Old News

08 January, 2023 – I accepted a job as a Senior Research Analyst in Ethical AI at Trilateral Research.

31 December, 2022 – I resigned from my role as Associate Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at TCU. I will be moving to Ireland to live with E.

12 November, 2022 – I organized a symposium at the Philosophy of Science Association 2022 on “New Directions in the Science of Structural Oppression” with co-organizers Morgan Thompson, Shen-yi Liao, Daniel James, and Tereza Hendl. My contribution was a sole-authored paper on designing a microaggression concept for causal inquiry.

07 October, 2022 – I gave a colloquium seminar about conceptual analysis at the University of Nebraska Omaha Department of Philosophy.

24 June, 2022 – E. and I finally got married!

17 June, 2022 – My paper “Cognition as the Sensitive Management of an Agent’s Behavior” was published in Philosophical Psychology, Vol. 35. See the postprint here.

08 April, 2022 – The TCU Board of Trustees voted to confirm my tenure and promotion to Associate Professor.

08 April, 2022 – I helped to judge student research presentations at the TCU College of Science and Engineering Honors Research Forum.

07 April, 2022 – I spoke at a panel about AAPI identity and cultural awareness at the TCU Intercultural Center.

04 December, 2021 – My paper with Frederick W. Gooding, Jr., “Microaggressions and objectivity: Experimental measures and lived experience” was published in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 88. See the postprint here.

01 December, 2021 – My paper “Cognition as the Sensitive Management of an Agent’s Behavior” was accepted at Philosophical Psychology. See the postprint here.

19 November, 2021 – I gave a talk about causation and psychiatric nosology for psychotherapy residents and interns at the Clinical Psychology Residency Didactic series at Tripler Army Medical Center.

17 November, 2021 – I spoke at an NCHC Virtual Roundtable about faculty of color in Honors education with my colleagues Dr. Frederick W. Gooding, Jr., Dr. Estee Hernandez, and Dr. Wendi Sierra.

11–14 November, 2021 – I and Dr. Frederick W. Gooding, Jr. presented our paper on microaggressions at the Philosophy of Science Association 27th Biennial Meeting.

17 September, 2021 – I spoke about microaggressions at the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science as part of their joint Colloquia with HSTM.

15 September, 2021 – I was named the College Diversity Advocate for the John V. Roach Honors College. I am eager to work to make the College a more equitable place.

14 September, 2021 – I received the Maryrose Short Teaching Excellence Award. It is a TCU award for full-time faculty who are untenured, or non-tenure-track faculty in their first five years at TCU.

July, 2021 – I moved back to Fort Worth to finally rebuild my home after the fire, and to prepare for in-person teaching in Fall 2021.

25 June, 2021 – E. and I did not get married; we postponed our wedding (again) due to the pandemic.

20 May, 2021 – E. and I adopted a dog.

08 May, 2021 – I spoke (via Zoom) on a community panel at the Chi Sigma Iota Symposium on Social Justice in Counseling at Antioch University, Seattle.

Spring, 2021 – I taught remotely from Ireland for the semester.

October, 2020 – Oh no! My apartment was destroyed in a fire. No one was hurt but please excuse me if I’m late getting back to you.

2 July, 2020 – My paper with Frederick W. Gooding, Jr. on microaggressions was accepted for publication in Philosophy of Science. See the postprint here.

24 June, 2020 – E. and I did not get married; we postponed our wedding due to the pandemic.

30 June, 2020 – I completed certification for hybrid teaching.

Spring, 2020 – I exhausted myself making lecture videos during the the COVID-19 emergency. But I learned a lot—see my advice on teaching from home.

06 December, 2019 – I gave a talk with Dr. Frederick W. Gooding, Jr. about our microaggressions project for the TCU Interdisciplinary Works in Progress Series.

18 October, 2019 – We launched an Interdisciplinary Works in Progress Series at TCU.

October, 2019 – A brief personal trip to Edinburgh, Scotland.

20 August, 2019 – My commentary on Edouard Machery’s book Philosophy within Its Proper Bounds was published online in the International Journal of Philosophical Studies. The other commentaries and Machery’s reply are linked on my publications page.

12 August, 2019 – My article “Phenomenality, Conscious States, and Consciousness Inessentialism” was published online in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.

12 July, 2019 – Some personal news.

5–10 July, 2019 – I was in Edinburgh, Scotland with Honors Frog Camp, meeting new Honors students!

10–12 June, 2019 – I met incoming TCU students and helped to orient them to Fort Worth at Frog Camp Cultura A.

