David Bourget

What I do

My dissertation defends a theory of consciousness I call virtualism. Virtualism is akin in spirit to representationalism. It's a theory that's aimed at providing a formal framework for describing states of consciousness.

Some papers

• Consciousness is underived intentionality, forthcoming in Noûs.
  In this paper I argue for two claims which together entail that consciousness is one and the same as underived intentionality: 1) all possible experiences are underived intentional states; 2) all possible underived intentional states are experiences. My arguments presuppose representationalism, a view I (among many others) defend elsewhere.
• Representationalism about consciousness, in Max Velmans and Susan Schneider (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Blackwell. 2007.
  Co-authored with William Seager, this paper is an introduction to representationalism.
• Quantum leaps in philosophy of mind, Journal of Consciousness Studies 11(12): 17-42. 2004.
  I wrote this one early on in my career as a graduate student. I criticize Henry Stapp's quantum mechanical theory of consciousness and free will on a number of fronts, technical and philosophical. Stapp has a reply in the same issue of JCS.
• The Representational Theory of Consciousness (introduction). This is my dissertation.

My PhilPapers categories

My favorite software

• LyX - The Document Processor  Write Latex documents painlessly while using all of Latex's most powerful features. Available on all major operating systems.
• Vim - The Editor  The ultimate text editor. Some practice might be required before taking full advantage of it, however. All usable OSes supported.
• Ubuntu - Linux for human beings  Okay, it's harder to use as a toy than OSX or Windows (still can't get that webcam to work..). Still, it's a more powerful tool for serious stuff in the hands of the right user.