Primary Faculty
Edouard Machery
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
| My research focuses on the philosophical issues raised by the cognitive sciences. I have written extensively about concepts: I have argued that the notion of concept is ill-suited for a scientific psychology, and I have criticized the neo-empiricist accounts of concepts. My current research focuses on the methodology of experimental psychology, with a special focus on null hypothesis significance testing, external validity, and issues in statistics. Recent research projects and publications also include the nature and origin of racial categorization, the application of evolutionary theories to human cognition, the nature of culture, and the structure of moral concepts. Finally, I am involved in the development of experimental philosophy, and I have used experimental and quasi-experimental methods to study intuitions about reference, folk judgments about intentional action, causation, the folk concept of race, and the folk concept of phenomenal consciousness. |
Education
PhD, philosophy, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2004
Selected Courses Taught
Philosophy of Cognitive Science
Experimental Philosophy
Epistemology of Experimental Practices
Selected/Recent Publications
Machery, E. 2009. Doing without Concepts. New York: Oxford University Press.
Linquist, S., Machery, E., Griffiths, P. E., and Stotz, K. 2011. "Exploring the Folk Biological Conception of Human Nature," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 366, 444-453.
Sytsma, J., and Machery, E. 2010. "Two Conceptions of Subjective Experience." Philosophical Studies, 151, 299-327.
Mallon, R., Machery, E., Nichols, S., and Stich, S.P. 2009. "Against Arguments From Reference. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 79, 332-356.
Machery, E. 2007. "Concept Empiricism: A Methodological Critique." Cognition, 104, 19-46.
Machery, E. "Massive Modularity and Brain Evolution." Philosophy of Science, 74, 825-838.
Machery, E. 2005. "Concepts are Not a Natural Kind." Philosophy of Science, 72, 444-467.
Machery, E., and Faucher, L. 2005. "Social Construction and the Concept of Race." Philosophy of Science, 1208-1219.
Machery, E., Mallon, R., Nichols, S., and Stich, S. P. 2004. "Semantics, Cross-cultural Style." Cognition, 92, 3, B1-B12.
Professional Office
Associate Editor of the European Journal for Philosophy of Science.
