Paul Bowyer

Research Interests

My interests are in the philosophy of mind and questions of the relationship between mind and reality. This leads to questions concerning how we should describe the external world as distinct from our knowledge of it, what does it mean for a mental concept to refer to a real object, what is the nature of the relationship between concept and referent, and so on. My work has dealt with the language of thought hypothesis, and with the problem of representation. I am currently working on a paper about the “twin earth” thought experiment. I tend to downplay in my work the use of intuition to support general statements. Instead, I try to limit my use of intuitions to those that concern what particular thoughts, feelings, and actions people would exhibit in various hypothetical situations. The ultimate goal of this approach is to develop models that can account in detail for these phenomena.

In recent years, I have concentrated on the study of the issues raised by the Language of Thought Hypothesis, as it relates to the ultimate nature of thought, and the nature of truth and reference.

Works:

• Facts, Truth, and Realism: Toward a Multi-level Theory of Knowledge. Sorites, #18 -- February 2007. Pp. 109-128.
• In Defence of the Language of Thought Hypothesis. Unpublished manuscript, 2011.
• A Hypothesis Concerning the Nature of Thought. Unpublished manuscript, 2021.