David BourgetPhilosophy · Western University

Research

Consciousness,
thought & meaning.

How does consciousness give our thoughts their meaning? What makes it possible to grasp an idea, rather than merely entertain it?

An overview

My philosophical research investigates the role of consciousness in grounding meaning, concepts, and non-conscious mental states. Much of my work concerns phenomenal intentionality: the idea that the mind’s capacity to be about things is rooted in conscious experience.

I also work on debunking arguments, the metaphysics of intentionality, and questions in metaphilosophy, including the views of professional philosophers. Alongside this work, I’m involved in AI research aimed at improving the tools available to philosophical researchers.

Philosophy of mindPhilosophy of languageMetaphilosophy

Papers & chapters

Publications

Listed by year.
Links lead to publication details and available full text.

On PhilPeople

2026

  1. Debunking Under Uncertainty: A Probabilistic Criterion and the Case of Edenic Color Realism

    With Angela Mendelovici

    Synthese 207, article 197.

  2. Is Narrow Content’s “Narrow Content” Narrow Content?

    With Angela Mendelovici

    Inquiry 69 (2): 347–365.

2025

  1. A Phenomenal Theory of Grasping and Understanding

    In Andrei Ionuț Mărășoiu & Mircea Dumitru (eds.), Understanding and Conscious Experience: Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives. Routledge.

2024

  1. Is Intentionality a Relation? A Dialogue

    With Angela Mendelovici

    Argumenta 9 (2): 337–361.

2023

  1. Debunking Debunking: Explanationism, Probabilistic Sensitivity, and Why There Is No Specifically Metacognitive Debunking Principle

    With Angela Mendelovici

    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 47: 25–52.

  2. Facing Up to the Problem of Intentionality

    With Angela Mendelovici

    Philosophical Perspectives 37 (1): 228–247.

  3. Philosophers on Philosophy: The 2020 PhilPapers Survey

    With David J. Chalmers

    Philosophers’ Imprint 23 (11).

  4. Review of Tye’s Vagueness and the Evolution of Consciousness

    With Angela Mendelovici

    Philosophical Review 132 (2): 338–343.

Earlier publications · 2004–2022

2022

  1. Kolors Without Colors, Representation Without Intentionality

    With Angela Mendelovici

    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (2): 476–483.

2020

  1. Consciousness and Intentionality

    With Angela Mendelovici

    In Uriah Kriegel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness. Oxford University Press, pp. 560–585.

2019

  1. Anomalous Dualism: A New Approach to the Mind-Body Problem

    In William Seager (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism. Routledge.

  2. Relational vs Adverbial Conceptions of Phenomenal Intentionality

    In Arthur Sullivan (ed.), Sensations, Thoughts, and Language: Essays in Honor of Brian Loar. Routledge, pp. 137–166.

  3. Review of A Mark of the Mental

    With Angela Mendelovici

    Philosophical Review 128 (3): 378–385.

2018

  1. The Rational Role of Experience

    Inquiry 61 (5–6): 467–493.

2017

  1. The Role of Consciousness in Grasping and Understanding

    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 95 (2): 285–318.

  2. Representationalism and Sensory Modalities: An Argument for Intermodal Representationalism

    American Philosophical Quarterly 54 (3): 251–268.

  3. Why Are Some Phenomenal Experiences ‘Vivid’ and Others ‘Faint’? Representationalism, Imagery, and Cognitive Phenomenology

    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (4): 673–687.

  4. Implications of Intensional Perceptual Ascriptions for Relationalism, Disjunctivism, and Representationalism About Perceptual Experience

    Erkenntnis 84 (2): 381–408.

  5. Intensional Perceptual Ascriptions

    Erkenntnis 82 (3): 513–530.

  6. Representationalism about Consciousness

    With William Seager

    In Susan Schneider & Max Velmans (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Wiley.

  7. Multi-level Computational Methods for Interdisciplinary Research in the HathiTrust Digital Library

    With Jaimie Murdock, Colin Allen, Katy Börner, Robert Light, Simon McAlister, Andrew Ravenscroft, Robert Rose, Doori Rose, Jun Otsuka, John Lawrence, and Chris Reed

    PLoS ONE 12 (9).

2016

  1. Phenomenal Intentionality

    With Angela Mendelovici

    The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

2015

  1. Representationalism, Perceptual Distortion and the Limits of Phenomenal Concepts

    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 45 (1): 16–36.

2014

  1. What Do Philosophers Believe?

    With David J. Chalmers

    Philosophical Studies 170 (3): 465–500.

  2. Naturalizing Intentionality: Tracking Theories Versus Phenomenal Intentionality Theories

    With Angela Mendelovici

    Philosophy Compass 9 (5): 325–337.

  3. Tracking Representationalism

    With Angela Mendelovici

    In Andrew Bailey (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: The Key Thinkers. Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 209–235.

  4. Mining Arguments from 19th Century Philosophical Texts Using Topic Based Modelling

    With John Lawrence, Chris Reed, Simon McAlister, Andrew Ravenscroft, and Colin Allen

    In Nancy Green, Kevin Ashley, Diane Litman, Chris Reed & Vern Walker (eds.), Proceedings of the First Workshop on Argumentation Mining, pp. 79–87.

2013

  1. Review of Tim Bayne and Michelle Montague’s Cognitive Phenomenology

    With Angela Mendelovici

    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (3): 601–604.

2010

  1. Consciousness Is Underived Intentionality

    Noûs 44 (1): 32–58.

  2. Paperless Philosophy as a Philosophical Method

    Social Epistemology 24 (4): 363–375.

  3. The Representational Theory of Consciousness

    PhD dissertation, Australian National University.

2008

  1. Representationalism about Consciousness

    With William E. Seager

    In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 261–276.

2004

  1. Quantum Leaps in Philosophy of Mind

    Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (12): 17–42.

Editorial work

PhilPapers
categories

I edit the Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness and Content areas on PhilPapers, including: