Brie Gertler
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Philosophy
University of Virginia
120 Cocke Hall
P.O. Box 400780
Charlottesville, VA 22904
gertler@virginia.edu

Editor, Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science section, Philosophy Compass
Co-Director, Philosophy Research Network

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Research

Research Interests:

Philosophy of Mind -- especially introspection, consciousness, and mental content.

  Work in Progress          
        (Note:  Papers currently under review are not listed here.)

• “Do we look outward to determine what we believe?” To appear in Self-Knowledge, ed. Anthony Hatzimoysis. Oxford University Press 2008.

• Self-Knowledge. MS in progress for Routledge's New Problems in Philosophy series.
  

  Publications

• Critical notice of Daniel Stoljar, Ignorance and Imagination: the epistemic origin of the problem of consciousness. Forthcoming in Noûs.

•  “Introspection”. Forthcoming in The Oxford Companion to Consciousness. (Bayne, Cleeremans and Wilken, eds.)

• “Tienson's Challenge to Content Externalism”. (2007) The Southern Journal of Philosophy (Spindel Conference 2006).

• “Content Externalism and the Epistemic Conception of the Self”.  (2007) Philosophical Issues 17: 37-56.

• Arguing About the Mind. (2007) Co-edited with Lawrence Shapiro. Routledge.

• “Overextending the Mind?” (2007) In Arguing about the Mind.

• “In Defense of Mind-Body Dualism”. (2007) In Reason and Responsibility, 13th edition. Feinberg and Shafer-Landau, eds. (Wadsworth). 

• “Consciousness and Qualia Cannot be Reduced.” (2006) In Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science, Robert Stainton, ed. (Blackwell).

• “The Knowledge Argument”. (2005) In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition. (Macmillan)

• “We can't know a priori that H₂O exists. But can we know that water does?” (2004) Analysis 64: 44-7. 

• “Simulation Theory on Conceptual Grounds”. (2004) Protosociology 20.

• Privileged Access: Philosophical Accounts of Self-Knowledge, Editor. (July 2003) Volume in Ashgate’s Epistemology and Mind Series. This collection includes new papers by Murat Aydede, Dorit Bar-On and Douglas Long, José Luis Bermúdez, Fred Dretske, Joseph Levine, William Lycan, Charles Siewert, Ernest Sosa, and me. It also reprints 6 seminal articles on self-knowledge. Here is an online review.

• “How to Draw Ontological Conclusions from Introspective Data”. (2003) In Privileged Access: Philosophical Accounts of Self-Knowledge.

• “Introduction”. (2003) In Privileged Access: Philosophical Accounts of Self-Knowledge.

• “Self-Knowledge”. (2003) in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

• “Explanatory Reduction, Conceptual Analysis, and Conceivability Arguments about the Mind”. (2002) Noûs 36: 22-49.

• “Can Feminists be Cartesians?” (2002) Dialogue 41: 91-112. 

• “The Mechanics of Self-Knowledge”. (2002) Philosophical Topics 28: 125-46. 

• “Metaphysics”. (2002) in the Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (Macmillan Publishing). 

• “Introspecting Phenomenal States”. (2001) Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63: 305-28. 

• “The Relationship between Phenomenality and Intentionality”, (2001) comment on C. Siewert, The Significance of Consciousness. Psyche 7 (17)

• “The Explanatory Gap is Not an Illusion”. (2001) Mind 110: 689-94.

• “Functionalism’s Methodological Predicament”. (2000) The Southern Journal of Philosophy 38: 77-94.

• “A Defense of the Knowledge Argument”. (1999) Philosophical Studies 93: 317-36.

Book Reviews

• Review of Roessler and Eilan (eds.), Agency and Self-Awareness: Issues in Philosophy and Psychology. (2004) Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

• Review of John Perry, Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness. (2002) Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, inaugural issue.

• Review of Andre Gallois, The World Without, The Mind Within: An Essay on First-Person Authority. (2000) Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61: 235-8.

• Review of Frank Jackson, From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis. (1999) Ethics 110: 202-5.

• Review of W.G. Lycan, Consciousness and Experience. (1998) Mind 107: 676-9.

Employment

University of Virginia, Associate Prof., 2004-present.
University of Wisconsin - Madison, Associate Prof., 2004-2005. (leave of absence)
University of Wisconsin - Madison, Assistant Prof., 2001-2004.
College of William and Mary, Assistant Prof., 1997-2001.

Education

Brown University, Ph.D., Philosophy, June 1997.
   Dissertation: An Introspectivist View of the Mental.
   Committee:  Ernest Sosa (chair), Jaegwon Kim, James Van Cleve.
University of Pennsylvania, M.A., Philosophy, June 1992.
Swarthmore College, B.A. with High Honors, Philosophy, June 1989.

