contact: andrew.rubner@gmail.com 

About: 

I am philosopher of mind and cognitive science completing my dissertation at Rutgers under the supervision of Susanna Schellenberg. I also have  research and teaching interests in philosophy of biology,  and philosophy of language.  

I work on empirical issues in cognitive science as well. I am a member of Manish Singh and Jacob Feldman's joint visual cognition lab at Rutgers, where I am completing a certificate in Cognitive Science with Manish Singh on the misperception of aspect ratio of two-dimensional surfaces. 

Publications: 

1. Mechanistic Explanations and Teleological Functions. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. Forthcoming. [link]

2. Theories of Perceptual Content and Cases of Reliable Spatial Misperception. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 2023. [link]

3. Normal-Proper Functions in the Philosophy of Mind. Philosophy Compass. 2022.  [link]

Dissertation:  

My dissertation is primarily concerned with providing a scientifically informed theory of perceptual content -- a theory which purports to explain why a perceptual state represents one property rather than another.  This sometimes leads me to work on topics more squarely in the philosophy of biology. For example, the first chapter of my dissertation provides an alternative to both etiological and pragmatic theories of teleological function. This is helpful for those interested in pursuing a teleological theory of perceptual content but who also find the etiological aspect of such theories unappealing, such as myself.  Chapters: 

1. Normal-proper Functions in the Philosophy of Mind. 

2. Mechanistic Explanations and Teleological Functions.

3.  Paper putting forward a theory of perceptual content fit for perceptual science using motion perception as a case study (info redacted for blind review, email me for draft)

4.  Theories of Perceptual Content and Cases of Reliable Spatial Misperception.

Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science (RUCCS) certificate project: 

My RUCCS project primarily consists in providing a Bayesian model of the misperception of aspect ratio of two-dimensional surfaces in light of recent experiments that have called into question the possibility of any such model.  

Other papers (email me for drafts):

• A paper on the structure of visuo-perceptual objects (w/ Alfredo Vernazzani)

• A paper on modus tollens 

• A paper on assimilating cases that motivate conceptual engineering to cases of vagueness 

• A paper on the functions of the visual system

Teaching:

• Introduction to Cognitive Science (TA), 5 semesters. 

• Undergraduate Seminar in Cognitive Science (TA), 1 semester.

• Formal Reasoning and Decision Making (primary instructor), 2 semesters. 

• Bioethics (primary instructor), 1 semester. 

*All courses taught at Rutgers University - New Brunswick 

Public Philosophy:

You can listen to me talk about art and cognition with the philosopher Sascha Benjamin Fink on Dena Shottenkirk's public philosophy podcast talkPOPc here. You can read more about talkPOPc here.