30 May–06 June, 2019 – I made a long-overdue personal trip to visit friends and family in Pittsburgh and Chicago.

29–30 March, 2019 – I gave a talk on microaggressions at the Mid/South Philosophy of Science Network’s inaugural conference on “Socially Engaged Philosophy of Science in the Middle States.”

27 March, 2019 – My review of Ruth G. Millikan’s book Beyond Concepts was published online in the Philosophical Quarterly.

08–09 November, 2018 – I participated in a Forum Celebrating 200 Years of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, held at TCU and organized by Dr. Anne Frey. I was pleased to be able to bring Dr. Catherine Stinson to campus to discuss her views on AI’s culture of exceptionalism.

01–04 November, 2018 – I was in Seattle, Washington for the 26th Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association to discuss my views on representation in cognitive science.

17–19 August, 2018 – I was back in my native Northeast Ohio for a wedding.

July, 2018 – I was in Dublin, Ireland for research, professional development, and of course some time with E.

28 June–01 July, 2018 – I was in Ghent, Belgium for the 7th Biennial Conference of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice to give a talk on the concept of representation in cognitive science.

25–29 April, 2018 – E. and I were in Lexington, Kentucky for a very nerdy and beautiful wedding.

08–17 March, 2018 – I was in Dublin, Ireland during the semester break.

15 January, 2018 – I finally returned to TCU after my leave. It was lovely to be in Dublin, but it’s good to be home.

29 December, 2017–12 January, 2018 – E. and I visited my family in Hawai‘i.

07–10 December, 2017 – I visited friends and colleagues in Edinburgh, Scotland.

20 October, 2017 – I gave a work-in-progress talk about my current work on conceptual explication at the UCD School of Philosophy.

25–27 October, 2017 – My mentor Edouard Machery, Distinguished Professor of History and Philosophy of Science and Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, visited University College Dublin. We held two events for the occasion of his visit:

• 26 October – A symposium on his recent book, Philosophy within Its Proper Bounds (OUP, 2017).

• 27 October – A workshop on “Evaluating Methods of Inquiry,” featuring contributions by Edouard Machery, Maria Baghramian, Liz Irvine, Adrian Currie, Antti Kauppinen, Dermot Moran, and myself.

Fall 2017 – I was on leave from TCU for a semester. While I was away I was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin, working with the WEXD team.

30 August–02 September, 2017 – I attended a WEXD conference on “Trust, Expert Opinion and Policy: A multidisciplinary conference investigating questions of trust in and the trustworthiness of expert opinion.”

13–14 July, 2017 – I attended the annual conference of the British Society for Philosophy of Science at the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland.

02–08 July, 2017 – I led a group of students to Dublin, Ireland where we attended a workshop on “Disagreement in Science and Beyond,” and explored the history of the city.

04 July, 2017 – I gave a talk on contested concepts at a WEXD workshop on “Disagreement in Science and Beyond.”

12–18 March, 2017 – I was in Dublin, Ireland for the semester break. While there I attended a workshop on “Intersubjectivity and Its Commitments” at University College Dublin, and prepared for my student trip to Dublin in July.

20 February, 2017 – My paper “Rethinking the Problem of Cognition” was accepted for publication by Synthese (find this and other publications here).

13–15 January, 2017 – I was in Houston, Texas for a very philosophical wedding.

29 December, 2016–12 January, 2017 – I was in Dublin, Ireland to celebrate the New Year with E. and to visit with my colleagues at When Experts Disagree.

02 December, 2016 – I gave a presentation on mastery-based assessment to a meeting of Honors-affiliated faculty at TCU. Read a summary here.

03–05 November, 2016 – I was in Atlanta, Georgia for the 25th Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (a joint meeting with the History of Science Society and the Society for Literature, Science, & the Arts). I gave a presentation on conceptual explication for contested scientific concepts.

August, 2016 – I moved to Fort Worth, Texas to take up a post as Assistant Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science in the John V. Roach Honors College at Texas Christian University.

20 June, 2016 – I gave a talk at a workshop on Explanatory Pluralism in Cognitive Science at University College Dublin.

01–04 June, 2016 – I attended the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology in Austin, Texas, where I presented some of my recent work on the scientific concept of cognition.

26 May, 2016 – I participated in a masterclass held by Timothy Williamson held at the Royal Irish Academy on the occasion of his induction to the Academy as an Honorary Member.

23–24 May, 2016 – I attended a workshop on the philosophy of language with Dilip Ninan and the Dublin Philosophy Research Network.

May–July, 2016 – I was in Dublin for the summer with Maria Baghramian, Luke Drury, and colleagues researching expert peer disagreement in the sciences.

11–19 May, 2016 – I was in Hawai‘i for a gathering of Akagis.