Awards

·      University of Virginia Summer Grant (Summers 2005, 2007)          

·      Fellow, Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin (Fall 2004; declined)

·      University of Wisconsin Summer Research Funds (Summers 2002, 2003)

·      College of William and Mary Summer Grant (Summer 2000)

·      NEH Stipend to attend Seminar on Folk Psychology led by Robert Gordon (Summer 1999) 

·      NEH Summer Grant (Summer 1998) 

·      Brown University President’s Award for Teaching Excellence (Spring 1996) 

Presentations

• “Content Externalism and the Limits of the Self”. Wake Forest University (April 2007).
  
• “The Narrow Mind”. University of Richmond (March 2007); California State University at Northridge (March 2005); Virginia Tech (October 2004); NEH Institute on Consciousness and Intentionality (Santa Cruz, CA; July 2002).
• "Phenomenal Character, Representational Content, and Intrinsicness". Syracuse Philosophy Annual Workshop and Network (SPAWN) (July 2005).
• “A Fregean Argument Against Externalism”. University of Virginia (March 2004); Harvard University (November 2003); Northern Illinois University (September 2003)  
• “Consciousness and Self-Consciousness: what introspection can tell us about the mind”. Lafayette College (October 2001).
• “Explanatory Reduction, Conceptual Analysis, and Conceivability Arguments about the Mind”. University of Colorado at Boulder (February 2001); University of California at Santa Cruz (February 2001); University of Wisconsin at Madison (September 2000). 
• “The Real Reason Why Narrow Functionalism Can’t Accommodate Self-Knowledge” (poster). Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) annual meeting (New York City; June 2000).
• “Can Feminists Accept Cartesian Introspectivism?” APA Pacific Division meeting (Albuquerque; April 2000).  
• “The One and Only Water: How a Conceptual Account of Explanatory Reduction Can Ensure Uniqueness”, APA Central Division meeting (Chicago; April 2000). Poster version presented at Tucson 2000:  Towards a Scientific Account of Consciousness (April 2000). 
• “Linguistic Labor and the Explanatory Gap”. Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology (New Orleans; April 1998).
• “Introspecting Phenomenal States”. Brandeis University (October 1998); Society for Philosophy and Psychology (New York City; June 1997).

Comments

• On Torin Alter, “What do Split-Brain Cases Show about the Unity of Consciousness?” APA Central Division meeting (Chicago; April 2006).
  
• On Jonathan Ellis,“Content Externalism and Phenomenal Character: a new worry about privileged access.”  APA Central Division meeting (Chicago; April 2005).
• On Fred Dretske, “Knowing What You Think vs. Knowing That You Think It”, 36th Chapel Hill Colloquium in Philosophy (October 2002).
• On Galen Strawson, “What is the Relation between an Experience, the Subject of the Experience, and the Content of the Experience?” SOFIA XIV Conference (Veracruz, Mexico; December 2001).
• On Sean Allen-Hermanson, “The HOT Core of Naturalizing the Mind”, APA Central Division meeting (Minneapolis; May 2001).
• On Gordon Barnes, “In Defense of Conceptual Analysis”, APA Pacific Division meeting (San Francisco; April 2001).
• On David Sosa, “A Table of Contents”, Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference (Bellingham, WA; August 2000).
• On Michael Rea, “Naturalism and Material Objects”, 4th Annual Mighty Midwestern Metaphysics Mayhem, University of Notre Dame (South Bend, IN; August 1999).
• On Eric Schwitzgebel, “In-Between Believing”, APA Pacific Division meeting (Berkeley; April 1999).

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Professional Service


Section editor for Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science, Philosophy Compass.
Referee for Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Episteme, Erkenntnis, Noûs, Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Review, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Oxford University Press.
Member, APA Committee on Lectures, Publications, and Research. (July 2004 - June 2007)

Service at the University of Virginia


Director of Graduate Studies, Philosophy Department
Philosophy Department representative to the Faculty Senate
Member, University Grievance Committee

Courses taught

At the University of Virginia

Graduate Seminar on Self-Knowledge (Phil 735)
Graduate Seminar on Consciousness and Physicalism (Phil 734)

Philosophy of Mind (Phil 334)
Knowledge and Reality (Phil 207)
Introduction to Philosophy (Phil 100)

At the University of Wisconsin

Graduate Seminar on the A Priori
Graduate Seminar on Self-Knowledge
Metaphysics
Philosophy of Mind
Introduction to Philosophy

At the College of William and Mary

Metaphysics Seminar

Philosophy of Language Seminar
Philosophy and Feminism

Introduction to Critical Thinking

Introduction to Philosophy 


At Brown University

Knowledge and Reality
Philosophy and Feminism