Academic Publications |
|
|
|
Edited works
Invited editor of a Winter 2023/2024 Special Issue on Environmental Philosophy for Diálogos: Journal of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras (February, 2024) [link]
Articles
"Experimental Evidence in Support of Anti-intellectualism about Knowledge," (2014), Pinillos, A. & Simpson, S., In J. R. Beebe (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Epistemology (pp. 9-44). Bloomsbury Academic. [link]
"James and Carnap on Philosophical Systems and the Role of Temperaments," (2023), Metaphilosophy, 54(1): 134-144.
https://doi.org/10.1111/meta.12604 (Submitted 2021; accepted 2022) [link]
"Introduction to "Diálogos : A Special Edition on Environmental Philosophy," (2024), Diálogos, 55(114): 9-16. [link]
"Limits of Wilderness," (2024), Diálogos, 55(114): 81-115. [link]
"The Mosquito Problem: Evaluating New Mitigation Technologies and Methods," Environmental Ethics, 47(4): 409-433. (Winter 2026). Online first available January 13, 2026. [link].
"The Sender-Receiver Model: Syntax, Semantics, and the Relation between the Model and the World" (forthcoming @ Synthese)
"William James’s ‘The Will to Believe’: A Decision-Theoretic Analysis" (revised & re-submitted @ William James Studies)
A paper on the sender-receiver model and issues in philosophy of logic (under review)
A paper on theories of moral evil (under review)
A paper on art and AI (under review)
A paper on a paradox about death (under review)
Works in Progress...
A paper on the notion of "progress" in environmental philosophy
A paper on the ethics of de-extinction technology
A paper on art and group-level selection
A paper on animal aesthetics and art-making
A paper on socio-political implications of life after 1.5°C
A paper comparing W. James and A. Camus' positions on the meaning of life
A paper on T. Malick and I. Murdoch on "being good"
A paper on Hobbes's anti-revolution arguments
A second book manuscript
Conferences, Talks, and Other Events
|
|
"The Problem of 'Progress' in Environmental Philosophy"
Department of Philosophy, National Taiwan University, Taipei City, Taiwan. June 8th, 2026
"Logic and Inference in the Sender-Receiver Model"
- Invited speaker, Korean Society for Logic, Seoul, South Korea. May 29th, 2026
- Invited speaker, Arché Research Centre, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, UK. June 26th, 2024. [talk advert]
- NY Philosophical Logic Workshop, CUNY Graduate Center, NYC, USA. March 20th, 2023
"The Impact of AI on Professional Artists"
Philosophy Department Colloquium, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea. May 28th, 2026
"Towards a Pragmatic Existentialism: James, Camus, and Life Without Guarantees"
Tokyo Forum for Analytic Philosophy (TFAP - 2026 program), University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. May 22nd, 2026
- Eighth International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life, U of Oklahoma, March 26–28, 2026 [withdrawn due to travel conflict].
"Life Beyond 1.5°C: Resignation or Revolution?"
- International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE), Pacific APA, Climate Hub, "Climate Philosophy After 1.5°C" April 11th, 2026
- African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (ACEPS | Talk Poster), University of Johannesburg, South Africa. October 21st, 2025
“On the Case Against Revolution in Hobbes' Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury Society (THoMS), England, UK, March 27–29, 2026. [talk postponed].
"Do Animals Make Art?"
- American Society for Aesthetics (ASA), Pacific Meeting, Berkeley, CA, USA. March 6-7, 2026. [withdrawn due to travel issues].
- Invited speaker, "Normativity in the Wild" Workshop, ETH Zürich, Switzerland. October 8-11, 2025
"Reviving De-Extinction: A Response to Four Anti-De-Extinction Arguments"
- The International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) @ the 2026 Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA), Chicago, Illinois, USA. February 18-21, 2026
- Philosophical Society of Southern Africa (PSSA), University of Cape Town, South Africa. January 23-25, 2026
- South African Society for Environmental Philosophy (SASEP), 2nd Annual Conference, NWU-Potchefstroom, South Africa. August 25-27, 2025
“The General Will in Kant and Rousseau: Challenging the No-Right to Revolution Thesis”
- Second International Congress of Philosophy (ICofP), University of Cartagena, Colombia. November 17-21, 2025
- Three Centuries of Kant: Knowledge, Science, and Values, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Dec 10-11, 2025
“On the Case Against Revolution in Hobbes' Leviathan : An Environmental Perspective”
- Institute for Contemporary Ethics (ICE), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, South Africa. Nov 6, 2025. [talk poster]
Terminology Development Consultative Workshop for Philosophy - Translating English Language Philosophical Concepts to Setswana (for a new Setswana language dictionary and online app of philosophical concepts).