18–23 April, 2016 – I was in Fort Worth, Texas, visiting my new academic home at Texas Christian University .

11–13 April, 2016 – I was in Philadelphia visiting friends and colleagues.

28 March, 2016 – I passed my dissertation defense with no corrections.

29 February, 2016 – I accepted an offer of employment to become Assistant Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science in the John V. Roach Honors College at Texas Christian University.

5–6 February, 2016 – I attended the annual Irish Philosophical Club meeting in Drogheda, Ireland along with philosophers from University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin,Queen's University in Belfast, and University College Cork.

29 January–01 February, 2016 – E. and I were in Edinburgh to attend the wedding of Kian R. and Tom C. It was a lovely wedding, and I met lovely people and saw many old friends!

29 December, 2015–04 January, 2016 – I was in Dublin to celebrate the New Year with E.

17–24 November, 2015 – A brief trip to Dublin.

03–12 October, 2015 – E. and I were in San Antonio and Austin, Texas for a wee trip and a lovely wedding.

13–17 June, 2015 – E. and I returned to Edinburgh for a few days to visit friends and colleagues.

08–13 June, 2015 – The SAAP Summer Institute in American Philosophy was held at University College Dublin, and I made appearances as work allowed.

04 June, 2015 – I was awarded the University of Pittsburgh Provost's Development Fund Award, a competitive dissertation-completion fellowship. It funds my work for the 2015–2016 academic year.

04–06 June, 2015 – I attended the 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology in Durham, North Carolina, where I gave a talk about conceptual analysis and cognition.

11 May–19 June, 2015 – I resided in Dublin, Ireland for the early summer, where I hung around with Restored Hearing, a great Irish start-up that aims to rid the world of preventable hearing damage.

05–15 March, 2015 – I was in Hawaiʻi, on the Big Island, for a gathering of the Akagi clan at the family compound (i.e. at my father's wee house).

19–24 February, 2015 – I was in Dublin for a brief visit with friends and colleagues.

28 December, 2014–05 January, 2015 – I was in Dublin, Ireland to celebrate the New Year with E.

21–22 November, 2014 – I attended the early career scholars conference in philosophy of psychiatry, "Overcoming Mind-Brain Dualism in 21st Century Medicine," at the Center for Philosophy of Science in Pittsburgh.

6–8 November, 2014 – I was in Chicago again to present at the 24th Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association.

11–14 October, 2014 – I was in Chicago for an informal workshop on acoustics.

18–22 June, 2014 – I was in Vancouver, BC to present at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology. And I storified it.

30 April, 2014 – I ended my time at the University of Edinburgh and returned, at long last, to my beloved Pittsburgh.

24–27 April, 2014 – E. and I traveled to Islay with the Edinburgh University Water of Life Society, and had whisky-tasting adventures with friends.

09–13 April, 2014 – I was in Dublin and western Ireland to see fancy friends.

7 March, 2014 – I gave a talk on the mark of the cognitive at the University of Glasgow as a part of the philosophy department's postgraduate seminar.

7–8 February, 2014 – I attended a meeting of the Irish Philosophical Club in Drogheda, Ireland.

02–12 January, 2014 – In the concluding leg of a two month bout of vagabonding, I visited friends and colleagues in Lisbon and in London.

27 November–29 December, 2013 – I returned to the United States for the Holidays. To see family? Dear me, no. To see colleagues in Pittsburgh and to work in my mother's shop, personalizing Christmas tree ornaments.

27–28 October, 2013 – I participated in the British Postgraduate Philosophy Association's 11th annual Masterclass on action-oriented predictive coding at the University of Edinburgh.

22 October, 2013  – I finally created that blog I've been talking about. So now you can read my thoughts on philosophical methodology (and probably a few other things) at Explicit Content.

18 September, 2013 – I arrived in Scotland to spend half a year as a visiting doctoral student in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.

14 September, 2013 – I was in Columbus, Ohio for my sister's wedding. Congratulations to Mr. and Dr. Oliveira!

23 July–07 August, 2013 – I was in the UK for a wedding (congratulations Michael and Trudy!), and to make preparations for moving to Edinburgh in autumn.

26–29 June, 2013 – I was in Toronto to give a talk at the Fourth Biennial Conference of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice.

7–9 June, 2013 – I attended Alumni Weekend at Swarthmore College.

18–25 March, 2013 – I was at a gathering of the Akagi Clan on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi with all of the Akagis and our eccentric matriarch. And the dog. And the chickens.

28 February–2 March, 2013 – I had a fabulous time in Austin, Texas, seeing philosophers and talking about the nature of cognition at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology.

