Perception by Agents 

A central focus of my research is on how humans and other animals perceive, interact with, and interpret their environments, with an emphasis on visual perception and pain. I am particularly interested in the functions of perceptual systems and the subject-dependence of perceptual experience. I take an interdisciplinary approach to my work, integrating insights from various fields such as neuroscience, psychology, and visual ecology. I also take seriously the problem cases that often get overlooked in the philosophical literature. These include interpersonal and interspecies variation, illusions, and purported instances of top-down modulation of sensory experience. I seek to maximize the explanatory power of my views, build bridges between disciplines, and expound on the idea that minded organisms are embodied agents coupled closely to their environments. ​​

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 I argue that the function of color vision is to help organisms manifest perceptual competences, and that color experiences are correct when they result from competence-enhancing processing. In a similar vein, I argue that the function of pain is to enhance the manifestation of behavioral competences, and that our pain experiences are correct when they are useful. On a more general level, I reject the widely held view that perception is in the business of representing the objective world "as it is."