North-West University. September 18-19, 2025
"The Mosquito Problem: Evaluating New Mitigation Technologies and Methods" [talk slides]
- 3rd Annual Colloquium on Animal Welfare, Human Rights, Rights of Nature, and Human-wildlife Coexistence, School of Law, North-West University, South Africa. September 15-17, 2025
- International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE), American Philosophical Association (APA), Central Division, Denver, CO. February 2023
"Indigenous American Art and Its Interpretation"
American Society for Aesthetics (ASA), Rocky Mountain Division, Santa Fe, New Mexico. July 12th-14th, 2025 [withdrawn due to relocation to South Africa]
Board of Directors and Staff Meeting
Participating Board Member, Red Feather Development Group, Flagstaff, Arizona. May 8-9th, 2025
"William James's "The Will to Believe": A Decision-Theoretic Analysis" [talk slides]
Pittsburgh Formal Epistemology Workshop (PFEW), Carnegie Mellon University, PA, USA. Feb 14th, 2025.
"Revenge, Retribution, and the Law"
Invited speaker, University of Pittsburgh, Undergraduate Philosophy Club, PA, USA. Dec 12th, 2023
"Re-generation of Wilderness"
- Invited talk, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. March 2022.
- Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory Seminar Series on Biology. Summer 2020 (postponed due to Covid; eventually withdrawn)
"Defining Life"
The Society for Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology, University of Mississippi, MS, USA. March 6th-9th, 2022
“Concepts of Wilderness”
- Canadian Society for Environmental Philosophy/ Société Canadienne de Philosophie Environementale, University of Victoria, Canada. Nov 12-14th, 2021
- Mississippi State University Works in Progress Seminar, MS, USA. Dec 3rd, 2021
- Mississippi Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting, MS, USA. March 2022
"The Nature of Moral Evil"
Mississippi State University, Undergraduate Philosophy Club, MS, USA. Nov 18th, 2021
“Communication Between Groups and Collective Organisms”
- International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada. 2015
- Information in Biology Workshop, CUNY Graduate Center, NYC, USA. 2014
"James and Carnap on Philosophical Systems and the Role of Temperaments"
Southwestern Philosophy Graduate Conference, Arizona State University, AZ, USA. 2013
Interviews/Op-eds/Popular Media |
|
On Art, Animals, and Nature:
"No Nature Without Fear" Aeon Magazine, April 23, 2026. [link]
- additionally featured in NATURE's Anthropocene newsletter as part of its "quote of the day" section, May 1, 2026.
"Can an Octopus Really Play the Piano?" Radio New Zealand, "Nights" (hosted by Emile Donovan). Live Audio Interview, Dec 12, 2025. [link]
"Should We Kill All the Mosquitoes? A Conservationist's Dilemma" Conservation Mag (South Africa), Nov 5, 2025. [link]
"Can Animals Create Art?" Radio New Zealand, Recorded Audio Interview, April 13, 2025. [link]
- a condensed write-up version from RNZ is available here: [link]
- invited for a live TV interview on Breakfast (New Zealand's flagship morning news and talk show, airing weekday morning on TVNZ1, produced by 1News). Declined due to scheduling conflict with University of Pittsburgh teaching duties.
"Can Animals Make Art?" The Conversation, March 19, 2025. [link]
- additionally featured in: Rhode Island PBS [link] Daily Nous [link], The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Beloit Call, Yahoo News, The Caledonian Record, Phys.org, The Star, The Bradenton Times, The Huron Daily Plainsman, The Lake Chelan Mirror, and The Daily Maverick (South Africa).
"Artificial Intelligence Threatens Disaster for Artists" Newsweek. June 6, 2024. [link]
[Original title: "The Threat of AI Art to Professional Artists"]
On Politics:
"Democrats' Hypocrisy Apparent on War in Gaza" Mississippi Free Press, Nov 18, 2025. [link]
[Short version published in the Arizona Daily Star, Oct 16, 2025].
"Democrats Won't Save Democracy - They Don't Even Practice It" The Hill, October 6, 2025. [link]
[Original title: "Can Democrats Save Democracy? Probably Not." Reprinted at Yahoo.com and AOL.com]
General/Miscellaneous:
"APA Member Interview" American Philosophical Association Blog. July 31, 2020. [link]
|
|
PhD Thesis
Title: Essays on Communication
Primary Advisor: Noël Carroll
Committee: John Greenwood, Stephen Neale, Michael Devitt
Institution & Defense Year: The Graduate Center, CUNY (2021)
Abstract: One of the central issues of contemporary philosophy and biology is the nature of communication. Early accounts of communication tended to focus on just one side of the communicative divide – the speaker side or the receiver side – and took as their starting point the case of human language. Animal communication, historically, was largely treated as a special case. Now things are different. Now it appears we might have a model that makes sense of sign use in both the human and animal realms and brings together both sides of the signaling divide. It’s still to be seen, however, how much the model actually captures, especially the farther down we go on the animal side, and it’s still to be seen how well the model captures the human cases, especially those around the edges. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the foundations of the sender-receiver model and to show that it can cover more than was previously imagined. Topics discussed include the nature of communication and signaling, animal communication, the nature of meaning or content, the communicative nature of objects such as works of art, blueprints, and maps, and the possibility of communication between groups and collective agents.
Photo taken at the Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge, Mississippi, USA (2021)