7–9 December, 2012 – I was in Kalamazoo, Michigan to see my brother, and to speak about computationalism and cognitive science at the 6th annual Western Michigan University Graduate Student Philosophy Conference.

3–4 November, 2012 – I was in Washington, D.C. to see philosophers and attend the 2012 Tweed Ride.

5 July, 2012 – I defended my prospectus on functionalism and cognitive science.

26 June–02 July, 2012 – I was in the Bay Area, taking in some culture.

21–24 June, 2012 – I was in Boulder to talk about consciousness at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology annual meeting.

9 June, 2012 – I was in Washington, D.C. attending the 2012 Seersucker Social.

2 May, 2012 – I was a discussant at the Central Catholic High School Baginski Scholar Symposium. Kudos to all the Baginski scholars for their extremely impressive presentations!

12–14 April, 2012 – I was in Boston to talk about Prinz on the emotions at the Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference on Consciousness at Boston University.

6–7 April, 2012 – The 14th Annual Pitt-CMU Graduate Philosophy Conference was held at the University of Pittsburgh, and wasn't even interrupted by the ongoing bomb threats. Thanks again to all our speakers, commenters and attendees for making our conference a success!

24 February, 2012 – I passed my third-year comprehensive evaluation, and continued working on my prospectus with Robert Brandom.

30 September–3 October, 2011 – I was in Boston to visit my good friend and colleague A.C. North.

06 August, 2011 – I was in Ohio to celebrate my mother's wedding (finally!).

11–12 June, 2011 – I was in Kalamazoo, Michigan to see my brother commence.

28 April–02 May, 2011 – Arts Festival and May Day madness around Philadelphia.

18–19 March, 2011 – The 13th annual Pitt-CMU Joint Graduate Conference in Philosophy was held at Carnegie Mellon University.

5–13 March, 2011 – Spring holiday (and swashbuckling festivities) in Boston.

4–8 June, 2010 – I was in Ohio with family.

21–24 May, 2010 – I went to Oregon to witness the the lovely wedding of Annie and and Alex B. Congratulations.

06–21 May, 2010 – I traveled to California to visit some friends around the Bay Area. Many thanks to my generous hosts, Lily P., Emlen H.M., S.J.B.A. and many parents for their generosity !

19–28 December, 2010 – I and the rest of Akagi generation #2 visited Akagi #1 and the おばあさん in Hawaiʻi for Christmas.

19–20 March, 2010 – The Twelfth Annual Pitt/CMU Graduate Student Philosophy Conference was held in Pittsburgh.

05–12 March, 2010 – I visited friends and met with prospective students in Boston. Thanks to Molly W., Max L. and Katie B. for your hospitality and company!

19 February, 2010 – The brother came home to the States.

29 December, 2009–11 January, 2010 – I was in Japan, visiting the brother and praying.

26 November, 2009 – The School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at the University of Edinburgh held its graduation ceremonies; I received my degree in absentia.

12–13 November, 2009 – I visited Swarthmore to see old friends in Chaverim and to attend their first CD release party, featuring the Alfred James Band.

01 September, 2009 – My brother arrived in Japan, and he is documenting his adventures at http://kouriinjapan.blogspot.com/.

27 August, 2009 – I moved into my new home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

21 July, 2009 – I ordered my first kilt from Howie Nicholsby.

16 July, 2009 – I moved this site from its old home (Google Pages), which is soon to be bulldozed, to its new one (Google Sites).

02–05 July, 2009 – I spent a weekend in Cambridge with Amber N., Julia B., and other philosopher friends. 

30 June–02 July, 2009 – Conference on ‘Themes from the Ethics of Bernard Williams,’ in Leeds, UK. 

28–29 June, 2009 – Scottish Network for Normative Philosophy Conference in Edinburgh on Practical Reasoning.

21–26 June, 2009 – I spent a week with friends in Kintail, in the West Highlands. It was relaxing and invigourating.

02–09 June, 2009 – I spent a week in London, appreciating Culture. 

25–27 April, 2009 – My Boulder classmate and friend Amber N. paid a working visit to Edinburgh. 

10 April, 2009 – From one ’Burgh to another : I have decided to enter the PhD program at the University of Pittsburgh, starting this Fall. 

02–05 April, 2009 – I spent a long weekend in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, interrupted by a surprise trip to D.C. with Chaverim.

20–22 March, 2009 – I attended the Susan Hurley Memorial Conference on “Minds, Brains, and Beyond” in Bristol.

01 March, 2009 – A study I worked on with Frank Durgin, Charles R. Gallistel, and Woody Haiken, about “The precision of locomotor odometry in humans,” was published in Experimental Brain Research.