers. My dissertation is about the relation between consciousness and other mental states like beliefs and desires. To be more precise, I argue that consciousness is one and the same as underived intentionality, a hypothesis which I think has many interesting implications. When I'm not racking my brain on this topic, I work on computer projects like PhilPapers, of which I am co-director with David Chalmers. Later this year I will be starting a postdoc at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London.
Some background
I started off my academic life in computer science. I was interested in AI and networks and how we could change the world by exploiting the web. This was around the time of the .com crash, which was also a bit of a personal crash because two projects I was involved in went down the drain. Maybe because of this, maybe because I was deeply troubled by the nature of consciousness and wanted to escape hyperspecialization, I decided to become a philosophy prof. Being paid to think about whatever you like while teaching a few courses here and there sounded like a great life. They took me in the PhD program in philosophy at Toronto and I got my Basic Training there with coursework and comprehensives before transfering to ANU.
Some papers
My PhilPapers categories
PhilPapers categories I edit personally:
