I’m interested in topics at the intersection of philosophy and psychology.

In my research, I explore these topics through engagement with historical thinkers of the modern period, especially David Hume and (in recent work) Mary Shepherd and T. H. Huxley.

I’m working on a monograph about Hume’s philosophy of mind and psychology; on a co-edited (with Aaron Garrett) collection of new papers on “naturalisms” in the philosophies of Spinoza, Hume and Shepherd; and on a new edition of Hume’s Enquiry concerning Human Understanding for the Norton Library series.

I’m also exploring Hume’s and Shepherd’s philosophies with a view to drawing lessons for contemporary epistemology and philosophy of mind and psychology. This project focuses on inference to the unobserved and belief in the external world. A recent paper, ‘The Priority of Passive Reasoning’, puts Hume into dialogue with Paul Boghossian, John Broome and others on reasoning or inference, and its epistemological importance.

Under Contract

Naturalisms in Spinoza, Hume and Shepherd. Co-edited with Aaron Garrett. Routledge. (To appear in October 2026)

Shepherd’s Non-Sceptical Solution of Hume’s Doubts, to appear in Naturalisms in Spinoza, Hume and Shepherd.

Norton Library edition of David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. W. W. Norton.

Journal Articles

Spatial Perception and the Unity of Consciousness. (Part of a Book Symposium on Lorne Falkenstein, Consciousness, Time, and Scepticism in Hume’s Thought.) Hume Studies, forthcoming.

Natural Teleology in Hume’s “Sceptical Solution”. Journal of Modern Philosophy 6 (2024). doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/jmp.1901

Representation and Copying in Hume’s Treatise and Later Works. Ergo (2021) 8(4): 83–109.

Perceptions, Minds, and Hume’s Self-Doubts. (Part of a Book Symposium on Donald C. Ainslie, Hume’s True Scepticism.) Hume Studies (2019) 45(1&2): 109–113.

Unperceived Existence and Hume’s Theory of Ideas. Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Vol. 9 (2019): 167–213.

Hume’s Answer to Bayle on the Vacuum. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (2019) 101(2): 205–36.

Hume on Mental Representation and Intentionality. Philosophy Compass (2018).

A Puzzle about Fictions in the Treatise. Journal of the History of Philosophy (2016) 54(1): 47–73.

Minds, Composition, and Hume’s Skepticism in the Appendix. The Philosophical Review (2015) 124(4): 533–569.

Book Chapters

David Hume and T. H. Huxley on Language, Thought, and Animal Minds. In British Philosophy in the Long Eighteenth Century: Themes from Kenneth P. Winkler, ed. Bridger Ehli and Matthew Leisinger. (Routledge, forthcoming)

The Priority of Passive Reasoning. In Hume and Contemporary Epistemology, ed. Scott Stapleford and Verena Wagner, 75–99. (Routledge, 2025).

Hume on Space and Time: A Limited Defense. In The Humean Mind, ed. Angela Coventry and Alexander Sager, 83–95 (Routledge, 2019).

Encyclopedia Articles

Imagination, in Modern Philosophy. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online (2017).

David Hume: Imagination. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2015) (peer-reviewed).

Book Reviews

Margaret Watkins, ‘The Philosophical Progress of Hume’s Essays’. Mind (2021) 130(520): 1336–1348.

Timothy M. Costelloe, ‘The Imagination in Hume’s Philosophy: The Canvas of the Mind’. Journal of the History of Philosophy (2019) 57(3): 559–560.

Paul Russell (ed.), ‘The Oxford Handbook of Hume’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy (2018) 26(3): 622–625.

Graciela De Pierris, ‘Ideas, Evidence, and Method: Hume’s Skepticism and Naturalism concerning Knowledge and Causation’. The Philosophical Review (2017) 126(3): 393–398.