I am a philosopher working at the intersection of epistemology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science.

I am currently a postdoc at York University. Before that, I was a postdoc in the LOGOS Research Group at the University of Barcelona.

Starting in July 2026, I will be an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Western University.

I got my Ph.D. in philosophy from New York University in 2023. Before that, I got a B.A. in philosophy and psychology at the University of Miami.

When I'm not doing philosophy, I like to noodle around on my guitar, listen to (mostly scary) music, cook lots of delicious food, play videogames, and walk all over the place.

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Research

I work at the intersection of philosophy of mind and epistemology. My core research is on the nature and epistemic role of the imagination and other representations that occur outside of discursive thought. This has two (deeply intertwined) strands:

Epistemology of Imagination

The imagination can be used to reason about domains as varied as spatial relations, physical dynamics, other minds, and hypothetical experiences. But how could merely imagining something give you any reason to believe that it is true? After all, the imagination is free to roam untethered by reality. My research develops an account of how the imagination can be a source of epistemic value. Along the way, I've thought about whether the imagination is reducible to inference, how the imagination generates novel evidence, epistemic norms governing the imagination, the epistemic role of vividness, and the relationship between imagination and understanding.

Analog and Iconic Representation

Consider the difference between a painting of a brown dog laying in a field of grass and the sentence "a brown dog is laying in a field of grass." Although both the painting and the sentence in some sense represent the same thing, they do so in very different ways. The painting is iconic, while the sentence is discursive. My research investigates the nature of this difference. Along the way, I've thought about the metaphysics of representational systems, the relationship between the analog and the iconic, the semantics of iconic representation, whether there are iconic representations in the mind, and the epistemic and practical advantages of iconic representation.

For a more comprehensive overview of my research, see my Research Statement.

PUBLICATIONS

Imaginative Beliefs (2024, online first)

Inquiry

There are imaginative beliefs: mental states that are both imaginative (in format) and doxastic (in attitude). (PDF)

The Epistemic Role of Vividness (2025)

Analysis

The vividness of a mental state is higher-order evidence. (PDF)

How Imagination Informs (2025)

The Philosophical Quarterly

The imagination can generate new justification in virtue of its analog format. (PDF)

Imagination as a Source of Empirical Justification (2024)

Philosophy Compass

This paper reviews the recent literature on the epistemology of imagination. (PDF)

The Structure of Analog Representation (2023)

Noûs (co-authored with Andrew Lee and Gabriel Rabin)

A representational system is analog when it has interpretive rules that map syntactic structure to semantic structure. (PDF)

The Epistemic Status of the Imagination (2021)

Philosophical Studies

The imagination is a justified justifier: it is epistemically evaluable and can be epistemically based on evidence. (PDF)

Reasoning with Imagination (2021)

Epistemic Uses of Imagination, Routledge

Imagination is a sui generis form of reasoning. (PDF)

IN PROGRESS

A paper on the nature and epistemology of aphantasia (under review)

A short version of this paper was the winner of the 14th Annual Essay Prize at the Center for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp

A paper on imagination and understanding (under review)

A paper on whether images can represent particulars

A paper on practical understanding and motor imagery

A paper on iconic representation (co-authored with Andrew Lee and Gabriel Rabin)

A paper on compositionality in episodic construction (co-authored with Johannes Mahr)

Teaching

PRIMARY INSTRUCTOR

at York:

Philosophy of Cognitive Science (Winter 2026)

at NYU:

Aesthetics (Summer 2021)

Epistemology (Summer 2020, 2 sections)

TEACHING ASSISTANT

Early Modern Philosophy (Spring 2021, with Don Garrett)
Ancient Philosophy (Fall 2020, with Jessica Moss)
Nature of Values (Spring 2020, with Sharon Street)
Minds and Machines (Fall 2019, with David Chalmers)
Religion, Mind, and Society (Spring 2017, with William Green and Michael McCullough)